Sorry. Cant contact u personally...but it was beuatiful ceremony. It was not officially military honours....but the Finnish officer school and the Finnish President attended...our last knight is gone.
Fun fact: you can remove the camouflage garment from the helmet and it has two sides, summer and winter camouflage colors. So for example if you have training somewhere where it's early winter but no snow you can use the summer side and if it's going to rain snow heavily next morning you can switch to your winter side and change to your winter uniform that you have in your huge backpack. Finnish military has thought out their things through very well regarding seasons and Russians haha.
My favorite Finnish big brain moment is that despite the fact that most other European countries use NATO standard ammunition... Finland still uses 7.62 for its service rifle under the assumption that if they go to war it's probably going to be Russia invading them and their thought process is might as well have it be in the same caliber so when we capture Russian gear we can use it.
Camo is often seen in Finnish street fashion. Recently I went to my nearby grosery-store. There is an older dude dressed up in UK desert camo. He looked like real deal but instead of boots he had sneakers. And no cap whatsoever.
A "fun" test they have in the Arctic survival training here in Finland is something I've never tried but it sounds awesome: You jump into a hole in the ice with skis and body armor, fully clothed etc. Then you have to get out and you have to dry yourself before you go hypothermic. Basically only fire is available.
@@oscarn- ua-cam.com/video/JeKPIRopsAQ/v-deo.html Here you can see one dude doing the similar stuff without armor, but with a pack (around 1:35). Idea is to get rid of your skis and extra weight before pulling yourself out. I remember seeing this newsreel in Finland from some international training exercise where Finnish troops trained US Marines their ways in the Arctic conditions, and at least then those guys had the "hardcore" version. Couldn't find the video anywhere tho.
Oh i remember serving in Sodankylä, one day at end of may, it was like warm weather and everyone was wearing t-shirts and enjoying sunny week. One morning it started to snow suddenly and we were like "Ah yes, Finnish summer". Good times
We also were going through "RT-kisa" (part of the NCO-training) in may at Sodankylä and first it started to drip water, then hailstones and initially wet snow. Me being "smart" I left my waterproofed equipment out of my pack so it would possibly help our effort, it didn't.
Yeah im from the uk, its always good to see what other people from around the world think of us. When i think of Finland the first think that comes to my mind is some awsome djs
Finnish snow camo is amazing. When we were on a shooting range, some of our guys went for a piss. There were handful of people standing right next to me and I didn't notice them until they started walking. Snowy forest is basically all white with some black here and there, the contrast is so great that you can easily become invisible when wearing good snow camo.
when and where? funny thing is that we see/know where we are in camo, we are used to it... some times we freak out foreign soldiers training in finland, without intention!.. finns tend to speak with quiet voice, and bunch of guys can be long times sitting near each other without "small talk" to fill silence, I can imagine a foreign soldier making a dump, a "fine log" on a some bushes.. "oooh.. dear lord! I needed to do some shit!.." And "bushes" say; "dude, we are eatin´here.. want some?.."
Wear Hawaiian shirts on top of long-sleeved shirts! Also fun fact; after WWII a number of Finnish soldiers, the so-called "Marttinen's men," moved to the US and among other things became arctic warfare instructors for the US Army.
Yeah, Alpo Marttinen. After the war he participated that "asekätkentä" where some men hide weapons and gears for guerrilla warfare if russians try to invade our country.
They served in the Korea war in high positions of the US army. They communicated in finnish so the Koreans and chinese couldnt understand, check out Olavi Alakulppi and Eino Lassila for example.
@@CombatArmsChannel A few of those Marttinen's men were responsible of artic warfare training in Camp Big Delta, AK. Much of that knowledge is still in use in U.S. field manuals of concern. More of it in this video ... ua-cam.com/video/DGeex6UV82A/v-deo.html @ 8:28 (Col. Charles Norton).
Everyone goes "oh no poor machine gunner" no one goes "oh no poor anti tank guy", those big AT rockets weight more and are really annoying to carry on your back
So true. Having served in an anti-tank company of a Jaeger Brigade, I can say that the anti-tank mines are not fun to carry around either. I'm of very slim build so a couple of those mines plus other equipment meant that my "weight" increased by over 100%.
The further you go north in Finland the more hostile nature itself becomes. During winter you get darkness as a bonus to cold weather. Above arctic circle (where f.e. Jaeger Brigade is located) sun doesn't rise over the horizon in many weeks straight so you basically operate in the dark and cold environment. Therefore actual surviving those conditions need training. First and most important tip i would give is to always keep a layer of dry clothes (especially underwear) with you and if you get a chance to change clothes or dry out your sweaty clothes on bonfire / tent stove, do it. Second tip is to drink a lot of water and take a dump/piss if you really need to. Funny now but important on the field since holding your "product" in actually messes up your body heat system. Same thing if you get dehydrated or don't eat enough (warm food is the best one to keep you going in the freezing conditions). Third tip would be lighten your clothes when you know you are about to move. When you are a bit freezing and shaking when standing still it's a good amount of clothes for the movement if it's under -15*c. When you stop moving add more clothes. If it's a short break remove your vest and put your winter jacket on in order to keep your body warm. If you want to learn more there's public FDF winter training manual. It's in Finnish but translatable via google. It's called "Talvikoulutusopas"
regarding hockey, Its sort of well known here in canada that finland has world class hockey programs, even for youth. In world juniors its very common theyll be in top 3 somewhere (Usually 1st or 3rd. I dont know why that is! lol)
@@JungleScene i know i am late to the conversation lol😂 but here in finland almost every school has a odr(out door rink) of there is not an hockey arena really close. So on winter we were also able to play ice hockey between classes. And from 1st grade we always have hockey at least 4 times per winter on PE. So every village in finland has at least 1 odr. And that means that even though everyone is playing on a team almost every kid is pretty decent at skating. And it's also super nice to have a odr close so you can enjoy it with your friends at night 😅.
There is so much to tell, but I will just tell couple of points. Hardest thing is keeping yourself(as well as the equipment) in shape. Nutrition is HUGE in winter conditions. It think Finnish army supplies like 6000kkcal worth of food in winter conditions per day. Clothing. Layered clothing. It would go something like this, I'll use upper body as an exampme. From the bottom:Tube necked long shirt and t-shirt on top of it(wool long shirt psuhes sweat from you skin to the t shiet that absorbs it, standard summer jacket, winter camo jacket, body armor, combat vest. And you can add more clothes for like guard duty in the night where you stay still. One other thing that is quite interesting. During night/resting in the tent you have to keep the rifle behind you head(against the outer wall of the tent). Otherwise it warms up too much and going out with it there might be condensation water that freezes and makes the rifle jam in the least. There is so much more, but I am on the phone and writing too much is hard. Would be easier to talk face to face over beer :D Anyway great reaction as always! Keep it up man! -2nd lt jäger platoon leader, FDF army reserves
I would and always did put the armor under the winter jacket. Summer months, sure, it would be over the jacket, but I always used the winter jacket (and the rest of the overalls) as a layer over the vest. That being said, you also missed the bearsuit. "nallepuku". It's a must if you're on the field in temperatures below -10c. The polo shirt + a t-shirt ain't gonna cut it when it really gets cold.
@@Zardagbum Nallepuku is too much when moving. You have to be little cold when staying still (and put on brake clothes so basically winter jacket), if you have too much clothes when moving you sweat too much and everything is wet. Then you wont be warm at all.
Finns are usually brought up playing outside in the snow. That makes a huge difference in the mindset of how to prepare and tackle challenges, since most things are default and basic understanding for the "normal" kids. I.e. -Warm feet, head, neck hands is a must. The rest will be fine. -dont get wet, change if u do. -wear layers of clothing And so on. There is generally so much we automatically do differently in our everyday lives when it is -10°C and snow.
You really should get invited to check out the Finnish military. With your 159k subscibers and your pro-military view shouldn't be that hard in this day and age. -ER doc, Lieutenant
They seem to have a pretty good combat camera team, as you propably know. A guy with your backround should be ideal to do an "embedded" video with them. Mail me if interested. I'm not a soldier per se, but can try to hook you up with the Finnish mil socail media folks. Anyway, love your content.
Quality video as always, love your chilled style like everyone, very impressed by all of the Scandinavians who comment, so clever, informed, passionate, cool, excellent English - Salute! 🇫🇮❄️
You got the maintenance part quite rigth but forgot the most important, the soldier itself. The clothes and guys get wet and cold and it is of utmost importance to keep yourself dry and warm so that you can keep yourself in operative condition
If you noticed the guys on patrol had "tactical gloves" for easy weapon handling but the guard duty guys had no-can-dos, the insulated mittens which are really thick. Preventing extremeties from freezing is really important. Generally those mittens can be fling off and you have inner trigger finger glove available.
Skis are a good thing in the snow. I remember one morning in the military here in Finland, when recruits were complaining about that we have to wake up earlier and gather at the beach to put the skis on. No lights, in a dark, freezing cold beach trying to put your ski straps on without gloves, fingers freezing etc. They were complaining A LOT. Then one recruit said something like "Why dont we just walk across the lake?" I told him to go ahead and try. Try to march an entire platoon in 3 feet of snow across an entire lake. Half of the platoon would pass out in the middle. Skis keep you on top of the snow. There's more surface area and you can glide on top of the snow. You can go 100 meters on snow with a few strokes on skis. If you walk, you have to struggle to get even 10 meters. It's way more demanding to walk on snow than to go on skis. We went a 12 mile march on skis and everyone was functioning after that. When we set up our camp without the skis, tents, fireplace, guard duty etc. Everyone was exhausted after 15 minutes because we had to walk in the snow. Without skis. This is what I call a professional arctic warfare knowledge :D
A thing that might be quite obvious atleast to fellow finns but possibly less so to others is that in the finnish army soldiers don't (generally speaking) have their own individual tents, but squads typically share a squad or half platoon tent heated by a wood stove. Being able to sleep in a very warm and dry tent where you can dry your wet gear is an absolute bliss especially in winter. There's nothing like falling asleep listening to the gentle hum of the fire in the stove or sitting on the lantern box on spark watch reading a book in the light of the kerosene lantern while feeling warm wearing nothing but a T-shirt while its -25C outside the tent. The exact same type tents are also what we had during the winter war and judging by the various older camo patterns on the pieces of cloth that have been used to patch holes on the tents, I wouldn't be surprised if atleast a handful of the them were indeed from WW2.
I cant remember if we had any "Arctic warfare" training literally or any courses like that, it was just normal training during winter. Maybe pulling a sled and some tips on how to keep warm for long period of times or similar skills could be concidered as such, but pulling sledge or riding one or skiing or layered clothing are very normal to any Finn anyways I guess. :D
2018: "According to a report by the Swedish Defense Forces Research Institute FOI, the Finnish Army is better able to respond to threats than most other European Armies." "Finnish Army is praised in Sweden -" Guards of the entire Nordic region "
I was in Finnish army in early 90´s I served in Jaeger Brigade and got trained as messenger, "runner". We had communication training, snowmobile training and enduro motorcycle training .Those were not easy, but they were best times in there!
"Swamps generally get like a foot deep." Man, I wish I was kidding but on a search and apprehension exercise. Trailing the opponents I fell all the way to my groins in to a swamp. With gear similar seen in the video. For a second I thought I was about to become the Shrek.
i had similar experiences working in remote northern Ontario. while on a traverse, we had to navigate around wetlands. often there were floating rafts of vegetation. if you stepped in the wrong spot you could easily go through and sink to your waist with a pack on your back. we were lucky that nobody went in deeper than that.
Im Former Finn sarg. Do not tolerate bullshit talk see we do teach All men to be fighters. Not like wanna be something. No we teach all men to fight,any armery fits. No exceptions. Got That ?. Good. 😎
When I was serving my time in Finland we had to cross a swamp at October so it was slightly frozen. I'm about 190cm and the water was to my neck at the deepest when walking so many others had to swim. Then it was 2-3km to the barracks from there and yeah we had all our gear with us. Cleaning the gun for those who had to swim and couldn't keep it in the air was something. Those men weren't happy.
"I'd really want to try cold weather training..." Yea, cold weather training sounds 'fun' until you realise what the chainsaws really are for at the start of the implementation phase... You start off with a little swim, the chainsaws makes it possible and it goes further south from there.
@@mattiasdevlin1363 Ooh yeah, I see. I know that feeling too. We had to do the same excersise aswell when I was in the FDF in Sodankylä Brigade. 1/17. 1St Jäger Company. Jäger Support Rifleman. (RK-95 with ACOG/Aimpoint). I'll be honest I tried to lie myself out of it, with no success.
0:59 "It's always awesome to see people who..." get cold instead of me?! Glad to say there is a healthy exchange between the Finnish & Swiss - they have some of the same kit as us (Swiss). Healthy respect for the Finns. All the best, Rob in Switzerland
I have noticed that the Canadian, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish armed forces use a lot of identical or near identical winter equipment from the same manufacturers, all produced within these four countries. Footwear, skiis and skii-related stuff, personal cooking equipment, snowmobiles, tracked vehicles, armoured fighting vehicles with proper heating, trucks with 4-8 wheel drive fitted with similar winter tyres and trailers with powered driving wheels... Even the water containers and field kitchen systems are often from the same factory. I wonder what gear from Switzerland we are using in addition to the Victorinox general purpose tool issued to everybody.
@@rikulappi9664 I support the Swiss Air Force in my job and I know our guys go to Finland for exercises in F/A-18's like Finland's. The Finnish Ranger drone is Swiss-Israeli , the Finnish Armoured Vehicle Launched Bridge is Swiss. My Swiss company partners with Patria for MRO services on F/A-18s... (Switzerland built F/A-18s under licence and we maintain them here...) My company RUAG acquired Patria's space business, if you use the Eagle or Piranha vehicles, they are Swiss... so we have surprising similar equipment in some domains. All the best, Rob
lmao i was at Hälvälä almost 2 years ago for our first excersize in boot camp and it was -20C the whole week and holy shit did it feel cold especially when standing still. There was about as much snow there back then as in this video. I can't think of enduring even -20 less degrees.
@@_MaZTeR_ we had hip-deep snow.. It was not one or two times that i had my hair frozen in the field-matrass while sleeping, even though in tent! These days im bald, but not because of that, though! :D
@@quis-custodietipsos-custod7183 -99. Basic training at -48C. CO made us eat our lunch and dinner outside so that we'd be whole day outside. Food literally froze before you could eat half of it. But fun thing is that we never got really cold, in civilian life i've been way more cold if hunting or something. Clothing was warm, boots were superb (heavy Nokia rubber boots). If you kept moving around a bit to keep blood flowing to extremities the clothing kept you warm.
@@Second247 Artillery camp winter 99 (IIRC) as a medic, our unit got extra vacation day as we were the last unit to cease operations as the temperature dropped to almost -50C :D
I served in the Jaeger Brigade in Sodankylä 97-98 as a Recon scout/forward observer/radioman and indeed the Brigade was a test bed for testing new gear, most of which is standard issue nowadays. Also glad to see much of the gear has greatly improved since then lol (helmets, body armor, optical sights on the RK what is this madness?!!). Oh and the secret to arctic combat is to strip your weapon of all the oils in there, we spent a good hour every time before going out wiping down all the parts of our weapons cause oil freezes in freezing temperatures. Cause science. I had zero misfires in my time in the service. With my rifle. Anyhoo the cold weather is just like hot weather, you just have to get used to it and with the right gear you'll function just like normal. PS. The coldest temperature I know for sure I was in was -43 degrees C, according to the temperature gauge outside the conscript sauna in Rovajärvi. It was so cold firewood felt sticky when picking them up cause my hands were insta-freezing when I grabbed them. I assume they have bullet-resistant-picking-up-firewood-in-freezing-cold-mittens nowadays. *hopefully* :)
Finnish Defense Forces equipment doesn't need to be tested at below 0c. All FDF equipment works below freezing temperatures. Otherwise it would not be FDF equipment.
Winter is fun time. First it goes to +1 celsius and everything gets wet. Then suddenly it goes to -15 without a warning within hours and everything you had on freezes. The drinking water freezes and eating snow only makes things worse. The endless darkness makes you extra tired and you start seeing things. And the skiing? 20 years of experience might help but with 50+ kg of equipment on, you will eventually fall and your gun breaks your teeth in the process. Then you are laying on your face in the snow but you can't get up because the soft snow under your arms gives in. You have to take at least your backbag off to get up but your legs are tangled up with the skis and you can't really turn on your side either. Even in that situation you can still get up alone but you better not panic. Want to try snow shoes? Good luck marching 20km at the speed of 1km/h.
Simple tip: keep your canteen close to your body to keep it from freezing. Hydration is important but eating snow lowers your core temperature and thus wastes energy you need to stay operational.
Yes, they test the arctic gear first there. As for the logistics, my brother who served in Utti airborne long range reconnaissance told how they were parachuted in wintertime to Lappland. The 10 man team lived the whole week in snow cave they dug. For food logistics they butchered a reindeer and caught small game with traps. Since training how to operate deep in enemy territory for weeks or months, they tested how well air dropped support would work. To give some challenge for the whole logistics organization they could order anything they could imagine. My brother`s team decided to order the smallest, cheapest and most useless thing they could think of: a single steel 6mm nut they knew fits no gear or bolt they had. An other team ordered eleven different custom pizzas delivered warm (from 500 km away). What would you have asked for?
The specialist jaegers from Utti are insane even in Finnish perspective. Those guys are like survivalist version of Seals. They can handle weeks on low rations and minimal shelter. There's a reason why you have to compete to get to that training. I'm a career captain and I still think the specialist jaegers are just insane to go through all that survival training
Your note regarding "missing little things" is absolutely true. For example, the swamp regions (which are plenty in Finland) will never permafrost. To pass such swamp regions your mechanized units need to have a very large footprint with a lot of square feet. Otherwise you will just sink in those swamps. To my best knowledge, during each Arrow exercise in Finland where the US Marines heavy mechanized units were involved they have sunk at least one or two Abrams tanks in said swamps.
One thing that might not be common knowledge is that no face paint is used by arctic warfare specialists. The reason is that some of the sweat/condensation from the skin gets trapped under the face paint. In an arctic or subarctic environment that will lead to frostbite pretty fast.
The by far most important things in keeping the unit operable and battle-ready: 1. wearing dry socks in warm footwear 2. Having enough to eat. People may use up to 7000 kcal per day for keeping the body temperature. Just imagine the amount of arctic training you might be getting, if pres. Trump's idea of US buying Greenland had succeeded... The largest island in the world, completely in the arctic. The coldest record temp in Greenland is -69,6°C (-93.3°F) Personally I did not serve in an arctic unit, but I have done some military skiing. We participated in a military ski night orienteering relay competition with a team from our unit, total length of about 100 km. It was -25°C (-13°F). It was cold and arctic enough for us. But it was nice variation to the sometimes boring routine service duties.
The Finnish m05 snow camo is impressive. It makes people just disappear in a snowy forest. On vehicles the brighter green parts are painted over with white to make them blend in. The tracked vehicle is Hägglunds BV-206, it is smaller than the BvS 10 Viking. They are getting old and are being replaced in the near future. maavoimat.fi/bv206 I am pretty sure all the conscripts have their full winter gear, I know we did back in my time. So nothing special in those.
Thanks for another great video! Always makes my day a bit better hearing your opinions about pretty much whatever. Cold weather training and operating in winter environments is quite terrible to be honest :D Everything is much slower, everything gets wet eventually, which makes you cold when you stay still and there's just a few hours of daylight - if even that, so after dark it often gets even more miserable. Just by following a few main principles you can make your life a lot easier though! 1. Keep your feet dry and change your socks often 2. Keep a fire going in the tent stove so that you can dry your equipment 2b. Have someone watch the fire at all times :D 3. Drink often. Operating in snow is exhausting and because you're cold, it's harder to feel the thirst 4. Move and dance around to stay warm. Don't blow on your hands to warm them up. Wiggle fingers and squeeze into fist and relax repeatedly instead. 5. Don't dip your gun in the snow! 6. If there's a ton of snow in the trees etc. go for full snow camo. If there's snow just covering the ground, but it's otherwise clear, wearing only the snow camo pants and forest camo top is an option.
The rubber tracked snow vehicles are Finnish Nasus (Sisu). When I was young officer I trained with them in Lapland. They just sail over the snow but if you jump out you sink in the snow down to your waist and can't move anywhere.
I hope they do, but it would be a political move more than anything else. Russia might get pissy about american troops openly training on an FDF twitter feed.
@@Zardagbum FDF has very openly had quite a few training exercises with US Army and Marine units in recent years. Russia hasn't been pissy about those, why would they care about a youtuber doing a PR stunt with FDF?
My love for pkm might sound weird for you but let me explain. Our alternative lmg would be kvkk and that thing is only good if you want to get mad or suicidal real quick. Look it up if you dare.
I was in Sodankylä -95 as a KVKK-specialist and I quite liked it. Very good to shoot, but not that good to carry. I feel it has an undeserved reputation.
@@Pukamafin They were fine to shoot that much is true. I just had issues with the belt and belt pouch. They were really awkward and I actually lost my belt once during one night. It fell from the pouch even when it was closed. Also when I was doing my service during 2014-2015 they started to break down from shooting.
Anybody experience with a weapon or equipment not suitable for Arctic winter? I once tried to fire a live US made LAW 72 (66 KES 75) while the temperature was nearly -40°C (-40° F). First I squeezed slowly and calmly. Nothing. Next I used the full strenght of my right hand, and finally applied the full strength of both my hands until my arms where shaking. Finally the rocket left the tube, but at the time my aim was far off the steel target plate. Luckily LAW has a limited range. Otherwise I might have hit the moon or other celestial object. The American made LAWs were fortunately soon replaced by the winter proof Norwegian manufactured LAWs, designated 66 KES 88, still in use today.
Issue with skiing in the forest isn't about being able to ski per se but to avoid, dicthes, branches and other things that can be really hard to get out of if you get stuck especially with a full 40kg rucksack since you sink immediately if you step off your skis and dear god if you actually drop some equipment, fishing that in hip deep snow is fun for the whole squad.
I were a Norwegian conscription guy in the mid nineties. My snowmobile (Lynx 5900 something) looked the same as these. And then we had the sameish tracked vehicles (BV 206). But assume there have been more improvements to these vehicles than it looks like. Served in a “Carl Gustav 84mm RFK-platoon”, with nine cannons, twelve (or was it thirteen?) snowmobiles, and one BV 206 for the big guy. Found this to be a little bit cool/cold. 🤙🏻
03:27 is Hägglund BV 206 but they almost look the same... Sisu Nasu are bigger and heavier and have diffrent format/appearance of the tracks and the NA-140 BT got square head lights and NA-110 have round but smaller head lights and a mounted at the roof
One of the main things operating in that environment is to maintain the combat readiness and effectiveness of the troops and equipment. It is an environment where you need to pay attention to the elements or else you’ll get quickly in trouble.
Usually when there's snow on the ground and maybe even some drizzle in the air, lights can be seen from very far away. Seems like in this exercise they didn't control the amount of light very much. In finnish winter you should use red lights and try to keep your eyes trained to low light conditions as much as possible. If you see something bright you're basically blind for several minutes.
I also thought the use of lights looked pretty unprofessional. Probably they were in the barracks area or some public route, where the use of driving lights is mandatory. Such a light show is easily visible from at least 3-5 km away and in right conditions from over 10 km away. The snow crystals forming during the nights in the air scatter the light effectively.
Really like your vids about our military, youre givin an outside point-of-view to our forces, and its really bit of an eye-opener. Keep it up! And times like these, its a bit of a relief too, to see a pro commenting FDF quite positively =)
Most have above average arctic skills. They are from Lappland and other Northern parts of Finland. Only a limited number of volunteers from South used to be even allowed to serve there in the old days. A maximum of one person from Helsinki, for example. Many Koltta Saami people who come to serve there are professionals from families with reindeer. Their arctic training started before they even went to school. Their huntingn rifles have been working perfectly for years and they have more experience driving snowmobiles and ATVs than average kids on bikes. They have been learning from their fathers and grandfathers for 15 years and many have worked a couple of years already. Some boys from the cities only know how to dress warmly and how to ensure you car will start in the morning. However, even if the only thing you knew about winter is not to lick metallic objects in subzero temperatures even if bigger boys tell you it tastes like strawberry you are an expert compared to most of the world population.
In Finland we used to have more snow in winters, but now the climate change is affecting us so, that in the Souther Finland we hardly get any good old snowy winters anymore. Also, most of the people are living in Southern Finland and on the coastline, so that all Finns could ski is mostly a myth nowdays. However, the more north you go in Finland, the better people are at it. And what it comes to military, every conscript is trained to ski, so when your service is done, you at least have the basic skiing skills.
Fun Fact; the scenes from The snow planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back(Star Wars) is filmed in Norway with similar conditions like this, Finland also has a border to Norway
It's same shoes in summer and winter, only wear some (more) wool socks in winter. Served in 2000 and always remember coming back from first free weekend, it was -36 C.
More on the maintenance part as someone who recently completed my service where the film was shot you constantly have to dry off your more delicate kit like weapons and radio equipment because the snow really wants to get into all those nooks and crannies. I remember this one time where a teammate of mine had her rifle locked completely by the cold freezing the mechanics up after the snow and ice had melted inside the tent and re-froze in the morning again. An officer to beat the damn charging handle against a tree for a solid 10 seconds to get it work again. Will never forget that look the officer gave her, shit was priceless. :D
In cold weather everything comes down to the gear. On my Beret march Sleeping on snow on top of a yoga mat and covered with a wool blanket, when the temperature dropped down to -4 F was somewhat uncomfortable after we ran out of firewood. You would not be able to keep going like that for many weeks. With proper gear and good sleeping bags -22F and windy was unpleasant outside but much more enjoyable with sleep. But the worst is wet spring snow in Lapland. When you are stomach deep in wet heavy snow and ankle deep in water,with leaking rubber boots, you know you are in hell.
The finnish service rifke RK 62 is based on the AK so during the winter you might as well just not lube it, because most likely it'll still run just fine.
yeah it was fun during the winter. When I was a squad leader during my service and having an exercise in the arctic and we had american and russian observers they always wondered how in hell we managed to keep water liquid in those temperatures and it was hard to explain as those things are normal for us but not for most :D
In WWII they used to improvise a snow camouflage by taking slack lime and water and forming a “slurry”. Then they would take paint brushes and brush on the slurry directly onto the vehicles sides and top. When it dried the vehicles turned from green to a whitish color and it could be easily removed if needed but was durable enough for some time. I served in the Corps and did a few deployments to Iraq with 1st LAR BN (41 Las Flores on Camp Pendleton). Some of the other LAR BN’s had desert painted tan vehicles but almost our entire BN (when we took our own vehicles instead of just using the previous BN’s vehicles when they rotated home). Anyway… all our vehicles had forest green camo paint schemes and a version of the white wash technique was to take paint rolllers like you would use for house painting and then coat them in some POL (usually differential oil or engine oil or whatever). When the oil was applied we would just take regular sand and throw handfuls of it on the oil vehicle and a lot of the dry sand would adhere to the vehicles turning them a brownish color. Same with the lime wash… with some hot soapy water you could clean them back to being green. Just figured I share. Maybe some young devil might find the info useful some day. Semper Fi.
Lots of great stuff in the comments, but so far I have not seen anyone comment on the things that stuck to me the most while I did my year in the FDF. The everyday basic survival stuff such as keeping all your water canteens next to your skin under all the clothing to keep them from freezing over and choosing a spot for them where they wouldn't break your ribs when you went to ground or otherwise hinder movement. For me that place was right above my hips a little closer to my back than my front. I remember seeing my silhouette one day and thinking "Oh, a baby whale with legs, how cute." Another thing was that using tent pegs was a pain in the ass, firstly to strike them into the frozen, often also rocky, ground was not ideal, getting them out once they were frozen stuck was an even bigger pain in the buttocks. So instead we gathered branches strong enough to serve as pegs placed them upright on the ground, piled snow over half of it and sprinkled water on them, in like 5 minutes it was frozen stuck well enough to support our tent after which we tied the rope around it as usual. When we would leave the place we wouldn't need to free them from the solid ice, since who would care about a bunch of twigs left behind, but leaving FDF issued tent pegs would obviously have been a no no. Although we could only do it in places where we were told that not leaving evidence of our presence behind was not a priority (these places were way too few as far as we were concerned), in other places a circle of upright branches with conspicuous snow domes around each of them would have been as bad as leaving the tent pegs.
The reason why you dont hear much about it, is probably because we are so used to these conditions in scandinavia, so we dont even mention it. Which actually is a little funny by it self. 😄
Again great video bro. I served a year in the Jaeger Brigade 120mm mortar company as a mortar team leader. Are we having a little thing for Finland? :D You should come and visit!
@@Frog89mad The real benefit of layered clothing is that you can remove layers as necessary. Meaning, you put on lots of clothes if you are just standing around mainly, but if you know you are about to do something heavy you take off a layer or two and thus you won't immediately heat up and start sweating like crazy.
@Jim Neville kyllä ite olen tyytyväinen ollu. Jos haluat rankkaa hommaa niin hae 1jk sieltä sitte valmiusyksikköön ja rennoimmat hommat on tuki ja huoltokomppaniassa
You could check out the older "Taistelukenttä" version from 1998. It has a darker tone than the new one since it is only meant to introduce new conscripts to the horrors of war. The video lacks subtitles but does not have much narration anyways. It can be found on the official Finnish Defence Forces channel.
During my basic training in coastal infantry platoon here in Finland, we were doing some coldwater training also. Not in freezing ice thou. Funny story comes to mind. One time we were doing ~20km march in the local forest and our platoon had 10min break almost end of the march at nearby natural spring lake. The platoon leader Lt. gave two options. Go around this lake (round 2 kilometers around) we were having the break, or go to swim on that water. Water temp was round +10...+15 degree celsius. So ruffly 2/3 decided to go around, since 1.5-2km isnt much (they thought) and the water was freaking cold. After the group left, the Lt. said "oh did I forget to tell you guys that in the military word "swimming" means you go to water and dip to your neck under and come out". So basically I was maybe 30seconds on that cold water and the 2/3 of platoon were actually doing in reality 4+km extra run in really ruff terrain. We propably were there 2 hours waiting them to get back and just chilling and enjoying the warm august weather. When group came back they were tired as f.. :D
one thing, if you are cold while waiting for the bus, you have to keep the puppy moving so that it does not come into your hands or feet, for example. Frost bites which at worst lead to amputation or the worst is death. That´s U learn in chidlhood if U live in Finland or similar place. And if you had to choose between snowshoes and skis, skis are definitely better.
Cool snow!😜 I grew up in northern Ontario. Keeping dry is the big thing. Sweat is an enemy but unavoidable at times. Have you presented on the Arctic Rangers, Canada?
If you want to get a feel for winter warfair, find a solid piece of steel and stick it in the freezer over night. In the morning try to grab it in your hand for five minutes straight. Thats what having an assault rifle in the winter feels like ;) only the freezer is only -4C, but it can be way colder over the winter. Oh, please be aware of frostbites ;)
When I started my service (in the same Jager Brigade that's on the video) my winter boots (just wellingtons with a bit thicker sole) were a bit too small. Normally you fit this felt sock in the boot, but mine didn't fit. I had to wear two pairs of woolen socks, some chemical warming pads and newspaper. Even in - 22°F I didn't get cold. Newspaper is awesome insulator. I learned a lot of neat tricks to keep yourself warm in cold conditions.
Most important thing is stay warm and dry. When you move and sweat you need to take few layers of clothing off and while staying still add more cloths.
I was at the AA regiment in Rovaniemi myself for 11 months (sergeant) and our boot camp was at -36 degrees Celsius. We had hourly rotating shifts for the "kipinämikko" which was basically the guy who was responsible for heat in the tent while everyone else slept. You can imagine what sort of a reaction video it made when the guy fell asleep on the job. 😄
Really fun to be in military in the winter. -30C and we slept in tent. Stove made it bearable but when guy who suppose to add wood falls asleep during his turn...
IT wasn't a Viking. It was Finnish manufactured Sisu NA-110 which has nickname "Nasu". Nasu in Finnish is the friend of Winnie the pooh, the little pink piglet, she/he is "Nasu".
Everybody's gangsta until snow starts speaking finnish.
Ei ne tajua hassu. (((
@@jjtop does white death ring your bell?
Snow: Perkele
This is a common myth. Everbody knows that finns don't speak.
Saatana perkele
Our last Mannerheirheim knights was buried yesterday...
I saw. Glad he got the ceremony he deserved
Sorry. Cant contact u personally...but it was beuatiful ceremony. It was not officially military honours....but the Finnish officer school and the Finnish President attended...our last knight is gone.
Alexander Väcklén Andersson DRe ua-cam.com/video/Sv2BOz28Cis/v-deo.html
Alexander Väcklén Andersson DRe ua-cam.com/video/IsCCuu2f-rs/v-deo.html
@@CombatArmsChannel lol 45 F is 7 C?
This channel is probably the only one where I don't skip any part of the video
hahaha thanks!
Fun fact: you can remove the camouflage garment from the helmet and it has two sides, summer and winter camouflage colors. So for example if you have training somewhere where it's early winter but no snow you can use the summer side and if it's going to rain snow heavily next morning you can switch to your winter side and change to your winter uniform that you have in your huge backpack. Finnish military has thought out their things through very well regarding seasons and Russians haha.
My favorite Finnish big brain moment is that despite the fact that most other European countries use NATO standard ammunition... Finland still uses 7.62 for its service rifle under the assumption that if they go to war it's probably going to be Russia invading them and their thought process is might as well have it be in the same caliber so when we capture Russian gear we can use it.
@@testpleaseignore Yes. They can use both Russian ammunition and magazines but Russians can't use Finnish magazines.
Same with Swedish helmets 👌
@@vablo7198 The switch will take like 50 years looking what gear your conscripts are getting
like my old m62 jacket. its summer camo jacket but turn it over it has snow suit now, i have the pants to that too
I don't know anybody who does not like the M05 snow camouflage pattern. It not only works, it is kind of pretty and stylish too.
Camo is often seen in Finnish street fashion. Recently I went to my nearby grosery-store. There is an older dude dressed up in UK desert camo. He looked like real deal but instead of boots he had sneakers. And no cap whatsoever.
I have lived in Finland for Eighteen years,they do what is needed,very well.
Where do you come from, and how did you end up in here?
A "fun" test they have in the Arctic survival training here in Finland is something I've never tried but it sounds awesome: You jump into a hole in the ice with skis and body armor, fully clothed etc. Then you have to get out and you have to dry yourself before you go hypothermic. Basically only fire is available.
Do you really have your body armour (like the ceramic plates) on? I couldn’t swim with that. They have a safety line, right?
@@oscarn- Yeah I'd say probably without the ceramics. And naturally you have instructors etc watching your back all the time.
@@oscarn- ua-cam.com/video/JeKPIRopsAQ/v-deo.html Here you can see one dude doing the similar stuff without armor, but with a pack (around 1:35). Idea is to get rid of your skis and extra weight before pulling yourself out. I remember seeing this newsreel in Finland from some international training exercise where Finnish troops trained US Marines their ways in the Arctic conditions, and at least then those guys had the "hardcore" version. Couldn't find the video anywhere tho.
Royal Marines doing it also.
@@oscarn- We did ours without skis. We had battle harness and flakjacket on.
Oh i remember serving in Sodankylä, one day at end of may, it was like warm weather and everyone was wearing t-shirts and enjoying sunny week. One morning it started to snow suddenly and we were like "Ah yes, Finnish summer". Good times
Summer is my favorite day of the year.
We also were going through "RT-kisa" (part of the NCO-training) in may at Sodankylä and first it started to drip water, then hailstones and initially wet snow. Me being "smart" I left my waterproofed equipment out of my pack so it would possibly help our effort, it didn't.
@@Dev_Six same here living in Ireland
The funny part is, that this is completelly true. 😂 Damn it.
if the name of Sodankylä is literally translated into English then it will be village of war
aah yesss. Another Finnish video your reacting to. Always love to see what other people think of us. Keep up the great work!!
Yeah im from the uk, its always good to see what other people from around the world think of us. When i think of Finland the first think that comes to my mind is some awsome djs
Finnish snow camo is amazing. When we were on a shooting range, some of our guys went for a piss. There were handful of people standing right next to me and I didn't notice them until they started walking. Snowy forest is basically all white with some black here and there, the contrast is so great that you can easily become invisible when wearing good snow camo.
when and where? funny thing is that we see/know where we are in camo, we are used to it... some times we freak out foreign soldiers training in finland, without intention!.. finns tend to speak with quiet voice, and bunch of guys can be long times sitting near each other without "small talk" to fill silence,
I can imagine a foreign soldier making a dump, a "fine log" on a some bushes.. "oooh.. dear lord! I needed to do some shit!.."
And "bushes" say; "dude, we are eatin´here.. want some?.."
Wear Hawaiian shirts on top of long-sleeved shirts!
Also fun fact; after WWII a number of Finnish soldiers, the so-called "Marttinen's men," moved to the US and among other things became arctic warfare instructors for the US Army.
Haha sounds like a plan. And ohh ok, that's sick
Yeah, Alpo Marttinen. After the war he participated that "asekätkentä" where some men hide weapons and gears for guerrilla warfare if russians try to invade our country.
They served in the Korea war in high positions of the US army. They communicated in finnish so the Koreans and chinese couldnt understand, check out Olavi Alakulppi and Eino Lassila for example.
@@CombatArmsChannel A few of those Marttinen's men were responsible of artic warfare training in Camp Big Delta, AK. Much of that knowledge is still in use in U.S. field manuals of concern. More of it in this video ... ua-cam.com/video/DGeex6UV82A/v-deo.html @ 8:28 (Col. Charles Norton).
Everyone goes "oh no poor machine gunner" no one goes "oh no poor anti tank guy", those big AT rockets weight more and are really annoying to carry on your back
So true. Having served in an anti-tank company of a Jaeger Brigade, I can say that the anti-tank mines are not fun to carry around either. I'm of very slim build so a couple of those mines plus other equipment meant that my "weight" increased by over 100%.
@@janbo8331 Rynnäkkökivääri paina ei mitään, siksipä ohjuksen selkään lisään
Kevyttä kamaa
KarPr PsTk II/01 :)
Elä unoha telamiinoi! 😂
Don’tcha forget da AT-mines! 😂
…I got once tasked to run 3km with 60kg worth of those mines as extra with my combat Gear… 😅
Always nice to see you reacts Finnish army videos.
The history of finnish jaegers is pretty interesting you should look it up ;)
yep. we had our own jaeger bricades even before finland existed.
@@MrBanaanipommi Well it was only a battalion.
@@mattilaiho7979 but still
@@MrBanaanipommi Yeah
Jaeger is just a fancy word for "private".
The further you go north in Finland the more hostile nature itself becomes. During winter you get darkness as a bonus to cold weather. Above arctic circle (where f.e. Jaeger Brigade is located) sun doesn't rise over the horizon in many weeks straight so you basically operate in the dark and cold environment. Therefore actual surviving those conditions need training. First and most important tip i would give is to always keep a layer of dry clothes (especially underwear) with you and if you get a chance to change clothes or dry out your sweaty clothes on bonfire / tent stove, do it.
Second tip is to drink a lot of water and take a dump/piss if you really need to. Funny now but important on the field since holding your "product" in actually messes up your body heat system. Same thing if you get dehydrated or don't eat enough (warm food is the best one to keep you going in the freezing conditions).
Third tip would be lighten your clothes when you know you are about to move. When you are a bit freezing and shaking when standing still it's a good amount of clothes for the movement if it's under -15*c. When you stop moving add more clothes. If it's a short break remove your vest and put your winter jacket on in order to keep your body warm.
If you want to learn more there's public FDF winter training manual. It's in Finnish but translatable via google. It's called "Talvikoulutusopas"
In school, during winter, PE was sking and skating/hockey.
Oh that’s sounds fun!
regarding hockey, Its sort of well known here in canada that finland has world class hockey programs, even for youth. In world juniors its very common theyll be in top 3 somewhere (Usually 1st or 3rd. I dont know why that is! lol)
@@JungleScene It's because there's a chance of facing Canada in the semi-finals!
@@JungleScene i know i am late to the conversation lol😂 but here in finland almost every school has a odr(out door rink) of there is not an hockey arena really close. So on winter we were also able to play ice hockey between classes. And from 1st grade we always have hockey at least 4 times per winter on PE. So every village in finland has at least 1 odr. And that means that even though everyone is playing on a team almost every kid is pretty decent at skating. And it's also super nice to have a odr close so you can enjoy it with your friends at night 😅.
@@JungleScene if you ever come to finland it's not hard to find a rink, that's for sure
There is so much to tell, but I will just tell couple of points.
Hardest thing is keeping yourself(as well as the equipment) in shape. Nutrition is HUGE in winter conditions. It think Finnish army supplies like 6000kkcal worth of food in winter conditions per day.
Clothing. Layered clothing. It would go something like this, I'll use upper body as an exampme. From the bottom:Tube necked long shirt and t-shirt on top of it(wool long shirt psuhes sweat from you skin to the t shiet that absorbs it, standard summer jacket, winter camo jacket, body armor, combat vest.
And you can add more clothes for like guard duty in the night where you stay still.
One other thing that is quite interesting. During night/resting in the tent you have to keep the rifle behind you head(against the outer wall of the tent). Otherwise it warms up too much and going out with it there might be condensation water that freezes and makes the rifle jam in the least.
There is so much more, but I am on the phone and writing too much is hard. Would be easier to talk face to face over beer :D
Anyway great reaction as always! Keep it up man!
-2nd lt jäger platoon leader, FDF army reserves
Except that almost every place got plate carriers nowadays.. just saying for the body armor and combat vest part..
Interesting thanks!
haha thanks for the info!
I would and always did put the armor under the winter jacket. Summer months, sure, it would be over the jacket, but I always used the winter jacket (and the rest of the overalls) as a layer over the vest.
That being said, you also missed the bearsuit. "nallepuku". It's a must if you're on the field in temperatures below -10c. The polo shirt + a t-shirt ain't gonna cut it when it really gets cold.
@@Zardagbum Nallepuku is too much when moving. You have to be little cold when staying still (and put on brake clothes so basically winter jacket), if you have too much clothes when moving you sweat too much and everything is wet. Then you wont be warm at all.
Finns are usually brought up playing outside in the snow. That makes a huge difference in the mindset of how to prepare and tackle challenges, since most things are default and basic understanding for the "normal" kids. I.e.
-Warm feet, head, neck hands is a must. The rest will be fine.
-dont get wet, change if u do.
-wear layers of clothing
And so on.
There is generally so much we automatically do differently in our everyday lives when it is -10°C and snow.
No nude skin, wool good, activity warms, seek shelter, watch weather etc.
You really should get invited to check out the Finnish military. With your 159k subscibers and your pro-military view shouldn't be that hard in this day and age. -ER doc, Lieutenant
Agree.
Would make good content, and i suspect the Finnish military wouldn't mind having (hopefully) positive coverage. Try contacting them at mil.fi.
They seem to have a pretty good combat camera team, as you propably know. A guy with your backround should be ideal to do an "embedded" video with them. Mail me if interested. I'm not a soldier per se, but can try to hook you up with the Finnish mil socail media folks. Anyway, love your content.
Yes I think that it would only be a matter of asking for permission and thats it.
Problem only is that flying across the world ain't that cheap.
Quality video as always, love your chilled style like everyone, very impressed by all of the Scandinavians who comment, so clever, informed, passionate, cool, excellent English - Salute! 🇫🇮❄️
You got the maintenance part quite rigth but forgot the most important, the soldier itself. The clothes and guys get wet and cold and it is of utmost importance to keep yourself dry and warm so that you can keep yourself in operative condition
If you noticed the guys on patrol had "tactical gloves" for easy weapon handling but the guard duty guys had no-can-dos, the insulated mittens which are really thick. Preventing extremeties from freezing is really important. Generally those mittens can be fling off and you have inner trigger finger glove available.
Agree, most important to keep your toes n fingers warm(blood in)little movements, and ofc hydration.
Skis are a good thing in the snow. I remember one morning in the military here in Finland, when recruits were complaining about that we have to wake up earlier and gather at the beach to put the skis on. No lights, in a dark, freezing cold beach trying to put your ski straps on without gloves, fingers freezing etc. They were complaining A LOT. Then one recruit said something like "Why dont we just walk across the lake?"
I told him to go ahead and try. Try to march an entire platoon in 3 feet of snow across an entire lake. Half of the platoon would pass out in the middle.
Skis keep you on top of the snow. There's more surface area and you can glide on top of the snow. You can go 100 meters on snow with a few strokes on skis. If you walk, you have to struggle to get even 10 meters. It's way more demanding to walk on snow than to go on skis. We went a 12 mile march on skis and everyone was functioning after that. When we set up our camp without the skis, tents, fireplace, guard duty etc. Everyone was exhausted after 15 minutes because we had to walk in the snow. Without skis. This is what I call a professional arctic warfare knowledge :D
Finns, they beat Russians at winter warfare, nuff said.
No, we didn't beat them. We gave them a tight spanking until they overnumbered us & we run out off hardware.
Beat them in tactics but lost strategically
@@TheNismo777 the Finnish taught them a lesson not to fuck with us
@@Chris09978 Correct 😊👍
@ZeOverman well of course cause the soviets took over Ukraine at the time and that’s interesting btw that most of them weren’t Russian
A thing that might be quite obvious atleast to fellow finns but possibly less so to others is that in the finnish army soldiers don't (generally speaking) have their own individual tents, but squads typically share a squad or half platoon tent heated by a wood stove. Being able to sleep in a very warm and dry tent where you can dry your wet gear is an absolute bliss especially in winter.
There's nothing like falling asleep listening to the gentle hum of the fire in the stove or sitting on the lantern box on spark watch reading a book in the light of the kerosene lantern while feeling warm wearing nothing but a T-shirt while its -25C outside the tent.
The exact same type tents are also what we had during the winter war and judging by the various older camo patterns on the pieces of cloth that have been used to patch holes on the tents, I wouldn't be surprised if atleast a handful of the them were indeed from WW2.
It is really nice...untill the firewatch guy falls asleep
I cant remember if we had any "Arctic warfare" training literally or any courses like that, it was just normal training during winter. Maybe pulling a sled and some tips on how to keep warm for long period of times or similar skills could be concidered as such, but pulling sledge or riding one or skiing or layered clothing are very normal to any Finn anyways I guess. :D
in lapland its normal to have 1m snow.
or 2 meters
tjena i kiruna är det normalt me 5-10 m snö men i år har det varit konstigt lite altså ikke normalt lite
*Masentuneita loskapaska ääniä*
@@local_hotpotato voi voi kuka on kuollut
@@ronng21 metrin kinokset pirkanmaalta
2018: "According to a report by the Swedish Defense Forces Research Institute FOI, the Finnish Army is better able to respond to threats than most other European Armies." "Finnish Army is praised in Sweden -" Guards of the entire Nordic region "
I was in Finnish army in early 90´s I served in Jaeger Brigade and got trained as messenger, "runner". We had communication training, snowmobile training and enduro motorcycle training .Those were not easy, but they were best times in there!
i was II/94 PstK, where were you and when?
“If you can stay combat effective and fight in snow you can fight anywhere”
cool, hello from Russia. With great respect
Здравствуй, сосед!
"Swamps generally get like a foot deep." Man, I wish I was kidding but on a search and apprehension exercise. Trailing the opponents I fell all the way to my groins in to a swamp. With gear similar seen in the video. For a second I thought I was about to become the Shrek.
i had similar experiences working in remote northern Ontario. while on a traverse, we had to navigate around wetlands. often there were floating rafts of vegetation. if you stepped in the wrong spot you could easily go through and sink to your waist with a pack on your back. we were lucky that nobody went in deeper than that.
Im Former Finn sarg. Do not tolerate bullshit talk see we do teach All men to be fighters. Not like wanna be something. No we teach all men to fight,any armery fits. No exceptions. Got That ?. Good. 😎
When I was serving my time in Finland we had to cross a swamp at October so it was slightly frozen. I'm about 190cm and the water was to my neck at the deepest when walking so many others had to swim. Then it was 2-3km to the barracks from there and yeah we had all our gear with us. Cleaning the gun for those who had to swim and couldn't keep it in the air was something. Those men weren't happy.
"I'd really want to try cold weather training..."
Yea, cold weather training sounds 'fun' until you realise what the chainsaws really are for at the start of the implementation phase...
You start off with a little swim, the chainsaws makes it possible and it goes further south from there.
Hmm, further north...🤣
Chainsaws?
@@unknownentity8256 Yes, chainsaws...for making a hole in the ice so you can go swimming.
@@mattiasdevlin1363 Ooh yeah, I see. I know that feeling too. We had to do the same excersise aswell when I was in the FDF in Sodankylä Brigade. 1/17. 1St Jäger Company. Jäger Support Rifleman. (RK-95 with ACOG/Aimpoint).
I'll be honest I tried to lie myself out of it, with no success.
@@unknownentity8256 for sawing off frozen limbs
0:59 "It's always awesome to see people who..." get cold instead of me?! Glad to say there is a healthy exchange between the Finnish & Swiss - they have some of the same kit as us (Swiss). Healthy respect for the Finns. All the best, Rob in Switzerland
Could you give us a mountain so we'd an easier time of it?
I have noticed that the Canadian, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish armed forces use a lot of identical or near identical winter equipment from the same manufacturers, all produced within these four countries. Footwear, skiis and skii-related stuff, personal cooking equipment, snowmobiles, tracked vehicles, armoured fighting vehicles with proper heating, trucks with 4-8 wheel drive fitted with similar winter tyres and trailers with powered driving wheels... Even the water containers and field kitchen systems are often from the same factory. I wonder what gear from Switzerland we are using in addition to the Victorinox general purpose tool issued to everybody.
@@rikulappi9664 I support the Swiss Air Force in my job and I know our guys go to Finland for exercises in F/A-18's like Finland's. The Finnish Ranger drone is Swiss-Israeli , the Finnish Armoured Vehicle Launched Bridge is Swiss. My Swiss company partners with Patria for MRO services on F/A-18s... (Switzerland built F/A-18s under licence and we maintain them here...) My company RUAG acquired Patria's space business, if you use the Eagle or Piranha vehicles, they are Swiss... so we have surprising similar equipment in some domains. All the best, Rob
@@RobWhittlestone thanks for your comments and info
I served there -94,-95. After a couple of weeks to some -40C (-40F) exposure, it feels allmost comfortable weather to have "only" -20C (-4F)! :D
lmao i was at Hälvälä almost 2 years ago for our first excersize in boot camp and it was -20C the whole week and holy shit did it feel cold especially when standing still. There was about as much snow there back then as in this video. I can't think of enduring even -20 less degrees.
@@_MaZTeR_ we had hip-deep snow.. It was not one or two times that i had my hair frozen in the field-matrass while sleeping, even though in tent! These days im bald, but not because of that, though! :D
@@quis-custodietipsos-custod7183 -99. Basic training at -48C. CO made us eat our lunch and dinner outside so that we'd be whole day outside. Food literally froze before you could eat half of it.
But fun thing is that we never got really cold, in civilian life i've been way more cold if hunting or something. Clothing was warm, boots were superb (heavy Nokia rubber boots). If you kept moving around a bit to keep blood flowing to extremities the clothing kept you warm.
@@Second247 Layer-dressing, and minimize skin exposure..
Iremember that even a bit sneezing froze your nose up! And that crunchy sound of snow...
@@Second247 Artillery camp winter 99 (IIRC) as a medic, our unit got extra vacation day as we were the last unit to cease operations as the temperature dropped to almost -50C :D
I served in the Jaeger Brigade in Sodankylä 97-98 as a Recon scout/forward observer/radioman and indeed the Brigade was a test bed for testing new gear, most of which is standard issue nowadays. Also glad to see much of the gear has greatly improved since then lol (helmets, body armor, optical sights on the RK what is this madness?!!). Oh and the secret to arctic combat is to strip your weapon of all the oils in there, we spent a good hour every time before going out wiping down all the parts of our weapons cause oil freezes in freezing temperatures. Cause science. I had zero misfires in my time in the service. With my rifle. Anyhoo the cold weather is just like hot weather, you just have to get used to it and with the right gear you'll function just like normal. PS. The coldest temperature I know for sure I was in was -43 degrees C, according to the temperature gauge outside the conscript sauna in Rovajärvi. It was so cold firewood felt sticky when picking them up cause my hands were insta-freezing when I grabbed them. I assume they have bullet-resistant-picking-up-firewood-in-freezing-cold-mittens nowadays. *hopefully* :)
Finnish Defense Forces equipment doesn't need to be tested at below 0c. All FDF equipment works below freezing temperatures. Otherwise it would not be FDF equipment.
when the alternative is to be balls deep in snow, you really start to appreciate skis
Winter is fun time. First it goes to +1 celsius and everything gets wet. Then suddenly it goes to -15 without a warning within hours and everything you had on freezes. The drinking water freezes and eating snow only makes things worse. The endless darkness makes you extra tired and you start seeing things. And the skiing? 20 years of experience might help but with 50+ kg of equipment on, you will eventually fall and your gun breaks your teeth in the process. Then you are laying on your face in the snow but you can't get up because the soft snow under your arms gives in. You have to take at least your backbag off to get up but your legs are tangled up with the skis and you can't really turn on your side either. Even in that situation you can still get up alone but you better not panic. Want to try snow shoes? Good luck marching 20km at the speed of 1km/h.
Simple tip: keep your canteen close to your body to keep it from freezing. Hydration is important but eating snow lowers your core temperature and thus wastes energy you need to stay operational.
unless you are simo häyhä and want to keep yourself extra hidden :p
@@Frog89mad Keeping snow in your mouth to cool your exhale is not the same thing...
Yes, they test the arctic gear first there. As for the logistics, my brother who served in Utti airborne long range reconnaissance told how they were parachuted in wintertime to Lappland. The 10 man team lived the whole week in snow cave they dug. For food logistics they butchered a reindeer and caught small game with traps. Since training how to operate deep in enemy territory for weeks or months, they tested how well air dropped support would work. To give some challenge for the whole logistics organization they could order anything they could imagine. My brother`s team decided to order the smallest, cheapest and most useless thing they could think of: a single steel 6mm nut they knew fits no gear or bolt they had. An other team ordered eleven different custom pizzas delivered warm (from 500 km away). What would you have asked for?
I would've probably ordered a permission to go on a home holiday.
lava
The specialist jaegers from Utti are insane even in Finnish perspective. Those guys are like survivalist version of Seals. They can handle weeks on low rations and minimal shelter. There's a reason why you have to compete to get to that training. I'm a career captain and I still think the specialist jaegers are just insane to go through all that survival training
Your note regarding "missing little things" is absolutely true.
For example, the swamp regions (which are plenty in Finland) will never permafrost. To pass such swamp regions your mechanized units need to have a very large footprint with a lot of square feet. Otherwise you will just sink in those swamps.
To my best knowledge, during each Arrow exercise in Finland where the US Marines heavy mechanized units were involved they have sunk at least one or two Abrams tanks in said swamps.
One thing that might not be common knowledge is that no face paint is used by arctic warfare specialists. The reason is that some of the sweat/condensation from the skin gets trapped under the face paint. In an arctic or subarctic environment that will lead to frostbite pretty fast.
The by far most important things in keeping the unit operable and battle-ready: 1. wearing dry socks in warm footwear 2. Having enough to eat. People may use up to 7000 kcal per day for keeping the body temperature.
Just imagine the amount of arctic training you might be getting, if pres. Trump's idea of US buying Greenland had succeeded... The largest island in the world, completely in the arctic. The coldest record temp in Greenland is -69,6°C (-93.3°F)
Personally I did not serve in an arctic unit, but I have done some military skiing. We participated in a military ski night orienteering relay competition with a team from our unit, total length of about 100 km. It was -25°C (-13°F). It was cold and arctic enough for us. But it was nice variation to the sometimes boring routine service duties.
The Finnish m05 snow camo is impressive. It makes people just disappear in a snowy forest. On vehicles the brighter green parts are painted over with white to make them blend in.
The tracked vehicle is Hägglunds BV-206, it is smaller than the BvS 10 Viking. They are getting old and are being replaced in the near future. maavoimat.fi/bv206
I am pretty sure all the conscripts have their full winter gear, I know we did back in my time. So nothing special in those.
the Finnish m05 snow camo makes a person invisible from 40 meters away if its snowing
Thanks for another great video! Always makes my day a bit better hearing your opinions about pretty much whatever. Cold weather training and operating in winter environments is quite terrible to be honest :D Everything is much slower, everything gets wet eventually, which makes you cold when you stay still and there's just a few hours of daylight - if even that, so after dark it often gets even more miserable. Just by following a few main principles you can make your life a lot easier though!
1. Keep your feet dry and change your socks often
2. Keep a fire going in the tent stove so that you can dry your equipment
2b. Have someone watch the fire at all times :D
3. Drink often. Operating in snow is exhausting and because you're cold, it's harder to feel the thirst
4. Move and dance around to stay warm. Don't blow on your hands to warm them up. Wiggle fingers and squeeze into fist and relax repeatedly instead.
5. Don't dip your gun in the snow!
6. If there's a ton of snow in the trees etc. go for full snow camo. If there's snow just covering the ground, but it's otherwise clear, wearing only the snow camo pants and forest camo top is an option.
The rubber tracked snow vehicles are Finnish Nasus (Sisu). When I was young officer I trained with them in Lapland. They just sail over the snow but if you jump out you sink in the snow down to your waist and can't move anywhere.
They are actually swedish bv206 by Hägglunds
@@MrSamamies May be. There is very little difference between Nasu and Hägglunds.
I bet if you keep doing these videos finnish defence forces will invite you doing some cool stuff as PR stunt. As they already follow you.
I'm down haha
I hope they do, but it would be a political move more than anything else. Russia might get pissy about american troops openly training on an FDF twitter feed.
@@Zardagbum FDF has very openly had quite a few training exercises with US Army and Marine units in recent years. Russia hasn't been pissy about those, why would they care about a youtuber doing a PR stunt with FDF?
My love for pkm might sound weird for you but let me explain. Our alternative lmg would be kvkk and that thing is only good if you want to get mad or suicidal real quick. Look it up if you dare.
lmao
I was in Sodankylä -95 as a KVKK-specialist and I quite liked it. Very good to shoot, but not that good to carry. I feel it has an undeserved reputation.
@@Pukamafin They were fine to shoot that much is true. I just had issues with the belt and belt pouch. They were really awkward and I actually lost my belt once during one night. It fell from the pouch even when it was closed. Also when I was doing my service during 2014-2015 they started to break down from shooting.
@@riissanen93 They are so used and old so that's why they break down "these days".
@@Finnish_guy I know. Also nothing is conscript proof.
Anybody experience with a weapon or equipment not suitable for Arctic winter? I once tried to fire a live US made LAW 72 (66 KES 75) while the temperature was nearly -40°C (-40° F). First I squeezed slowly and calmly. Nothing. Next I used the full strenght of my right hand, and finally applied the full strength of both my hands until my arms where shaking. Finally the rocket left the tube, but at the time my aim was far off the steel target plate. Luckily LAW has a limited range. Otherwise I might have hit the moon or other celestial object. The American made LAWs were fortunately soon replaced by the winter proof Norwegian manufactured LAWs, designated 66 KES 88, still in use today.
Issue with skiing in the forest isn't about being able to ski per se but to avoid, dicthes, branches and other things that can be really hard to get out of if you get stuck especially with a full 40kg rucksack since you sink immediately if you step off your skis and dear god if you actually drop some equipment, fishing that in hip deep snow is fun for the whole squad.
Loving the Yorkshire tea behind you bro.....much love from a Yorkshire veteran.
I were a Norwegian conscription guy in the mid nineties. My snowmobile (Lynx 5900 something) looked the same as these. And then we had the sameish tracked vehicles (BV 206). But assume there have been more improvements to these vehicles than it looks like.
Served in a “Carl Gustav 84mm RFK-platoon”, with nine cannons, twelve (or was it thirteen?) snowmobiles, and one BV 206 for the big guy. Found this to be a little bit cool/cold. 🤙🏻
The vehicle you're calling Viking is actually Finnish made Sisu NA-110 aka Nasu.
That "Viking" is Sisu NA-110 "Nasu" or its variant
Its the BV 206 it reminds of Sisu NA-110 but the Sisu NA-110 got its headlights on the roof....if im not misstaken
Yup, a BV206.
That's NA-140bt
03:27 is Hägglund BV 206 but they almost look the same... Sisu Nasu are bigger and heavier and have diffrent format/appearance of the tracks and the NA-140 BT got square head lights and NA-110 have round but smaller head lights and a mounted at the roof
One of the main things operating in that environment is to maintain the combat readiness and effectiveness of the troops and equipment. It is an environment where you need to pay attention to the elements or else you’ll get quickly in trouble.
Usually when there's snow on the ground and maybe even some drizzle in the air, lights can be seen from very far away. Seems like in this exercise they didn't control the amount of light very much. In finnish winter you should use red lights and try to keep your eyes trained to low light conditions as much as possible. If you see something bright you're basically blind for several minutes.
I also thought the use of lights looked pretty unprofessional. Probably they were in the barracks area or some public route, where the use of driving lights is mandatory. Such a light show is easily visible from at least 3-5 km away and in right conditions from over 10 km away. The snow crystals forming during the nights in the air scatter the light effectively.
They could not film using only red lights, they had to use white which would not have been if it had been a real situation...
"Snow operations at night time looks so cool"
Me getting PTSD flashbacks to the long dark winter nights of Boden !
Really like your vids about our military, youre givin an outside point-of-view to our forces, and its really bit of an eye-opener. Keep it up! And times like these, its a bit of a relief too, to see a pro commenting FDF quite positively =)
Glad you enjoy em 🤙
To point out, guys on videos aren't the "experts" they are still conscripts, which specialization branch is kind of "ranger reconnaissance"
Most have above average arctic skills. They are from Lappland and other Northern parts of Finland. Only a limited number of volunteers from South used to be even allowed to serve there in the old days. A maximum of one person from Helsinki, for example. Many Koltta Saami people who come to serve there are professionals from families with reindeer. Their arctic training started before they even went to school. Their huntingn rifles have been working perfectly for years and they have more experience driving snowmobiles and ATVs than average kids on bikes. They have been learning from their fathers and grandfathers for 15 years and many have worked a couple of years already.
Some boys from the cities only know how to dress warmly and how to ensure you car will start in the morning. However, even if the only thing you knew about winter is not to lick metallic objects in subzero temperatures even if bigger boys tell you it tastes like strawberry you are an expert compared to most of the world population.
In Finland we used to have more snow in winters, but now the climate change is affecting us so, that in the Souther Finland we hardly get any good old snowy winters anymore. Also, most of the people are living in Southern Finland and on the coastline, so that all Finns could ski is mostly a myth nowdays. However, the more north you go in Finland, the better people are at it. And what it comes to military, every conscript is trained to ski, so when your service is done, you at least have the basic skiing skills.
Fun Fact; the scenes from The snow planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back(Star Wars) is filmed in Norway with similar conditions like this, Finland also has a border to Norway
Notice: Norway gets warmth from the gulf stream during winter. Finland does not.
Do a reaction on ”taistelusukeltajat” its prolly the toughest training in finnish army.
It's same shoes in summer and winter, only wear some (more) wool socks in winter. Served in 2000 and always remember coming back from first free weekend, it was -36 C.
More on the maintenance part as someone who recently completed my service where the film was shot you constantly have to dry off your more delicate kit like weapons and radio equipment because the snow really wants to get into all those nooks and crannies.
I remember this one time where a teammate of mine had her rifle locked completely by the cold freezing the mechanics up after the snow and ice had melted inside the tent and re-froze in the morning again. An officer to beat the damn charging handle against a tree for a solid 10 seconds to get it work again. Will never forget that look the officer gave her, shit was priceless. :D
In cold weather everything comes down to the gear. On my Beret march Sleeping on snow on top of a yoga mat and covered with a wool blanket, when the temperature dropped down to -4 F was somewhat uncomfortable after we ran out of firewood. You would not be able to keep going like that for many weeks. With proper gear and good sleeping bags -22F and windy was unpleasant outside but much more enjoyable with sleep.
But the worst is wet spring snow in Lapland. When you are stomach deep in wet heavy snow and ankle deep in water,with leaking rubber boots, you know you are in hell.
The finnish service rifke RK 62 is based on the AK so during the winter you might as well just not lube it, because most likely it'll still run just fine.
Seeing the place where I served my conscription makes me really proud. Thanks for this! :)
yeah it was fun during the winter. When I was a squad leader during my service and having an exercise in the arctic and we had american and russian observers they always wondered how in hell we managed to keep water liquid in those temperatures and it was hard to explain as those things are normal for us but not for most :D
guy at 0:08 has the best and worst task in the group... i know, its a love-hate relationship with that damn PKM. Especially in during winter
In WWII they used to improvise a snow camouflage by taking slack lime and water and forming a “slurry”. Then they would take paint brushes and brush on the slurry directly onto the vehicles sides and top. When it dried the vehicles turned from green to a whitish color and it could be easily removed if needed but was durable enough for some time. I served in the Corps and did a few deployments to Iraq with 1st LAR BN (41 Las Flores on Camp Pendleton). Some of the other LAR BN’s had desert painted tan vehicles but almost our entire BN (when we took our own vehicles instead of just using the previous BN’s vehicles when they rotated home). Anyway… all our vehicles had forest green camo paint schemes and a version of the white wash technique was to take paint rolllers like you would use for house painting and then coat them in some POL (usually differential oil or engine oil or whatever). When the oil was applied we would just take regular sand and throw handfuls of it on the oil vehicle and a lot of the dry sand would adhere to the vehicles turning them a brownish color. Same with the lime wash… with some hot soapy water you could clean them back to being green. Just figured I share. Maybe some young devil might find the info useful some day. Semper Fi.
I remember serving in Jaeger Brigade II/13 and at TJ0 in the middle of June it snowed :D good times
Lots of great stuff in the comments, but so far I have not seen anyone comment on the things that stuck to me the most while I did my year in the FDF. The everyday basic survival stuff such as keeping all your water canteens next to your skin under all the clothing to keep them from freezing over and choosing a spot for them where they wouldn't break your ribs when you went to ground or otherwise hinder movement. For me that place was right above my hips a little closer to my back than my front. I remember seeing my silhouette one day and thinking "Oh, a baby whale with legs, how cute."
Another thing was that using tent pegs was a pain in the ass, firstly to strike them into the frozen, often also rocky, ground was not ideal, getting them out once they were frozen stuck was an even bigger pain in the buttocks. So instead we gathered branches strong enough to serve as pegs placed them upright on the ground, piled snow over half of it and sprinkled water on them, in like 5 minutes it was frozen stuck well enough to support our tent after which we tied the rope around it as usual. When we would leave the place we wouldn't need to free them from the solid ice, since who would care about a bunch of twigs left behind, but leaving FDF issued tent pegs would obviously have been a no no. Although we could only do it in places where we were told that not leaving evidence of our presence behind was not a priority (these places were way too few as far as we were concerned), in other places a circle of upright branches with conspicuous snow domes around each of them would have been as bad as leaving the tent pegs.
The reason why you dont hear much about it, is probably because we are so used to these conditions in scandinavia, so we dont even mention it. Which actually is a little funny by it self. 😄
Finnish army look awesome nice kit
Again great video bro. I served a year in the Jaeger Brigade 120mm mortar company as a mortar team leader. Are we having a little thing for Finland? :D You should come and visit!
Eli siis tykkimies? Tai siis alikersantti vaiko vänrikki? Kuitenkin, tykistöä
@@Zardagbum Epäsuora tuli tappaa.
Raskaskaan heitin ei ole tykistöä.
@@juhanisirkia3618 Joo, ei ole. Tietäjät tietää.
This video came to my recommended videos just now. When I am in the middle of my military training in this very same prigade
Secret: Layered clothing. You wear three sets of underwear, for instance.
layered clothing indeed. but you dont want to screw that up and sweat in some areas of the body :p
@@Frog89mad The real benefit of layered clothing is that you can remove layers as necessary. Meaning, you put on lots of clothes if you are just standing around mainly, but if you know you are about to do something heavy you take off a layer or two and thus you won't immediately heat up and start sweating like crazy.
lots of love from finland!
Im currently in service in this jaeger brigade
Nyt se OPSEC kuntoon! :D
@@nikanor8152 XD
Zemppiä mies! T: Uudjp/1Jk/PST- 1980:)
@Jim Neville kyllä ite olen tyytyväinen ollu. Jos haluat rankkaa hommaa niin hae 1jk sieltä sitte valmiusyksikköön ja rennoimmat hommat on tuki ja huoltokomppaniassa
Must be tough training all the way up in the arctic circle
Just because it's dark doesn't mean it's night. In midwinter that far north you only get a few hours of light.
The Finns are not to be messed with, especially in winter conditions.
You could check out the older "Taistelukenttä" version from 1998. It has a darker tone than the new one since it is only meant to introduce new conscripts to the horrors of war. The video lacks subtitles but does not have much narration anyways. It can be found on the official Finnish Defence Forces channel.
During my basic training in coastal infantry platoon here in Finland, we were doing some coldwater training also. Not in freezing ice thou. Funny story comes to mind. One time we were doing ~20km march in the local forest and our platoon had 10min break almost end of the march at nearby natural spring lake. The platoon leader Lt. gave two options. Go around this lake (round 2 kilometers around) we were having the break, or go to swim on that water. Water temp was round +10...+15 degree celsius. So ruffly 2/3 decided to go around, since 1.5-2km isnt much (they thought) and the water was freaking cold. After the group left, the Lt. said "oh did I forget to tell you guys that in the military word "swimming" means you go to water and dip to your neck under and come out". So basically I was maybe 30seconds on that cold water and the 2/3 of platoon were actually doing in reality 4+km extra run in really ruff terrain. We propably were there 2 hours waiting them to get back and just chilling and enjoying the warm august weather. When group came back they were tired as f.. :D
one thing, if you are cold while waiting for the bus, you have to keep the puppy moving so that it does not come into your hands or feet, for example. Frost bites which at worst lead to amputation or the worst is death. That´s U learn in chidlhood if U live in Finland or similar place. And if you had to choose between snowshoes and skis, skis are definitely better.
Talvisota '98 survivor here. -35° to -42° degrees and 3 feet of snow with no proper winter gear.
Cool snow!😜 I grew up in northern Ontario. Keeping dry is the big thing. Sweat is an enemy but unavoidable at times.
Have you presented on the Arctic Rangers, Canada?
If you want to get a feel for winter warfair, find a solid piece of steel and stick it in the freezer over night. In the morning try to grab it in your hand for five minutes straight. Thats what having an assault rifle in the winter feels like ;) only the freezer is only -4C, but it can be way colder over the winter. Oh, please be aware of frostbites ;)
In winter you avoid sweat. It is important to have slower speed or you pay for it.
When I started my service (in the same Jager Brigade that's on the video) my winter boots (just wellingtons with a bit thicker sole) were a bit too small. Normally you fit this felt sock in the boot, but mine didn't fit. I had to wear two pairs of woolen socks, some chemical warming pads and newspaper. Even in - 22°F I didn't get cold. Newspaper is awesome insulator. I learned a lot of neat tricks to keep yourself warm in cold conditions.
We actually have Americans come to Jager Brigade almost every year for Arctic warfare training.
Loving all the videos, you should watch sas survival secrets behind enemy lines, Eddie stone is one of a kind
I always envy their gear when I'm watching Finnish Combat Camera. They are sooooo much better than we had in the eighties when I served :)
Most important thing is stay warm and dry. When you move and sweat you need to take few layers of clothing off and while staying still add more cloths.
Did my basic in winter in Manitoba Canada , -35 much respect to the Finns
Dude, you seems to love Finland. You should visit here like the Forgotten Weapons guy :)
You should definitely check out royal marine commandos arctic warfare training in Norway. The ice breaker worst thing I ever put my body through.
I like these types of videos because I get to learn about more military and I also love watch you so its a good combination for me!
FINLAND IS WORLD BEST PLACE TO LIVE🇫🇮❤️❤️❤️❤️
I was at the AA regiment in Rovaniemi myself for 11 months (sergeant) and our boot camp was at -36 degrees Celsius. We had hourly rotating shifts for the "kipinämikko" which was basically the guy who was responsible for heat in the tent while everyone else slept. You can imagine what sort of a reaction video it made when the guy fell asleep on the job. 😄
At least you AA guys had a tent.
Really fun to be in military in the winter. -30C and we slept in tent. Stove made it bearable but when guy who suppose to add wood falls asleep during his turn...
3:40 well in the winter the most of time is dark at least here in Finland. So it is just one short time in the day when it is bright ;)
IT wasn't a Viking. It was Finnish manufactured Sisu NA-110 which has nickname "Nasu". Nasu in Finnish is the friend of Winnie the pooh, the little pink piglet, she/he is "Nasu".