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Pretty neat that so many of the Mosin's were made in the USA.

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The history of Finland in WWII is interesting. It started over a land squabble, as Stalin did not like the Finn border being so close to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). After diplomatic attempts failed, the Soviets invaded Finland. As Germany and the USSR where then Allies, the British considered a landing in Finland (partly to assist Finland and partly to block the Swedes from shipping iron ore to Germany). The British landing never happened, of course. Round One of Finland vs. the USSR ended with the Finns singlehandedly beating back the USSR, who failed to commit the necessary resources to the campaign. The shocking victory of the Finns emboldened the world, including (ironically) the Germans, who were watching closely.

*Round Two of Finland vs. Russia in WWII did not go so well for Finland.

I just took my M39 out last week. The Finns made significant improvements to the design, not the least of which is a much improved stock. I consider my M39 on par with my K98k as the best bolt-action infantry rifles of WWII.
 
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When I was at school between the age of 13 and 18, I used to go visit a friend in Finland. His father had been a gunner in the Talvisota - Winter War. After giving the Sovs a solid a$$-whupping at Suomussalmi, Stalin's hordes finally wised up and realised that the only thing that was going to beat the Finns was wave after wave of human targets, and bombing of the capital, Helsinki. The Red Army losses were almost uncountable, and even today we really don't know what they were in total.

These figures go some way to helping the confusion -

During the four months of fighting, the Soviet Army suffered massive losses. One Red Army General, looking at a map of the territory just conquered, is said to have remarked: "We have won just about enough ground to bury our dead." The official Soviet figure, issued just after the war, listed 48,745 dead and 150,863 wounded.

But - according to Nikita Krushchev, 1.5 million men were sent to Finland and one million of them were killed, while 1,000 aircraft, 2,300 tanks and armored cars and an enormous amount of other war materials were lost.

Finland's losses were limited to 25,904 dead or missing and 43,557 wounded.

In 1990, professor Mikhail Semiryaga used the Red ArmyCasualty Notifications to publish a book in which he gave exact figures: 53,522 dead, 16,208 missing, 163,772 wounded and 12,064 frostbitten. Meanwhile, professor N. I. Baryshikov estimated 53,500 dead, a figure close to that of Semiryaga. In 1999, the Finnish historian Ohto Manninen estimated Red Army casualties to have been 84,994 dead or prisoners, 186,584 wounded or disabled, 51,892 sick and 9,614 frostbitten. The Russian historian Grigoriy Krivoshayev calculated 126,875 dead and 264,908 wounded. In 1999, the professor of the Petrozavodsk State University Yurii Kilin calculated 63,990 dead, 207,538 wounded and frostbites, making total casualties 271,528, and furthermore 58,390 men were tagged as sick.

In other words, we'll never know.

Given that the Soviet Union back then was about as secretive an organisation as could be imagined, the admitted figures are enough. But probably around twice those numbers would be more realistic. Note the awful disparity of numbers of wounded between the Finns, with their state-of-the-art military medical facilities, and the Russians, with virtually none at all.

Kiisti's dad mentioned walking five miles along a road almost edged on both sides with dead Russians. Given the lack of personal ID of the average Red Army soldier, there must have been many thousands of mothers and wives and sisters in homes 'back in the USSR' where they wondered where Ivan was. And never knowing for the rest of their lives that he was rotting in a swamp somewhere in Karelia.

Sure, the Russians beat the Finns into surrendering to prevent total destruction, but the Finns were not really beaten into anything. Their victory was that Finland still lives, free and democratic, and ARMED, and the Soviet Army has gone to hell in a handcart, along with the complete rotten system that engendered it in the fust place.

Nikita Krushchev, who had been a party leader during the war, remembered later on: "In our war against the Finns we could choose the location of the war and the date of its start. In number we were superior to the enemy, we had enough time to get ready for the operation. But on these most favourable terms we could only win through huge difficulties and incredibly great losses. In fact this victory was a moral defeat. Our people certainly never got knowledge of it because we never told them the truth."

So today, if you have a Finnish Mosin-Nagant, shoot it in good health, with the almost certain knowledge that it has been used in white-hot anger, shooting at an invader of a country that would not give in.
 
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Why do I like these comic book sort of history lessons?

Aloha, Mark

PS....if you prefer more real photos while learning.
 
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When I was at school between the age of 13 and 18, I used to go visit a friend in Finland. His father had been a gunner in the Talvisota - Winter War. After giving the Sovs a solid a$$-whupping at Suomussalmi, Stalin's hordes finally wised up and realised that the only thing that was going to beat the Finns was wave after wave of human targets, and bombing of the capital, Helsinki. The Red Army losses were almost uncountable, and even today we really don't know what they were in total.

These figures go some way to helping the confusion -

During the four months of fighting, the Soviet Army suffered massive losses. One Red Army General, looking at a map of the territory just conquered, is said to have remarked: "We have won just about enough ground to bury our dead." The official Soviet figure, issued just after the war, listed 48,745 dead and 150,863 wounded.

But - according to Nikita Krushchev, 1.5 million men were sent to Finland and one million of them were killed, while 1,000 aircraft, 2,300 tanks and armored cars and an enormous amount of other war materials were lost.

Finland's losses were limited to 25,904 dead or missing and 43,557 wounded.

In 1990, professor Mikhail Semiryaga used the Red ArmyCasualty Notifications to publish a book in which he gave exact figures: 53,522 dead, 16,208 missing, 163,772 wounded and 12,064 frostbitten. Meanwhile, professor N. I. Baryshikov estimated 53,500 dead, a figure close to that of Semiryaga. In 1999, the Finnish historian Ohto Manninen estimated Red Army casualties to have been 84,994 dead or prisoners, 186,584 wounded or disabled, 51,892 sick and 9,614 frostbitten. The Russian historian Grigoriy Krivoshayev calculated 126,875 dead and 264,908 wounded. In 1999, the professor of the Petrozavodsk State University Yurii Kilin calculated 63,990 dead, 207,538 wounded and frostbites, making total casualties 271,528, and furthermore 58,390 men were tagged as sick.

In other words, we'll never know.

Given that the Soviet Union back then was about as secretive an organisation as could be imagined, the admitted figures are enough. But probably around twice those numbers would be more realistic. Note the awful disparity of numbers of wounded between the Finns, with their state-of-the-art military medical facilities, and the Russians, with virtually none at all.

Kiisti's dad mentioned walking five miles along a road almost edged on both sides with dead Russians. Given the lack of personal ID of the average Red Army soldier, there must have been many thousands of mothers and wives and sisters in homes 'back in the USSR' where they wondered where Ivan was. And never knowing for the rest of their lives that he was rotting in a swamp somewhere in Karelia.

Sure, the Russians beat the Finns into surrendering to prevent total destruction, but the Finns were not really beaten into anything. Their victory was that Finland still lives, free and democratic, and ARMED, and the Soviet Army has gone to hell in a handcart, along with the complete rotten system that engendered it in the fust place.

Nikita Krushchev, who had been a party leader during the war, remembered later on: "In our war against the Finns we could choose the location of the war and the date of its start. In number we were superior to the enemy, we had enough time to get ready for the operation. But on these most favourable terms we could only win through huge difficulties and incredibly great losses. In fact this victory was a moral defeat. Our people certainly never got knowledge of it because we never told them the truth."

So today, if you have a Finnish Mosin-Nagant, shoot it in good health, with the almost certain knowledge that it has been used in white-hot anger, shooting at an invader of a country that would not give in.
AND, somewhere along this line of history, SAKO is born. :)
 
Oddly, back about 30-32 years ago, when the Mosin-Nagants were becoming availble, I studied the variety that was offered by a certain re-seller. I settled on a Finnish M28/30 for one reason: It is the only Mosin that has a .308 bore (actually .3082). Much later I found that the Mosin issued to Simo Hayha was an M28/30, serial number 35281. I have not yet dug mine out of the safe to see how close the serial number is to his - makes no real difference anyway, but just one of those unusual occurrences.
 
AND, somewhere along this line of history, SAKO is born. :)
1921. To arm the Civil Guard - that's what the SA of SAKO stands for.

Suojeluskuntain Ase- ja Konepaja Oy, lit "Civil Guard Gun and Machining Works Ltd"

In 1919, two years after Finland declared independence from the Russian Empire, the Suojeluskuntain Yliesikunnan Asepaja opened in a former Helsinki brewery to repair private arms and recondition Russian military rifles for Finnish service. The rifle repair shop became financially independent of the civil guard in 1921. The Suojeluskuntain Yliesikunnan Asepaja moved from Helsinki to an ammunition factory in Riihimäki on 1 June 1927, and reorganized as SAKO in the 1930s. Sako started exporting pistol cartridges to Sweden in the 1930s and continued manufacturing submachine gun cartridges through World War II.

Another Finnish firearms manufacturer Tikkakoski, which owned the Tikka brand, was merged into SAKO in 1983. In 1986, the arms manufacturing division of the government-owned Valmet conglomerate (what itself had been derived from the Valtion Kivääritehdas, VKT) was merged with Sako and called Sako-Valmet, with ownership split evenly between Nokia and Valmet. After further organizational shifts in state ownership, the company was sold to the Italian Beretta Holding in 2000.

Tikka, with its well-known logo showing a woodpecker, is a place - Woodpecker Falls. The 'tikka' is, of course, the sound made by a woodpecker.
 
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