There were actually a few British volunteers in the Winter War. Sir Christopher Lee was among them as a young lad with a bunch of his school mates. They didn't end up doing much due to recruitment having been fairly late and only a handful of them making it to Finland before the end of the war and none reaching the front.
@@captainswoop8722 He volounteered as an ambulance driver and actually made it to Finland but didn't reach the front until the war was over. That's about it.
@@captainswoop8722 The early stories in his autobiography are fairly sensible and can be backed up. Once you get to LOTR era when there were fewer living witnesses and he turned into 'THE LEGEND' then he definitely let the myth making get the better of him. On the other hand there was always a basis of truth with a lot of hints and letting the audience fill in their own stories in the blanks.
Another type of mitten used in the Winter War was a wool mitten with a small hole on the side. The idea being that when you need to use a rifle, your trigger finger can come out from the hole and you can operate your rifle much easier even while wearing mittens. I know these things existed because I have spoken to old people who, when they were kids during the war, were making these in the homefront to be shipped to the soldiers. It probably wasn't the most practical idea to be honest. Another thing worth mentioning about Finnish uniforms during the Winter War is the "Model Cajander" uniform. It consists of the following items: A belt, a cockade (basically a pin with the colours of the Finnish flag, which is attached to military hats) and rags for your feet (Rather than socks, Finnish soldiers would wrap a piece of cloth around their feet to be worn inside the boots. This continued for decades and Russian military also did the same rather than issue socks for a very long time.) ...And that's it. No other types of clothing was involved with the Model Cajander. The name comes from defense minister Cajander who cut down military funding and bragged about this being a good choice since Finland hadn't bought equipment that would later have to be thrown away for being outdated. All this also meant that there weren't enough uniforms for the majority of the army once the reserves were called in. So soldiers got their foot rags, their belt and their cockade and otherwise just kept wearing their civilian clothes while assembling and heading to the front lines. Many of the early pictures of Finnish soldiers have them wearing civilian clothes under their snow suit. Granted that when the war started, the government immediately ordered all large tailoring companies to start producing uniforms and eventually these were shipped to the front lines, but because of the delay, civilians in particular got the impression that most soldiers fought the war without a uniform.
The Soviets and Russians continued using jack-boots and rags all the way through the collapse of the Soviet Union and onwards. And for a good reason: they may be hot AF in summer, but otherwise incredibly practical.
@@emperorspock3506 The rags take a bit of training before you learn how to put them on the proper way. If you figure it out, they are better than socks, if you don't figure it out, your feet are going to be bleeding soon. So the people who have used the rags a lot, usually prefer them to socks, the ones who had trouble with them and gave up on them have bad memories only.
Your description reminds me of even older (much older) mail mittens. They had a slit in the palm so the wearer could take their hand out of the mitten and do things they needed fingers for. May very well be where the idea came from.
@@kanrakucheese That is exactely the design we had over 20 years ago still in the austrian army for the "over mittens". They were a mixture of canvas and wool, and the one for the right hand had a slit in the palm and part of a snap fastener on the back of the middle finger while the other part was on the back of the hand. So you could slide your fingers out and snap the mitten part in place. (Although our standard rifle could be operated with the mittens anyway) The normal wool gloves were partially mittens (for middle finger to pinky) and finger gloves (for index and thumb).
Finns were just OK with plain belt, hanging Mosin pouches or Suomi SMG drum or 2. Ofcourse as country boys carrying backpack was natural. Boys dropped their backpacks to supply train when going to combat. Average Finn loadout in combat was even lighter than Aussie one... Nothing but gun and ammo. Maybe 200 grams of dry bread in breadbag. You had to prepare seriously surviving the nights during winter. No need to burden troops in combat with useless shit. "Self sufficiency" with personal equipment just dont work, it will get men dying. Fighting in daytime, and supply train followed really closely to get men through next night in freeze. Fighting in boreal forest during winter is an team effort. 1 echelon fights 2 echelon makes pea soup, piping hot coffee and prepares night lager
The swedes actually sold sheepfur jackets quite similar to that french one to the freezing germans in finnish lappland. In the one recording of Hitler in normal conversation he actually admitts to Mannerheim that the german gear is summer gear (as a exuse to why they got bogged down in russia, atacking russia without winter gear)
Even extreme temperatures are fine with a couple pairs of wool socks and the kind of heavy rubber boots with thick, removable felt liners that the finnish army uses nowadays. Ive only tried about -34°C though.
A distant uncle of mine, who was a captain in the Polish cavalry, served as the officier adjoint (deputy/assistant officer?) in the 2ème demi-brigade of the Brigade autonome de chasseurs de Podhale. It's fascinating to see the kind of kit he and his comrades would've carried in the Norwegian campaign. Most of the pictures taken in France in 1940 show the soldiers training with Berthier long rifles, so I'm not at all surprised to hear they were given MAS 36s at the last moment. I wonder what kind of sidearm my uncle was issued, a 1935A pistol perhaps?
Could also have been a Ruby. The French army was also actually surprisingly lax as to what pistols officers could carry all the way into the 1990s. As long as they could justify it they could pretty much buy anything privately.
Podhale if I'm not wrong means mountain trooper, so it surprises me that a cavalry unit could be called and ostensibky outfitted as such. Was this to do with the disarray Polish exile units were in when they reached France, or was there a particular reason that a cav unit ended up perpetuating the lineage of mountain infantry?
@@coryhall7074 Most of the personnel drafted into Polish formations in France were pre-war expats who resided in Western Europe, but there was a sizeable group of Polish soldiers who had escaped the country in September of 1939. My uncle was among the latter - he travelled through Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy (this was 1939, Mussolini hadn't declared war on the Allies yet) to France. He was a cavalry officer during the defense against the Reich, but because no new mounted units were created for the Poles in France he got assigned to a mountain infantry regiment (probably because he had combat experience against the Germans). Btw, Podhale is a region in Poland on the northern side of the Tatra mountain range. Each of the three sub-branches of the land forces of the 2nd Polish Republic (infantry, artillery and cavalry) had distinct military ranks. In the cavalry the equivalent rank to an infantry captain (kapitan) was Rittmeister (rotmistrz, I don't believe there's an equivalent English term). The French land forces had no such distinctions, so instead of translating "rotmistrz" to French they simply described my uncle's rank as "captain of the cavalry".
Ian is actually representing a lucky finn. Not all got a full uniform and a cartridge pouch. Many had to do with a cap and a belt and a snow tunic. Even late in the continuation war many acounts talk about reloading from the tunic pockets and carrying the bulk of the ammunition in the rucksack. Many did not even get jackboots. They had either jackboot style beak boots better for skiing, lappish style low beak boots with a short legwrap or their private backpacking/ski boots. If it got really cold the finns exchanged the wool cap for the iconic rabbit fur cap, The one the russians copied and turned into the ushanka. That three layer glove system is stil whats recomended for winter backpacking and i think the swedish army still does it that way. The outer gloves are usually on lanyards around the wrists to not get lost when whipped of in the heat of the action.
@@TheSuspectOnFoot Definitley. And if finland was anything like swedish Norrland a great deal had at one point or another worked in the forest. Sking from tree to tree to fell trees and sleping in rudimentiary huts, some of the korsu ive seen look like hotels in comparison.
@@TheSuspectOnFoot and cotton padded jackets is good untill you start sweating or the temperature rises over zero a few hours. Wool is king if spending more than a day in snow and cold humid weather.
@@TheSuspectOnFoot Yep. Finns did not look sharp even at winter 1941 when they had to pick up their comrades in arms from their foxholes and haul them half frozen to warmth of fresh fires which Germans did not dare to fire up at -30 nights. At - 30 no-one cares what you are wearing. :D Everyone has their own personal sphere of hurt.
Some parts of YT are just great...not these beauty crap and so on but history: watching a video from kings and Generals about the Winter War you swoop over to this video and have a look at how these guys were running around. I just love it!
Gotta say that the french had some really good ideas with their gear. As for the finns, well, just shows how terribly supplied the troops were, how terribly supplied the whole army was... and still, somehow, they did what they did.
The "Spirit" of the nation of Finland proved to be more critically important then the equipment the Finnish forces had. As Historians have discovered looking into this era, that the Interwar Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Military forces were said to be in some ways better equipped than Finland's Military. Yet the naive and shortsighted political leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania made the Big fatal mistake to just give up and in to every Soviet terroristic demand which the ending result was the destroying/ending of their Independence with a humiliating capitulation without any officially fighting resistance to the illegal brutal Soviet takeover and occupation. Then the Soviet Crimes against Humanity started with the disarming of their populations ,confiscation of Privately Owned Firearms, Torture, mass Murder, deportionions to Soviet Death Camps etc. At least Finland fought and thus maintained it's Independence saving it's people from Soviet Terrorism, Crimes Against Humanity. Albit with Soviet interference showing the world that they want to be an Independent country.
Finnish troops tended to get issued very little in terms of pouches. Mainly the rifle pouches seen here and many found them to be more of a hindrance than actual help especially when using gloves. It was more common to just stuff your pockets with stripper clips and then use of the issue bread bag to carry ammunition was universal for the whole WW2 era. My grandfather was a signals man in the continuation war and he told me that he used the rifle pouches to carry his wire cutters, other tools etc but not for rifle ammo because they were so slow to use. He always had his tunic pockets stuffed with stripper clips and more in the bread bag. Our main hand grenade was the German style potato masher so those were easy to tuck under the belt or in your boot and required no pouches. Suomi SMG gunners were never issued any kind of pouches and were expected to carry the clips and drums suspended from individual leather straps which was just as nightmarish as it sounds but it was done and can commonly be seen in pictures. Again most used the bread bag. I remember seeing at least one picture where a captured PPSh drum pouch was used but this must have been very rare as the weapon was not very commonly captured during the attack phase in '41 and the pouches were even rarer at that time. The clip "sack" for the LS26 LMG is probably one of the worst clip pouches of all time as nicely chronicled on the Varusteleka page. DP26 drum containers were not used all that much either because they were very noisy so it was either the bread bag or the LS26 shit sack again.
Best comment! Is it not funny that the one time Ian can be bothered about using cartridge pouches he would be more period correct to just stuff the ammo in his pockets like he usually does.
The hard part about dressing for winter is not getting too hot. For static operations you want lots of layers, so you can peal them off when you get active. The US ECWS system is pretty practical for that kind of thing. Really, when your hands are cold, simple is better. Sweat might be the biggest enemy, even with the wool. Double socks can lead to sweaty feet pretty quick.
My grandfather defended Norway on the mountains in Narvik. He escorted supplies and ducked behind rocks as planes tried to strafe the trains. Not sure if he saw action at the very front, but he certainly saw enough action to not want to talk about it his entire life. I only got a few tidbits out of him, like the sound of a bullet hitting the bog: He lit a match, and dropped in a glass of water, and said to me, "That's the sound of a bullet going into the bog." The saddest thing he saw was a passenger ship sinking in the fjord outside Narvik. He was standing helplessly on the shore, while people drowned next to the ship. The last thing he saw was the Norwegian flag sink into the water and then everything went quiet. The allies had a few successes and beat back some crack Nazi mountain troops, but eventually they had to leave for bigger fish and then Norway had to capitulate.
I have to say the French kit seems to be the best, better looser fitting for cold weather and more physical activity. Just having a hood makes a huge improvement in the wind when it's -20C of below outside.
We no longer have the leather jackboots. But the legacy is continuing with the heavy winter rubberboots with detachable felt liners. They are a bit heavy and clunky, but work very well. Some guys fool around with combat boots and claim that those are as good (of course they are utterly wrong ;)) . Great vud, really enjoyed This!
I was fortunate to get 2 pairs of brand new condition Finnish Army Jackboots from Varusteleka. Too bad politics, " Political Imigery: has taken over effective Military fashion designs. As a proper well designed Jack Boots offer way more protection to the wearer then the low lace up boots. A better alternative eould be a 17 inch tall isolated Miners Boot. I have brand new Nokia Ribber Boots I was issued inntge Estonian Army years ago. They are well made.
About Finnish army winter war equipment: Incorrect about the hat. That's a summer hat. Nobody used in the cold months of the year. Same as for underwear; since they had their own furry hats, they were used. For winter war equipment was scarce, army issued rifle, belt and cockade for hat. Snow suit does provide some heat insulation. It is somewhat wind proof and provides insulating air space. Also hood is very good in protecting face from wind (although blocks some hearing).
Navy Blue Battledress with gold buttons was issued to the Royal Navy officers as Working Dress, or 5A, uniform. It survived in service up in to the 80s for various 'working' roles for both ratings (navy blue plastic buttons) and officers.
Chappies uniform makes me really wish the war in France had gone differently, among other things of course. Goddamn, that uniform is so beautiful compared to the standard greatcoat. All it would need is a modified Adrian and a MAS 44/49 and you’ve got a uniform to rival anything the late War jerries wore.
Always interesting and never blather...you all provide interesting content, both singly on your own channels and when you get together and have these discussions 👍
When I was in the Norwegian Army it got -42 degrees Celsius at the garrison near Kirkenes. The MPs up there are hardcore fashionistas, so they refused to switch out of their red summer berets until ordered by the colonel. When everyone else had long since swithced to the BF winter hat (BF stands for BjørneFitte......) they changed to the regular summer hats, but with the flaps down. Those things, with the flaps down, are the silliest thing used by the Norwegian Army, so you could say there were a lot of smiling and laughing faces around when they marched past, but none of them belonged to the MP!
Actually there were enough snow suits or tunics for most finns. Some had to do the bed sheet thing, but that was a rarity. What was common was just having civilian clothing under the snow stuff.
Only in the Narvik campaign i think. If i remember correctly, the french and the polish at least had some of their troops being mountain trained troops, while the british didn't send those. So on the allied side around 24 k troops consisting of british, french, polish and norwegian soldiers, on the german side around 2500 (mostly austrian) mountain troops and around 2400 sailors from the german ships the royal navy sunk in the fjord and the harbour.
Let's be clear, the Anglo-French expedition to help Finland would have only been a token force even if it did ever happen. The real objective behind the whole idea was to seize the ports and mines in Norway and Sweden supplying Nazi Germany with iron ore and that's what Norway and Sweden were primarily concerned with rather than just provoking Germany. If the true objective was to help Finland the Allies could have done so regardless of Swedish or Norwegian co-operation by moving their troops through Petsamo, since Finland still actually had it's own link to the arctic sea back then.
Petsamo is right around the corner from Murmansk, the stomping ground of the Soviet Arctic Fleet... So I'm always skeptical of claims that it could feasibly have been used by the British and French navies.
Actually, with hindsight I should have used a historical map, having forgotten that Finland lost territory up on the Arctic sea, and made that point...
@@BlokeontheRange It certainly would have required a not insignificant naval commitment from the Royal Navy and French navy and direct combat with the Northern fleet to break the blockade around Petsamo. But the northern fleet was small and out of date, much like the rest of the Soviet navy and isolated without much possibility of reinforcement if engaged in force. I have no doubt the Royal navy could have crushed the Northern fleet if they wanted, even by themselves. And this sort of possibility must have come up in planning, but the Phoney war governments would have certainly been unwilling to commit to such an operation in defence of Finland, since that wasn't really a priority.
@@jonttul The Royal Navy was very active during the entire campagne playing a game of cat and mouse in the fjords with the German navy. Unfortunately once in open water they were at the mercy of the Luftwaffe as air superiority was never achieved.
I have a pistol holster like Mike has. Apparently a lot of them were found in a warehouse in Brooklyn some years ago. Cost me 50 bucks Cdn. It's stamped 1944, the year of my birth oddly enough.
Goodness I'm in love with all of your kit, especially the British fatigues. It's frustrating though because surplus weapons and equipment have become so scarce and expensive where I live I saw three M39 mosins sell for 1400 a piece on gunbroker last week.
I don't know if the question was asked or if i missed an info on the video, but i really would like to know what is the type of smock Fab is wearing. And if the company who made it, still sell some of them. Best regards ! Great video btw, one of the best RUclips channel.
Blouson de chasseurs alpins. Made by a very skilled Ukrainian tailor. I was sceptical at first but I got the info from a reenactment group who had bought quite a few items and been very pleased with it. Not cheap but good quality. voin.zp.ua/index.php?route=product/product&path=72_84&product_id=1264
suprised we didn't get Ian in French kit. As for pistols tactically acquiring always works. 1911 could be a theoretical gun for Bloke given the RAF order.
god I love the french uniforms of WWII had they kept fighting in 1940 and had their industrial infrastructure I would of loved to seen how the uniforms progressed more towards the high alpine units.
Just watched the stripper club video on the NATO clips before this one. Didn't realize that the Swedish clips were so superior! Thanks for the great equipment segment.
A couple of feet of snow on the ground and "it wasn't that cold [in this finish brutality event] to feel too cold" and this southern California boy thinks oh my. I probably would have been the first Finish soldier to not only unbutton my hat but would wrap what ever I could find around my self.
Excellent report. A question: Would it be appropriate to use some kind of sunglasses for the solar reflection on the snow? I mean something that has been used in that period of time.
Yes, there were issue snow goggles, usually dark green plastic lenses. Unfortunately you can’t wear them over normal glasses otherwise I would have worn some. As far as continental patterns go, they seem to share the same basic design.
british and french: POCKETS POCKETS!!!!! POCKETS FOR ALL!!!! Finland: so here's a shirt and some pants and a pouch....... try not to freeze or make to much noise when you die.....
Suomalaisesta näkökulmasta mielenkiintoinen. Mahdollisen interventiojoukon varusteet talviolosuhteissa ja olisiko joukosta ollut käytännössä mihinkään.
Ian, no Puuko? According to a Finish officer I know, every Finnish soldier, even today, carries his own personal puuko as a belt knife. It is the only civilian item allowed to be worn with thr uniform.
I like Chaps pouches, I saw his video on making them👍 could they not be worn reversed that way give you centre access to the small pouches? Would these be useful for other calibers, .303, .308?
You could reverse them but this is the way they are intended to be worn and why the joining tab and stud are on one side only. They could easily fit any WW2 calibre clips.
I always wondered..did the Finnish "uniform" actually keep them warm? It looked pretty light for -20 to -50 below zero just the wool clothes with the white cape I thought they would need alittle more than that.
If you used an integral liner like on some helmet,you didn't really need big padding. But a coif or even a hood seem to have been fairly common and fullfilled the same purpose.
If the UK and sowjets were "inofficially at war" how would he explain that when the germans airraided the HQ of Tito and his partisans that they also raided US, UK and sowjet trainingcamps/radio stations? The sowjets even trained political comissars there. It would be also interesting to hear of the alledged Churchill Stalin pact the source for which is supposedly in Erkki Hautamäki`s book "Finnland i stormes ögaa" that is only aviable in finnish. Would be interesting to hear from finnish people who can and have read it about it and the author as well.
It's one of the East German milsurp neck tubes. I bought it from Varusteleka ages ago, can't remember what the official name was, but they just continued with the WW2 style. They're actually great and I use mine a lot.
On most pictures of winter troops they either have jack boots (hopfully big enough for two pairs of home knitted socks or similar. Or traditional beak boots, either hig finnish jackboot style or the low type secured with legwraps, similar to the sami beakboots but made from cowleather wich also were common in northern Sweden among the setteled population. I think i have seen some with sami style reinder fur boots wich are even better in cold but dont handle thaw and heavy wear good. The both last types were in old times stuffed with a special straw filling wich aparantly gives exelent isolation but i dont know if that was done during the war. I know that the Swedish army and i think the Germans had felt overshoes but i dont know if the fins had.
I'm glad to hear the historic truth. That both the Soviets and Nazis were Allies at first with the signing of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. Here is an overlooked history lesson. The inter war Republic of Estonia had a formally secretive Defense cooperation agreement treaty with Finland. Basically to block off the Finnish Gulf from any Soviet Russian aggression. With Heavy costal Artillery Guns and submarines. Estonia purchased 2 Submarines from the British firm Vickers in 1936. Sadly due to the flaws of being an oppressed slave people for over 700 years such has had a deep negative impact on the Estonian psyche and thus effected the Estonian government who betrayed our northern Finnish brothers and sisters in reguards with fufilling the obligations of the joint Estonian/ Finnish Mutual Defense Agreement. The inexcusable cowardly disgusting self destructive actions of the Estonian government Leadership side in cowardly caving into Soviet terroristic demands to include dismanteling, destroying our own government and Not resisting the illegal Soviet invasion, occupation and annexation of Estonia by the Soviet Union empire in 1940. Such caused a feeling of despair wrong amongst the Estonian people. That was a major contributing factor reason of why thousands of Estonian men voluntarily joined the Finnish Military including my father to make up for the cowardly disgraceful misrakes by the Estonian government leaders. BTW, Varusteleka is awesome. As a Veteran of both the USA and Estonia I got some excellent surplus Kit. Brand New Finnish Army Jackboots etc. Way to go Varusteleka! Your shipping prices to America are often lesser than American companies like SMG! I urge everyone to do business with Varusteleka you won't be disappointed. Their Customer care along with theit products are excellent. The French Army kit has allot of practicalicity to it. Evebbtiday French Army Kit is outstanding. Too bad the Inter War Baltic nations ( Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian ) Soldiers combat uniforms are not eidely available for testing. I have a photo of my father wearing an Estonian Conscript uniform in 1940 with exceptional loiking Jack boots which looks like high quality Officer Jackboots with an ankle strap and upper strap for securing the boot. Great video series way to go safe Journeys to all involved!
There were no nazi's, members of the NSDAP never referred to themselves as that slur, nor do tea party members refer to themselves as tea baggers but guess what tribe of (goblins) came up with those slurs.
Ian likely has all the .32 French Long he could want, Starline has been selling brass and Steinel has been making factory cartridges in the US for a while now. If anything, he's probably having an easier time getting hold of it than 9x19 at the moment...
2:39 _Not to be confused with the Dutch "High Alpine" troops which are a bunch of Dutch skiiers sitting at below sea level & smoking weed._
As a currently high Dutchman; I approve
I guess they did not mean it, but if you get it they did it!
So a Fin, a Brit and a Frenchmen walk into a bar. This was a great video to see about the gear. All of your match videos was a joy to watch as well.
There were actually a few British volunteers in the Winter War. Sir Christopher Lee was among them as a young lad with a bunch of his school mates. They didn't end up doing much due to recruitment having been fairly late and only a handful of them making it to Finland before the end of the war and none reaching the front.
Treat anything concerning Christopher Lee and wartime escapades with a lot of caution.
@@captainswoop8722 He volounteered as an ambulance driver and actually made it to Finland but didn't reach the front until the war was over. That's about it.
@@captainswoop8722 The early stories in his autobiography are fairly sensible and can be backed up.
Once you get to LOTR era when there were fewer living witnesses and he turned into 'THE LEGEND' then he definitely let the myth making get the better of him.
On the other hand there was always a basis of truth with a lot of hints and letting the audience fill in their own stories in the blanks.
@@_malprivate2543 , later on He joined the Royal Air Force, and served during the rest of the second world war.
@@alexfogg381 Yeah. But he never went back to Finland during the war.
Another type of mitten used in the Winter War was a wool mitten with a small hole on the side. The idea being that when you need to use a rifle, your trigger finger can come out from the hole and you can operate your rifle much easier even while wearing mittens. I know these things existed because I have spoken to old people who, when they were kids during the war, were making these in the homefront to be shipped to the soldiers. It probably wasn't the most practical idea to be honest. Another thing worth mentioning about Finnish uniforms during the Winter War is the "Model Cajander" uniform. It consists of the following items: A belt, a cockade (basically a pin with the colours of the Finnish flag, which is attached to military hats) and rags for your feet (Rather than socks, Finnish soldiers would wrap a piece of cloth around their feet to be worn inside the boots. This continued for decades and Russian military also did the same rather than issue socks for a very long time.) ...And that's it. No other types of clothing was involved with the Model Cajander. The name comes from defense minister Cajander who cut down military funding and bragged about this being a good choice since Finland hadn't bought equipment that would later have to be thrown away for being outdated. All this also meant that there weren't enough uniforms for the majority of the army once the reserves were called in. So soldiers got their foot rags, their belt and their cockade and otherwise just kept wearing their civilian clothes while assembling and heading to the front lines. Many of the early pictures of Finnish soldiers have them wearing civilian clothes under their snow suit. Granted that when the war started, the government immediately ordered all large tailoring companies to start producing uniforms and eventually these were shipped to the front lines, but because of the delay, civilians in particular got the impression that most soldiers fought the war without a uniform.
The Soviets and Russians continued using jack-boots and rags all the way through the collapse of the Soviet Union and onwards. And for a good reason: they may be hot AF in summer, but otherwise incredibly practical.
@@emperorspock3506 The rags take a bit of training before you learn how to put them on the proper way. If you figure it out, they are better than socks, if you don't figure it out, your feet are going to be bleeding soon. So the people who have used the rags a lot, usually prefer them to socks, the ones who had trouble with them and gave up on them have bad memories only.
Your description reminds me of even older (much older) mail mittens. They had a slit in the palm so the wearer could take their hand out of the mitten and do things they needed fingers for. May very well be where the idea came from.
Believe the germans did it also
@@kanrakucheese That is exactely the design we had over 20 years ago still in the austrian army for the "over mittens". They were a mixture of canvas and wool, and the one for the right hand had a slit in the palm and part of a snap fastener on the back of the middle finger while the other part was on the back of the hand. So you could slide your fingers out and snap the mitten part in place. (Although our standard rifle could be operated with the mittens anyway)
The normal wool gloves were partially mittens (for middle finger to pinky) and finger gloves (for index and thumb).
Did anyone else get a "Four Yorkshiremen" vibe from Ian's section?
"You had pouches? You were lucky!"
Finns were just OK with plain belt, hanging Mosin pouches or Suomi SMG drum or 2.
Ofcourse as country boys carrying backpack was natural.
Boys dropped their backpacks to supply train when going to combat.
Average Finn loadout in combat was even lighter than Aussie one... Nothing but gun and ammo. Maybe 200 grams of dry bread in breadbag.
You had to prepare seriously surviving the nights during winter. No need to burden troops in combat with useless shit. "Self sufficiency" with personal equipment just dont work, it will get men dying. Fighting in daytime, and supply train followed really closely to get men through next night in freeze.
Fighting in boreal forest during winter is an team effort.
1 echelon fights
2 echelon makes pea soup, piping hot coffee and prepares night lager
There's nothing like wearing half a cow and a blanket to keep the wind out
Yeah but with all on, that it does end up as a bit of a pantomime performance ;)
The swedes actually sold sheepfur jackets quite similar to that french one to the freezing germans in finnish lappland. In the one recording of Hitler in normal conversation he actually admitts to Mannerheim that the german gear is summer gear (as a exuse to why they got bogged down in russia, atacking russia without winter gear)
So what have we learned?
1: The Chap has tight leathery flaps
2: The Bloke has loose floppy flaps
3: Gun Jesus - will it strip? YES
-43°c is the coldest I've been in. The trees split and cracked when the sun rose eerily. My feet were not happy. I can relate.
-20°c is bad enough for me
Even extreme temperatures are fine with a couple pairs of wool socks and the kind of heavy rubber boots with thick, removable felt liners that the finnish army uses nowadays. Ive only tried about -34°C though.
Chap's jacket is pretty modern looking for the time, imo.
Oh, indeed it is.
In Finnish military those heavy mittens are called "no can do". Because you can't.
Yeah, the Finnish military has funny nicknames for a lot of things. "pikkumustat" comes to mind.
@@Spude_GG smurffipuku, släbärit, arjen harmaat,
"Noukkarit"
People talk about the Germans having great fashion sense but that French uniform looks brilliant!
Yeah, I don’t think they get enough credit.
Nothing beats the British tummy jacket in my opinion.
Ian with his overwhite pants down, pointing in the direction of Bloke’s nethers is going to become a meme.
You 3 gentlemen are a gift to the firearms community and are so inspiring with the history lessons as well. Thank you for such a great video.
This is badass, I love every single thing you all do and I hope you had and have a great time
A distant uncle of mine, who was a captain in the Polish cavalry, served as the officier adjoint (deputy/assistant officer?) in the 2ème demi-brigade of the Brigade autonome de chasseurs de Podhale. It's fascinating to see the kind of kit he and his comrades would've carried in the Norwegian campaign. Most of the pictures taken in France in 1940 show the soldiers training with Berthier long rifles, so I'm not at all surprised to hear they were given MAS 36s at the last moment. I wonder what kind of sidearm my uncle was issued, a 1935A pistol perhaps?
Could also have been a Ruby. The French army was also actually surprisingly lax as to what pistols officers could carry all the way into the 1990s. As long as they could justify it they could pretty much buy anything privately.
@@thebotrchap Guess so. Officers' sidearms weren't a priority anyway, so a Ruby would make perfect sense.
Podhale if I'm not wrong means mountain trooper, so it surprises me that a cavalry unit could be called and ostensibky outfitted as such. Was this to do with the disarray Polish exile units were in when they reached France, or was there a particular reason that a cav unit ended up perpetuating the lineage of mountain infantry?
@@coryhall7074 Most of the personnel drafted into Polish formations in France were pre-war expats who resided in Western Europe, but there was a sizeable group of Polish soldiers who had escaped the country in September of 1939. My uncle was among the latter - he travelled through Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy (this was 1939, Mussolini hadn't declared war on the Allies yet) to France. He was a cavalry officer during the defense against the Reich, but because no new mounted units were created for the Poles in France he got assigned to a mountain infantry regiment (probably because he had combat experience against the Germans). Btw, Podhale is a region in Poland on the northern side of the Tatra mountain range.
Each of the three sub-branches of the land forces of the 2nd Polish Republic (infantry, artillery and cavalry) had distinct military ranks. In the cavalry the equivalent rank to an infantry captain (kapitan) was Rittmeister (rotmistrz, I don't believe there's an equivalent English term). The French land forces had no such distinctions, so instead of translating "rotmistrz" to French they simply described my uncle's rank as "captain of the cavalry".
@@FireflyActual That's a splendidly comprehensive answer, thanks! So what became of your mountain cavalryman uncle?
BoTR and Chap standing there enthralled as Ian talks with his trousers around his ankles ... the stuff of nightmares ?
Ian is actually representing a lucky finn. Not all got a full uniform and a cartridge pouch. Many had to do with a cap and a belt and a snow tunic. Even late in the continuation war many acounts talk about reloading from the tunic pockets and carrying the bulk of the ammunition in the rucksack.
Many did not even get jackboots. They had either jackboot style beak boots better for skiing, lappish style low beak boots with a short legwrap or their private backpacking/ski boots.
If it got really cold the finns exchanged the wool cap for the iconic rabbit fur cap, The one the russians copied and turned into the ushanka.
That three layer glove system is stil whats recomended for winter backpacking and i think the swedish army still does it that way. The outer gloves are usually on lanyards around the wrists to not get lost when whipped of in the heat of the action.
Back then the country was so dominantly agri-cultural that most had better civilian winter clothing than what the Soviet army issued to its' troops
@@TheSuspectOnFoot Definitley. And if finland was anything like swedish Norrland a great deal had at one point or another worked in the forest. Sking from tree to tree to fell trees and sleping in rudimentiary huts, some of the korsu ive seen look like hotels in comparison.
@@TheSuspectOnFoot and cotton padded jackets is good untill you start sweating or the temperature rises over zero a few hours. Wool is king if spending more than a day in snow and cold humid weather.
@@TheSuspectOnFoot Yep. Finns did not look sharp even at winter 1941 when they had to pick up their comrades in arms from their foxholes and haul them half frozen to warmth of fresh fires which Germans did not dare to fire up at -30 nights.
At - 30 no-one cares what you are wearing. :D Everyone has their own personal sphere of hurt.
Some parts of YT are just great...not these beauty crap and so on but history: watching a video from kings and Generals about the Winter War you swoop over to this video and have a look at how these guys were running around. I just love it!
One thing Ian is missing is Finnish knife: Puukko! Everyman had one on their side when push came to shove and close quarter combat was needed.
Gotta say that the french had some really good ideas with their gear.
As for the finns, well, just shows how terribly supplied the troops were, how terribly supplied the whole army was... and still, somehow, they did what they did.
The "Spirit" of the nation of Finland proved to be more critically important then the equipment the Finnish forces had.
As Historians have discovered looking into this era, that the Interwar Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Military forces were said to be in some ways better equipped than Finland's Military.
Yet the naive and shortsighted political leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania made the Big fatal mistake to just give up and
in to every Soviet terroristic demand which the ending result was the destroying/ending of their Independence with a humiliating capitulation without any officially fighting resistance to the illegal brutal Soviet takeover and occupation.
Then the Soviet Crimes against Humanity started with the disarming of their populations ,confiscation of Privately Owned Firearms, Torture, mass Murder, deportionions to Soviet Death Camps etc.
At least Finland fought and thus maintained it's Independence saving it's people from Soviet Terrorism, Crimes Against Humanity.
Albit with Soviet interference showing the world that they want to be an Independent country.
Continentals just dont get how big and loose winter boots have to bee to prevent frostbite.
"No tie?!" Lol
I'd like to see a Chap video where he goes through the full "what if" French post war gear that he mentioned
Finnish troops tended to get issued very little in terms of pouches. Mainly the rifle pouches seen here and many found them to be more of a hindrance than actual help especially when using gloves. It was more common to just stuff your pockets with stripper clips and then use of the issue bread bag to carry ammunition was universal for the whole WW2 era. My grandfather was a signals man in the continuation war and he told me that he used the rifle pouches to carry his wire cutters, other tools etc but not for rifle ammo because they were so slow to use. He always had his tunic pockets stuffed with stripper clips and more in the bread bag. Our main hand grenade was the German style potato masher so those were easy to tuck under the belt or in your boot and required no pouches.
Suomi SMG gunners were never issued any kind of pouches and were expected to carry the clips and drums suspended from individual leather straps which was just as nightmarish as it sounds but it was done and can commonly be seen in pictures. Again most used the bread bag. I remember seeing at least one picture where a captured PPSh drum pouch was used but this must have been very rare as the weapon was not very commonly captured during the attack phase in '41 and the pouches were even rarer at that time.
The clip "sack" for the LS26 LMG is probably one of the worst clip pouches of all time as nicely chronicled on the Varusteleka page. DP26 drum containers were not used all that much either because they were very noisy so it was either the bread bag or the LS26 shit sack again.
Best comment! Is it not funny that the one time Ian can be bothered about using cartridge pouches he would be more period correct to just stuff the ammo in his pockets like he usually does.
@@borjesvensson8661 That is actually quite funny.
British brutality, after firing every other shot, must deposit Bren gun mag in defined position
A finnish mosin would be my prized possession
The hard part about dressing for winter is not getting too hot. For static operations you want lots of layers, so you can peal them off when you get active. The US ECWS system is pretty practical for that kind of thing.
Really, when your hands are cold, simple is better.
Sweat might be the biggest enemy, even with the wool.
Double socks can lead to sweaty feet pretty quick.
My grandfather defended Norway on the mountains in Narvik. He escorted supplies and ducked behind rocks as planes tried to strafe the trains. Not sure if he saw action at the very front, but he certainly saw enough action to not want to talk about it his entire life. I only got a few tidbits out of him, like the sound of a bullet hitting the bog: He lit a match, and dropped in a glass of water, and said to me, "That's the sound of a bullet going into the bog." The saddest thing he saw was a passenger ship sinking in the fjord outside Narvik. He was standing helplessly on the shore, while people drowned next to the ship. The last thing he saw was the Norwegian flag sink into the water and then everything went quiet. The allies had a few successes and beat back some crack Nazi mountain troops, but eventually they had to leave for bigger fish and then Norway had to capitulate.
Excellent examples of practical research in historical fields. First rate!
Girls: "omg let's play dress up and role play!
Me and the Boys:
Excellent good to explore kit with a bit of use in the right environment
Great content. Exactly the type of videos i enjoy.
I have to say the French kit seems to be the best, better looser fitting for cold weather and more physical activity. Just having a hood makes a huge improvement in the wind when it's -20C of below outside.
Fab looks like a Maroccan soldier in WW2, fighting for the Allies in Europe.
We no longer have the leather jackboots. But the legacy is continuing with the heavy winter rubberboots with detachable felt liners. They are a bit heavy and clunky, but work very well. Some guys fool around with combat boots and claim that those are as good (of course they are utterly wrong ;)) .
Great vud, really enjoyed This!
I was fortunate to get 2 pairs of brand new condition Finnish Army Jackboots from Varusteleka. Too bad politics, " Political Imigery:
has taken over effective Military fashion designs. As a proper well designed Jack Boots offer way more protection to the wearer then the low lace up boots.
A better alternative eould be a 17 inch tall isolated Miners Boot.
I have brand new Nokia Ribber Boots I was issued inntge Estonian Army years ago. They are well made.
About Finnish army winter war equipment: Incorrect about the hat. That's a summer hat. Nobody used in the cold months of the year. Same as for underwear; since they had their own furry hats, they were used. For winter war equipment was scarce, army issued rifle, belt and cockade for hat.
Snow suit does provide some heat insulation. It is somewhat wind proof and provides insulating air space. Also hood is very good in protecting face from wind (although blocks some hearing).
I found this very interesting, equipment is often more important then the gun ;)
Navy Blue Battledress with gold buttons was issued to the Royal Navy officers as Working Dress, or 5A, uniform. It survived in service up in to the 80s for various 'working' roles for both ratings (navy blue plastic buttons) and officers.
Chappies uniform makes me really wish the war in France had gone differently, among other things of course. Goddamn, that uniform is so beautiful compared to the standard greatcoat. All it would need is a modified Adrian and a MAS 44/49 and you’ve got a uniform to rival anything the late War jerries wore.
Always interesting and never blather...you all provide interesting content, both singly on your own channels and when you get together and have these discussions 👍
feels like someone is missing XD So glad you guys could make it over there :)
Ian won this stage in my opinion.
every one else with their cool kit and pounches and us fins the most tactical tool a belt
When I was in the Norwegian Army it got -42 degrees Celsius at the garrison near Kirkenes. The MPs up there are hardcore fashionistas, so they refused to switch out of their red summer berets until ordered by the colonel. When everyone else had long since swithced to the BF winter hat (BF stands for BjørneFitte......) they changed to the regular summer hats, but with the flaps down. Those things, with the flaps down, are the silliest thing used by the Norwegian Army, so you could say there were a lot of smiling and laughing faces around when they marched past, but none of them belonged to the MP!
Look at those farb post war mosin pouches Ian is using.
Actually there were enough snow suits or tunics for most finns. Some had to do the bed sheet thing, but that was a rarity. What was common was just having civilian clothing under the snow stuff.
My feet are getting cold...Thanks for the history lesson as well. I didn't know French and Polish troops fought in Norway.
Only in the Narvik campaign i think. If i remember correctly, the french and the polish at least had some of their troops being mountain trained troops, while the british didn't send those. So on the allied side around 24 k troops consisting of british, french, polish and norwegian soldiers, on the german side around 2500 (mostly austrian) mountain troops and around 2400 sailors from the german ships the royal navy sunk in the fjord and the harbour.
@@nirfz Thank you!
Let's be clear, the Anglo-French expedition to help Finland would have only been a token force even if it did ever happen. The real objective behind the whole idea was to seize the ports and mines in Norway and Sweden supplying Nazi Germany with iron ore and that's what Norway and Sweden were primarily concerned with rather than just provoking Germany. If the true objective was to help Finland the Allies could have done so regardless of Swedish or Norwegian co-operation by moving their troops through Petsamo, since Finland still actually had it's own link to the arctic sea back then.
Petsamo is right around the corner from Murmansk, the stomping ground of the Soviet Arctic Fleet... So I'm always skeptical of claims that it could feasibly have been used by the British and French navies.
Actually, with hindsight I should have used a historical map, having forgotten that Finland lost territory up on the Arctic sea, and made that point...
@@BlokeontheRange It certainly would have required a not insignificant naval commitment from the Royal Navy and French navy and direct combat with the Northern fleet to break the blockade around Petsamo. But the northern fleet was small and out of date, much like the rest of the Soviet navy and isolated without much possibility of reinforcement if engaged in force. I have no doubt the Royal navy could have crushed the Northern fleet if they wanted, even by themselves. And this sort of possibility must have come up in planning, but the Phoney war governments would have certainly been unwilling to commit to such an operation in defence of Finland, since that wasn't really a priority.
@@jonttul The Royal Navy was very active during the entire campagne playing a game of cat and mouse in the fjords with the German navy. Unfortunately once in open water they were at the mercy of the Luftwaffe as air superiority was never achieved.
I have a pistol holster like Mike has. Apparently a lot of them were found in a warehouse in Brooklyn some years ago. Cost me 50 bucks Cdn. It's stamped 1944, the year of my birth oddly enough.
At a quick glance at 10:35 is confirmation that Matt Easton from Schola Gladiatoria is a time traveller.
And he has Scottish ancestry, by the way.
Although he mentioned that one of his relatives fought in Burma.
I'd love to get one of the French smocks just love to know where to get it or what its officially called?
Still my favorite grouping of gunnies and gun channels on youtube, minus Karl of course.
Goodness I'm in love with all of your kit, especially the British fatigues. It's frustrating though because surplus weapons and equipment have become so scarce and expensive where I live
I saw three M39 mosins sell for 1400 a piece on gunbroker last week.
I love how he describes clothing as "half a sheep" and "half a cow." lol
I don't know if the question was asked or if i missed an info on the video, but i really would like to know what is the type of smock Fab is wearing. And if the company who made it, still sell some of them. Best regards !
Great video btw, one of the best RUclips channel.
Blouson de chasseurs alpins. Made by a very skilled Ukrainian tailor. I was sceptical at first but I got the info from a reenactment group who had bought quite a few items and been very pleased with it. Not cheap but good quality.
voin.zp.ua/index.php?route=product/product&path=72_84&product_id=1264
@@thebotrchap thank you very much !
@@thomasquero1554 No problem. Pretty much a word-of-mouth business unless you can search in cyrillic 😅
nice review of the equipment
Ian: War were not declared.
*Othias has entered the chat*
just received a pair of Finnish old stock boots seem solid even though used looking forward to evaluating them
Super interesting!
14:54
"NUTS!"-- General McAuliffe
suprised we didn't get Ian in French kit. As for pistols tactically acquiring always works.
1911 could be a theoretical gun for Bloke given the RAF order.
god I love the french uniforms of WWII had they kept fighting in 1940 and had their industrial infrastructure I would of loved to seen how the uniforms progressed more towards the high alpine units.
Love rhe explanation s and comparison s
"he is probably out cheating on me"
me and the boys:
Interesting how simplistic the Finn uniforms were. Kinda reminds me of the Rebel snow troopers on Hoth...sans the Taun-tauns, of course.
Ever though about a New Guinea in the Monsoon Brutality?
That would probably kill someone
Got a ad for face cream
Not Cosmoline?
Time to rewatch band of brothers
And see all the actual war crimes the allies committed against Christian Germans.
Nyt oli noloa meitä Suomalaisia kohtaan. Risuparrat ja pitkätukat esittelevät talvisotaa. Hävetkää!
Just watched the stripper club video on the NATO clips before this one. Didn't realize that the Swedish clips were so superior! Thanks for the great equipment segment.
...ya beat me to it...war WERE not declared...
A bit disappointed that Ian wasn't wearing footwraps with those boots..
A couple of feet of snow on the ground and "it wasn't that cold [in this finish brutality event] to feel too cold" and this southern California boy thinks oh my. I probably would have been the first Finish soldier to not only unbutton my hat but would wrap what ever I could find around my self.
Excellent report. A question: Would it be appropriate to use some kind of sunglasses for the solar reflection on the snow? I mean something that has been used in that period of time.
Yes, there were issue snow goggles, usually dark green plastic lenses. Unfortunately you can’t wear them over normal glasses otherwise I would have worn some. As far as continental patterns go, they seem to share the same basic design.
So just found out Rob of BML Surname is Enfield.
Got me thinking;
Mike Sterling
Fabian Famas
Ian Forgetusnot
Henry Lever Action
If you found that out from the recent 9-Hole Reviews video like I did, note that the Martini-Henry was being shot by Henry.
british and french: POCKETS POCKETS!!!!! POCKETS FOR ALL!!!!
Finland: so here's a shirt and some pants and a pouch....... try not to freeze or make to much noise when you die.....
Someone do a youtube video on the Finnish priests used as emergency officers during the winter war
i would love to try this challenge
Suomalaisesta näkökulmasta mielenkiintoinen. Mahdollisen interventiojoukon varusteet talviolosuhteissa ja olisiko joukosta ollut käytännössä mihinkään.
Ian, no Puuko? According to a Finish officer I know, every Finnish soldier, even today, carries his own personal puuko as a belt knife. It is the only civilian item allowed to be worn with thr uniform.
Put plastic shopping/grocery bags over your socks but inside the boots. Dry warm feet no matter how wet your boots get. Proskilltip number 10985.
I like Chaps pouches, I saw his video on making them👍 could they not be worn reversed that way give you centre access to the small pouches? Would these be useful for other calibers, .303, .308?
You could reverse them but this is the way they are intended to be worn and why the joining tab and stud are on one side only. They could easily fit any WW2 calibre clips.
The finn missing the Puukko knife
Shouldn't this be a part of "Will it strip?" series?
Will it strip? Yes but in 10 minutes and totally unsexy 😆
@@thebotrchap Is eight minutes of that taking the gaiters off?
@@jic1 Sounds about right
I'm still trying to figure out why he at one point calls his m39 an m44 . An m44 as best I can remember is a Russian carbine version of the 91/30 .
I always wondered..did the Finnish "uniform" actually keep them warm? It looked pretty light for -20 to -50 below zero just the wool clothes with the white cape I thought they would need alittle more than that.
Would the "head suspenders" be considered a coif? Like the medieval under-helmet clothing?
If you used an integral liner like on some helmet,you didn't really need big padding. But a coif or even a hood seem to have been fairly common and fullfilled the same purpose.
Two layers of socks? How much larger size jackboot do you need to make that work?
1
Depends how thick the socks are. You can get some very thin 'liner' socks that add considerable extra warmth.
8:40 The Polish are natural badasses so no need for practice :D
Thankyou.
I thought it was very interesting.
If the UK and sowjets were "inofficially at war" how would he explain that when the germans airraided the HQ of Tito and his partisans that they also raided US, UK and sowjet trainingcamps/radio stations? The sowjets even trained political comissars there.
It would be also interesting to hear of the alledged Churchill Stalin pact the source for which is supposedly in Erkki Hautamäki`s book "Finnland i stormes ögaa" that is only aviable in finnish. Would be interesting to hear from finnish people who can and have read it about it and the author as well.
What is that song in the beginning? I'm getting Silverstein vibes...
Ians snow camo has a lot more in common with a wet t shirt contest than blending into the snow lol
Ware is snow bunny from the small event?
Are the BD trousers surplus, or postwar?
Repro
Ian the Francophile not in the French Kit.
Bloke, what is your scarf/headwrap called?
I think that's one of the Varusteleka Särmä merino wool neck tubes tied 'Legionnaire style'.
It's one of the East German milsurp neck tubes. I bought it from Varusteleka ages ago, can't remember what the official name was, but they just continued with the WW2 style. They're actually great and I use mine a lot.
Didn't the finns use the winter over size boot with full felt boot liners?
On most pictures of winter troops they either have jack boots (hopfully big enough for two pairs of home knitted socks or similar. Or traditional beak boots, either hig finnish jackboot style or the low type secured with legwraps, similar to the sami beakboots but made from cowleather wich also were common in northern Sweden among the setteled population. I think i have seen some with sami style reinder fur boots wich are even better in cold but dont handle thaw and heavy wear good. The both last types were in old times stuffed with a special straw filling wich aparantly gives exelent isolation but i dont know if that was done during the war. I know that the Swedish army and i think the Germans had felt overshoes but i dont know if the fins had.
I'm glad to hear the historic truth. That both the Soviets and Nazis were Allies at first with the signing of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact in 1939.
Here is an overlooked history lesson.
The inter war Republic of Estonia had a formally secretive Defense cooperation agreement treaty with Finland. Basically to block off the Finnish Gulf from any Soviet Russian aggression.
With Heavy costal Artillery Guns and submarines.
Estonia purchased 2 Submarines from the British firm Vickers in 1936.
Sadly due to the flaws of being an oppressed slave people for over 700 years such has had a deep negative impact on the Estonian psyche and thus effected the Estonian government who betrayed our northern Finnish brothers and sisters in reguards with fufilling the obligations of the joint Estonian/ Finnish Mutual Defense Agreement.
The inexcusable cowardly disgusting self destructive actions of the Estonian government Leadership side in cowardly caving into Soviet terroristic demands to include dismanteling, destroying our own government and Not resisting the illegal Soviet invasion, occupation and annexation of Estonia by the Soviet Union empire in 1940.
Such caused a feeling of despair wrong amongst the Estonian people.
That was a major contributing factor reason of why thousands of Estonian men voluntarily joined the Finnish Military including my father to make up for the cowardly disgraceful misrakes by the Estonian government leaders.
BTW, Varusteleka is awesome. As a Veteran of both the USA and Estonia I got some excellent surplus Kit. Brand New Finnish Army Jackboots etc. Way to go Varusteleka! Your shipping prices to America are often lesser than American companies like SMG!
I urge everyone to do business with Varusteleka you won't be disappointed. Their Customer care along with theit products are excellent.
The French Army kit has allot of practicalicity to it. Evebbtiday French Army Kit is outstanding.
Too bad the Inter War Baltic nations ( Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian ) Soldiers combat uniforms are not eidely available for testing. I have a photo of my father wearing an Estonian Conscript uniform in 1940 with exceptional loiking Jack boots which looks like high quality Officer Jackboots with an ankle strap and upper strap for securing the boot.
Great video series way to go safe Journeys to all involved!
There were no nazi's, members of the NSDAP never referred to themselves as that slur, nor do tea party members refer to themselves as tea baggers but guess what tribe of (goblins) came up with those slurs.
I didnt want to go with a 1935 A or S because ian may have killed me for the ammo
Ian likely has all the .32 French Long he could want, Starline has been selling brass and Steinel has been making factory cartridges in the US for a while now. If anything, he's probably having an easier time getting hold of it than 9x19 at the moment...