French Forces

Maquisards meet the Sten Gun.

Photograph, presumably posed, of French resistants being introduced to the joys of the Sten II. The Sten, with its ergonomic deficiencies, short range and inherent propensity to jam, was probably more of a mixed blessing to resistance movements from Brest to Belgrade than it was to trained British and Commonwealth/Empire soldiers. At least the latter usually had to opportunity to be properly trained with it. Because of security considerations and/or shortages of ammunition, as well as the absence of fully competent trainers in many areas, resistants often had an imperfect understanding of the weapon's strengths and weaknesses, and inadequate practice before they were actually required to use it in battle. The results could be unfortunate. For example, there are a number of examples of Sten-armed French Resistance units attacking and firing on German units in their very active period immediately following D-Day, only to fire away most of their ammunition beyond the effective range of the weapon. Not only was this a waste of ammunition; it left the Resistance personnel vulnerable to German counterfire in situations in which even 'Allo, 'Allo-standard German occupanion troops could not fail. That having been said ... it was an inexpensive weapon, supplied in large quantities to resistance movements, which they used effectively, perhaps, more often than not. The morale boost for resistance groups in having a "modern" weapon, even as moderate as the Sten II, must have been of considerable value in itself. Best regards, JR.