German Sten Copy: MP 3008, aka Gerät Neumünster 

the German MP28 was copied by the British to make the Lanchester the Lanchester was simplified to make a Sten the Sten was simplified by the Germans to make the MP3008 it went full circle!

"A simplified version of the Sten gun..." Did a double take at that. What is it, throwing a 9x19 cartridge at the enemy and yelling "Bang"?

The curious case of WW2 Germany actually *simplifying* something.

Probably as "last-ditch" as you can get - what a contrast to the serialized screws (!) of the German gun in the recent video!

Haha a gun designed to be as cheap as humanly possible and constructed in a single man hour sold for over $12k. Man that gun really appreciated in value.

Well, I feel better about my welding skills now than I did about 10 minutes ago.

The British actually made a simplified version of the Sten. They called it the Sten MKIII. It turned out to be not as good as the MKII and production ceased. As the War progressed the British actually made the Sten more complicated with the Sten MKV. But they were winning the War by then.

"A masterpiece of insane optimism" sums up the entire german efforts in 1945

1 hour of 1 man work... that's the simpliest magazine fed select fire weapon I ever heard of

I hear the later models were just a steel pipe and a pin hammer. The deluxe version included a leaflet with some choice swear words to shout at the enemy.

Thank Ian. The MP 3008 is a fascinating bit of history I truly needed to understand.

It's funny. Just as we the British were beginning to make improved better stens like the mk5. The Germans make this thing

Worth mentioning, and this is also true of the original Mk.II, the sight picture is pretty decent on this type of subgun. The front post is usable, the sight radius is a decent length, and the rear sight is close enough to the eye to provide a wide field of view without being so close as to eliminate any hope of precise aiming.

Hi Ian, The "eu" in Neumünster is pronounced like "oy" in boy Greetings from Germany

With welds like that, it looks like something I would make on a Sunday afternoon while bored in the shop, ha.

one has to ask why the STEN had the magazine on the side. The answer is that the sear is actually on the bolt, so in the british version the sear machining (ie almost none at all.) was on the bottom of the bolt and all the machining to clear the magazine lips was on the side. Move the magazine to the bottom and the the trigger group has to work on a bolt that has been cut away to clear the magazine and machined to strip fresh rounds. So not quite a trivial piece of redesign. The main fault with the STEN was the use of mp-38 magazine. A two position feed double stack would have reduced the tendency of the magazine to jam.

This is what I would make if I was a post apocalyptic arms manufacturer

The gun is ugly as a mud fence. I love it! Kinda' surprised they bothered with a single shot (semiauto?) feature though.

"Given up the ghost" ? This saying exists in english ? :D How funny. It exists in german aswell.

Man when i heard Mauser and Improved i expected a little better looking workmanship or just simplified but that thing looks like something out of Royal Nonesuch's workshop and they wanted a million ! Truly a monument to mans determination to kill one another.

"Copying is the sincerest form of flattery".

greetings from germany ! first of all i want to say that i absolutly love your videos keep up the great work they are very informativ and interesting :) but i have one question ... could you take a look on other totaly minimalistic and simple guns ? i m absolutly fascinated about the fact how simple and improvised a gun can be :D have a nice day and thank you for your answer (if you give one ^^)

I literally have nothing with guns but video games but your videos are so informative that every now and then i like watching and learning some stuff, keep it up man!

MP 3008 being issued to the Wehrmacht makes sense. Germany expected more and more urban warfare in German cities at this point, and equipping more and more soldiers with SMGs made sense. MP 40s certainly couldn't be cranked out fast enough for this.

You know you’re in trouble if you have to SIMPLIFY the Sten!

Been waiting for a forgotten weapons video on the sten gun for ages. My life's complete.

" Ludwig Vorgrimmler was simplifying the Sten design even farther" Sometimes people dont know when to stop

Last ditch weapons are easily the most interesting war guns. Not just the Axis ones but the Allied ones. The Sten definitely falls into that category.

A study I did some years ago of the STEN - I was surprised to learn the main tube is made from standard car exhaust tube - 1.5" dia with a 1/16th inch thick wall - mild steel. With the single difference was that an extra process was added forcing a mandrel through the tube to flatten the inside weld seem, so the bolt was not impeded in its movements.

3:29 so they removed the shoulder thing that goes up? But I'm informed that makes the gun 10x deadlier!

I remember being trained on both the MP 40 and the STEN many years ago. I was able to fire each of these as well as the Thompson, Swedish K , our own grease gun,and some others. I liked the feel of the MP 40 much more than the STEN. There seemed to be less recoil impulse, or anyway better dampened, and it seemed easier to hit with repeated shots. The MP 40 was also more reliable. The STEN gave a lot of stoppages, mostly due to poor magazine quality. Interestingly, the magazines looked a lot alike, but were not interchangeable.

I like your videos, Ian. You present everything in a calm voice and have interesting details about the weapons. "Heer" meaning German Army spells like the english word "hair".

"Feuer" is pronounced "foyer"

there was second prettiyer version called the " MP-3008 Blohm & Voss ' - i161.photobucket.com/albums/t206/poppapolar/MP3008.jpg

this thing just screams desperation out of every bit

It's mind boggling to think that the Germans actually simplified the British Sten. Damn that's like simplifieing the M3 grease gun.

Damn what a rare gun. Thanks RIA.

I did not know the words "simplify" and "sten" can exist in one sentence!

Wasn't the vertical magazine on the MP40 a nightmare for shooting when prone. Seems like the horizontal one would be more practical in combat.

I think, the source of some solutions in this weapon (vertical magazine of MP40) was in MP "Blyskawica" (Lightning) developed by the Home Army (resistence movement) in Poland in 1943. Conspiracy factory made 700 of those MP until the August of 1944 when this weappon were used in the Warsaw Uprising. The Germans get the specimens of this weapon in mid-1944, so it is very likely that they used this solution in their own MP 3008.

I don't see why they didn't spend a couple extra pennies and a couple minutes forming a pistol grip into the stock. I couldn't have taken more than 4 or 5 bends in the stocks overall manufacturing. The Sten had to have cost less than a m3 grease gun and that was I believe less then 10 dollars per copy. I know that the Liberator 45acp single shot that America dropped into Europe for the resistance was extremely inexpensive to manufacture. Heck the m3 grease gun actually got easier and cheaper to make when they did away with the weak charging lever and just put a hole in the bolt to cock the gun. So basically the grease gun evolved on its own pretty much. And GM's guide lamp division tooled up and produced the m3 grease gun in a matter of weeks not months. And a relative of mine used a grease gun in Vietnam and he said it was extremely reliable and quite surprisingly accurate for what it was intended to be used for. A spring, a wire , and a prayer is what I've heard how the soldiers Described the m3 grease gun. Not as effectivein combat as a m1 carbine but a lot more firepower than a Colt 45acp pistol. And when the conversion parts were handed out to make the m1 carbine a select fire weapon the little m1 became the m2 and a squad could have weapons that ranged from m60 , BAR , S&W m76, m1 and m2 carbines and of course they had tim3 grease guns. Quite a variety of ammunition but that was before the military got really serious about interchangeability of ammunition like almost all modern militaries have been doing for a long time now. Oh and don't forget the m14 and I'm sure they were still using some m1 Garands also.

Hey Ian, my grandfather said he was an ace with the Sten in training but (thankfully) was never deployed BC the war ended! Will you ever do a story on the Sten? Thanks for the channel man. Take it easy! Edit - one thing that went unmentioned in this video is the sten's wooden frame? pretty notable when contrasting this model!!

Ten thumbs up! Great educational video

British Engineers: "We've done it lads! We've made the most simplified submachine gun possible! It's a bloody engineering marvel!" German Engineers: "Are you *challenging* me?"

my granddad was a royal engineer and faught in Korea,he told me that Sten guns were death traps he said if they were knocked about or dropped they would discharge and often empty there full magazine,he never had a good word to say about the sten and said they were one of the worst guns in the army at the time

You know you need to cut corners when you need to simplify the Sten

Ian, buddy, audio is just fine. Thanks for another cool video.

By German logic this would have come out in the year 3008. Shouldn't it fire plasma or something?

Hi Ian, I read an article about the nomenclature of WW2 German weapon factories in a Hungarian weapon themed magazine. According to that, there is a German book which contains all codes of the factories which produced any kind of military products even in the collaborating counties. I'm going to put the link of the book under this comment as soon as I find the ISBN code of the book

Would like to see this thing demonstrated at the range by you guys.

This gun sounds like it was named after Gary numan. The guy that made that song called cars. " Here in my car, Iv'e got a machine gun and i do it for fun been shooting my gun, in cars"

Two points. 1. I recall reading a story that the Germans captured a truckload of Stens, the first they got their hands on, and after sending them back to Germany the powers that be took one look at them and melted them down for scrap. The story may be apocryphal but, if true, it would show how the Germans abandoned their penchant for quality over quantity as they became more desperate. 2. I get gun collecting. I have a very small collection myself and, for example, paid a premium for a 1970's Colt-Sauer .30-06, bolt action that had been "shot out" and, rather than hanging it on a wall, I had a gunsmith friend of mine convert it to "8mmX06" which merely uses 8mm Mauser bullets in a .30X06 case. Since I haven't bought any factory ammo other than .22 rimfire in about 40 years; the need to load my own wildcat cartridges is actually a plus and that rifle is far, far, more accurate than I ever was. I also have a 1951 Winchester 94 that I wouldn't trade for love or money. In fact; I was only half joking when I told the person I have bequeathed it to that he should load my ashes into 30-30 rounds and fire them out of the old Winchester in some of my favorite places! All that being said; It is a bit shocking to see that someone probably paid more than it cost to build all the "3008's" for a single, deactivated, example.

I have a suggestion for the weapon to be featured in this channel - Błyskawica. or Lightning smg, the only smg mass produced in underground factories of the resistance, used by Polish Home Army especially during the Warsaw Uprising. I saw a couple of people saying it was inferior to MP-40, but none bothered to tell what they based their opinions on. Would be nice if You talked about Błyskawica and even field tested it, to say how it actually performed.

they put the mag well in the right place!

Simplified Sten? Single man-hour of production time? I didn't think such a thing was possible.

The stock actually looks relatively comfortable for its cost. Did it shoulder well? Better than a wire stock?

Wow this sure sold cheap for such a rare and unusual last ditch German weapon, especially being a papered mg. Even as a dewat. I’d buy that in a heartbeat!

That's a gun everyone looking to survive the apocalypse should acquire. Such a minimized design can be built under almost all circumstances.

Dear Krauts, it doesn't matter how fast and cheaply you can make guns when you don't have anyone left to use them

Also came a suppressor with it, very rare.

That was really interesting. Thanks!

I've heard reports from people who have used sten guns saying that they were feared by the people who operated them because they would go off when bumped or dropped. Some guy I heard saying "if you want to clear a room with a sten gun, throw it inside on the floor then slam the door shut"

I wonder what the finished cost of one of these was against the 7/6 (37.5p) ($3.00) of the Sten. Simplification aside, transportation of parts must have pushed the final price up somewhat.

I know this is an old video, but I'm curious does anyone know what kind of welding they used for these guns back in the day? Did MIG welding exist? Or was it all done with stick welds, because if so that's impressive.

It looks like the Germans made a significant upgrade - that stock actually looks like the most comfortable that was ever put on those sub gun abortions. A painful wire stock doesn't get used, 'accuracy' (Ha!) falls off, rounds are wasted, all at a time when these things matter the most.

How was the barrel held in? Pinned? And does the front sight come off, or is it welded to the trunnion?

A bike factory were making these in my own town of nottingham uk called raleigh.and about a £1 each to make or your own workshop today say no more.cheers uk.

At least they went with the Canadian pattern stock.

Since when are Germans known for simplifying things?

I thought then sten was based on th MP18. It certainly had the stupid double row magazine with single row feed. A cause of many a jam. Noted that the MP40 magazine was used on the copy.

This gun looks so depressing, it's the definition of the last weeks of the Nazi Germany.

dunno how it happened but i remember seeing an old article about the PSNI capturing ex German sten guns from the IRA and it wasnt even just ignorant reporters they had mag wells on the bottom

germans making something simple? impossible!

How the fuck does one SIMPLIFY the sten!? ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY SIMPLIFY A STEN!

Now we know where Sig gets the trigger shoes for their XFIVE Supermatch.

Huh, this is one that I didn't know about. Have you ever heard of the MP-44 Ian? It was made almost entirely of tubes welded together. I saw it in a book I've had since I was a kid called "Famous Rifles and Machine Guns". They were saying in the book that the "actual use of that weapon has always been in doubt" (or something to that effect) and that it looked like a "conglomeration of scaffolding". Would be quite interesting to see it if you can get your hands on it.

So the old film where the German soldier was using a Sten wasn't completely inacurate .

I guess eliminating the barrel shroud was why it never caught on with the Elbonian military....

I'm from Neumünster.

Love the new beard style! Suits you very well. Sometimes less is more :)

The German version of the British Sten gun was more accurate because they repositioned the magazine to vertical position as opposed to magazine be mounted on the side

I think the heatshield of the STEN comes most in handy when slinging the SMG after having fired for a while. With this German copy/variant, might want to keep the SMG in hand, or leaning against something, until it cools down, THEN slinging it. Just my thought on why the heatshield, while likely not too important, did serve a genuine function. Goes to show the value of simplicity in firearms, though. Imagine if Germany had made these variants earlier, they could have given more soldiers that rather than the Kar98k, and replaced Kar98k production with G43 and/or Mkb.42(H)/MP43/MP44/STG-44 production, giving the Wehrmacht more SMGs, more semi autos, and more of those newfangled assault rifles. However, bolt actions were very much the status quo for infantry, the only 2 nations off the top of my head who even considered replacing all their bolt actions were America and the Soviet Union. In fact, the USSR even wanted to replace bolt actions as far as scoped rifles went as well, but the SVT-40 suffered some long-distance accuracy issues. Not quite as precise as the M91/30 in terms of vertical shot placement. If it wasn't for Operation Barbarossa (Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union), then the USSR would have replaced their M91/30s with SVT-40s before America could have replaced their M1903s with M1 Rifles, effectively making the Red Army the first in the world with standard issue semi auto rifles. The plan was to be producing 2,000,000 SVT-40s per year by 1942, I think it was. In comparison, by December 1941, America had about 500,000 M1 Rifles or less, but at the same time, the USSR had at least 1.2 million SVT variants. If production of the SVT hadn't had been halted for the sake of the cheaper Mosins, then they'd have had over 3,000,000 SVTs by December 1942, meanwhile I don't think the 3,000,000th M1 Rifle rolled off the assembly line until Summer 1944, around D-Day. If the 2,000,000 SVTs a year had come to fruition, then by Summer 1944, the USSR should have had over 6,000,000 SVTs. All of them lighter, with a fixed compensator to reduce felt recoil, and adjustable gas to use different types of 7.62x54r (or to just open up if the rifle got dirty/grimy to keep it running smoothly). Not to mention the 10 round mags, though under ideal circumstances, I believe only perhaps 3 or so would have been given to each soldier. Most reloading would be done with 5-rnd Mosin clips, while the spare mags would be reserved for emergencies. The Czechs also used this idea with their vZ.58 assault rifle which could be reloaded with 30-rnd mags for emergency, but also had clip feed guides to be reloaded with SKS clips. Carrying both clips and mags will lighten your loadout, cheapen your loadout, and make it less bulky, rather than carrying ONLY mags. Edit: Oh yeah, also, stop producing those bloody MP40s and stick with this. It's cheaper, lighter, quicker to produce, it's actually SELECT FIRE, and I dare say also easier to disassemble/maintain... I'm really not a fan of the MP40. If it's not one of the worst SMGs of WWII, then it's spectacularly average in just about every way.

I believe Germans wanted to copy Stens largely through Otto Skorzeny's encouragement. In his memoirs he states that the Sten was an extremely good silenced weapon, which is unlike typical firearm. Allegedly he had someone fire off a magazine behind the backs of his superiors during the night and they didn't hear the gun shooting. It's difficult to say how much of that is true though.

Ian what is the deal with dewats? I've heard about them before but I don't understand what legal significance this term has, why anyone would ever deactivate an NFA machine gun and why any of these remain that haven't been reactivated given the lack of newly made machine guns? Thanks for the video, very impressive how low the production value is on this gun, it honestly makes some of the modern 'khyber pass' handmade firearms look pretty good by comparison with those huge hasty welds and bizarrely awful mag release.

It takes skill to simplify a Sten without falling into "African Poacher's Gun" territory.

British: *steals mp18 II to make the lanchester* Also british: makes lanchester cheap as shit Germans: *steals cheap as shit lanchester* British: you've stolen what I've rightfully taken!

Do you think it will be possible to do a video on the Claridge Hi Tec S9s of the 90s?

Guten Tag from Germany :-) My grandparents are living in neumünster

you keep referring to destroyed records in your videos. were they mostly destroyed by the Germans, or accidentally by allied bombing?

Beautiful German engineering

And there I was thinking that apart from the Mk.V and the suppressed versions it wasn't possible to make the Sten any simpler.

Neumünster has a " Panzermuseum " Tank Museum .

It is weird how I am not for free ownership laws in my own country, yet one of the main reasons I want to live in the US for at least a couple of years are. GUNS. especially the historical ones. would LOVE to buy something at the RIA sometime... saving up money.

The Gerat Portsmouth would just be an angry local running at you with a brick. God help anyone going up against the Gerat Glasgow.

Let's be honest,: MP 3008(GER) simplify Copy of Sten Gun(UK) Sten Gun (UK) simplify copy of Mp28 (GER) MP 28 (GER is a advance version of Mp 18 (GER) So basicly u can say its all german :X

Those welds! Oh, the horror! Are you sure the guy from the Royal Nonesuch channel didn't sneak this into the auction as a prank??

i just like how the mag is not on the side

Ian, now that you've named Ludwig Vorgrimler, could you make a video about the spanish CETME, his best known work, and in general about the post-WWII developments of the Stg-44?

Am I just dead wrong or was the Sten the AK-47 of the WW2: Simple and handed out to fricking everyone

Anyone who thinks the STEN is a simply as a submachine gun gets, should, perhaps, pause and compare the STEN to the Aussie Owen gun, which was much more reliable. Owen had a choice of single shot or auto, yet had only 3 trigger parts - trigger, sear and selector switch. STEN had more parts yet was less reliable.