Lanchester Prototypes
After the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, Britain found itself in a precarious position. Faced against an aggressive and well-equipped Nazi Germany, British authorities feared an aerial invasion. There was a real fear that the Luftwaffe would send parachutists over British airfields and capture them easily. To counter such an event, the RAF would need to be able to defend itself not just in the skies, but on land.
The Ordnance Board had examined new German weaponry and noted how effectively the Germans had utilized submachine guns, which British authorities had previously dismissed as “gangster weapons”. The British needed a submachine gun of their own, but in the face of a potential German invasion, they didn’t have time to design one. The RAF was impressed with the MP-38/MP-40, and ordered 10,000 British-made copies of it. For whatever reason, their request was never met. Instead, they were supplied with 50,000 copies of the MP-28. This gun known as the Lanchester.
The Lanchester was named after its designer, George Herbert Lanchester, who worked at Sterling Armaments Corp. He designed the weapon after August 1940 and his initial prototypes - referred to as PGs, or “Pilot Guns” by the Ordnance Board - were tested on November 8th, 1940. The Winchester flat-nosed ammunition used for the PG1 prototype completely failed to fire, but the PG2 prototype worked fine with all kinds of ammunition tested. Because of the PG1′s failure to discharge, the specifications for rifling were slightly tweaked.
On the 28th of November 1940, the PG3 and PG4 were ready for testing. They both functioned well and without issue. The Ordnance Board actually considered the prototypes to be superior to the German MP-38 in terms of reliability. The design was finalized by the end of 1940 and rushed into service. It was adopted as simply the Mk.I Lanchester.
The 50,000 Lanchesters made were divided up equally between the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy. In 1942, some models were recalled and improved as the Mk.I*, due to reports of trigger failure.
Ultimately, the Lanchester didn’t see much action in WWII - the German invasion that it was designed to repel never happened, due mostly to the Luftwaffe’s failure to establish aerial dominance over Britain. After the war, most Lanchesters were taken out of service and replaced with another Sterling-made submachine gun, the L2A1.
