Issued small arms?

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Pirkka
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Post by Pirkka »

No, to the best of my knowledge none of them did! It is possible that a few K98s were donated during the 1939-1940 Winter War (most small arms on the European market seem to have found their way into the Finnish Arsenal in those months, but the standards side arms were:
the Finnish Mosin, a copy of the Mosin-Nagant M1891 rifle, but made to higher tolerances and a considerably better standard of finish than the equivalent Soviet one. A m1891/30 will pass for this rifle, but purists can pick out important and expensive differences (the sights, fore and rear, mainly)
The Suomi SMG, which was a copy (more or less) of the Soviet M1934 and was instrumental in the design of the PPsH after the Winter War. It was 9mm rather than short 7.62mm, had a higher rate of fire and if such a thing can be believed, is actually heavier than the Soviet kit! A butt-stroke with one of these puppies would put you out of the fight, something you can't do with a MP40 - then again, why would you want to?
The Lahti AR - was to have been a piece of export kit, except that nobody but the Finns bought it (apparently some may have gone to China in the late 20s). To all intent, A BAR copy bit without the jamming issues, and would also work in extreme cold, a selling point in Finland. In the Continuation War, the Finns supplemented these with large numbers of captured Soviet DP LMGs, to the extent that most first line squads had one of each.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Rob
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Pirkka
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Post by Pirkka »

7.62mm - Soviet rounds were fully interchangable, as the Finns found when they captured several million in the WInter War. As a matter of fact, there was even a limited amount of interchangability in rifle components between Finnish and Russian examples, and Finnish soldiers frequently swapped out Finnish bolts for Russian ones in winter, as the slacker tolerances on the Soviet kit made seizing less likely.
The Mosin-Nagant, as dog-rough an example of the bolt-action rifle as you're likely to get, may seem like an odd choice, but Finland inherited one of the Mosin production lines at Helsinki Arsenal at the end of WW1. It was a matter of cost-cutting and convenience.
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Feldgrau
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Post by Feldgrau »

Hallo Pirkka

And Carcano modell 91/38 in caliber 7,35x51 ?

Max
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Pirkka
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Post by Pirkka »

Yes, according to the Winter War by Engle & Paananen, 100,000 rifles and 50 million rounds were received from Italy in early 1940. Rifles were also received from Sweden (Mausers?), France and Belgium (BARs). Eleven countries sent material aid during the Winter War, most of which arrived too late to do any good.
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jdeleur
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Post by jdeleur »

Don't forget the quantities of arisaka rifles and bayonets :wink:
Looking for T30 bayonet info.
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Pirkka
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Post by Pirkka »

Those are new to me! Do you know more?
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jdeleur
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Post by jdeleur »

Offcourse:

These rifles were captured from the russians who purchased large quantities from the Japanese because they were in shortage off small arms during WW1.

Shall look for pictures of this.
Looking for T30 bayonet info.
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Pirkka
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Post by Pirkka »

Fantastic! Thanks for that, there must have been a number of them in Helsinki Arsenal when it fell to the Whites in 1918.
Pictures would be great if you have them.
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jdeleur
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Post by jdeleur »

Here's the article:

6,55 mm Infantry Rifle and Carbine M97 Japanese:


Finnish use: About 8,000 infantry rifles and minuscule amount of carbines M/97 were used in Finnish Civil War of 1918. Suojeluskunta (Finnish Civil Guard) used some in 1920's.

Infantry rifle and carbine models M/97 were accepted to Japanese military use in 1897, however some small changes were added in 1899. "Meiji 30" used in Japanese naming comes from 30th year of Meiji-emperor, which translates as year 1897 in western calendar. Roots of design used are clearly in Mauser-rifles, but especially bolt structure has some distinct features, which could be related to Mannlicher rifles. The rifles bolt can be recognised hook-shaped lug in bolt head. These weapons saw use in Japanese-Russian war of 1904 - 1905. Use in a war also revealed a lot of problems in M/97 and lead these rifles being replaced in production with new M/05 (Meiji 38) rifle and carbine. Japan sold these M/97 rifles and carbines in large numbers to Great Britain and Russia during WW1. In Great Britain M/97 rifles were used as training rifles and known as "Rifle, Magazine, .256 Pattern 1900.". The Russians issued these rifles not only as training equipment, but also as part of usual weaponry their non-front-line units during World War, this included their troops stationed in Finland.

6,55 mm Navy Rifle M/05 Japanese:

Finnish use: Less then 2,500 used in Finnish Civil War of 1918. Suojeluskunta (Finnish Civil Guard) used some in 1920's. During World War 2 used by Finnish merchant navy and home front troops.

This rifle type was developed for Japanese Navy and specially to its naval infantry. Few years of use had already revealed some problems with M/97 rifles and carbines, so this rifle designed by Captain Kijiro Nambu had several improvements introduced to solve them. However M/02 was produced only few years before rifle M/05 replaced also it. After Japanese navy had been rearmed with rifles M/05 they had no longer need for old M/02 navy rifles, so these were sold to Russia during World War 1. Russian military, which had serious stortage of rifles issued them to their non-frontline units (such as the ones stationed in Finland). Rear sight of M35 rifle is maybe the most easiest characteristic for indentifying it.

6,55 mm Infantry Rifle and Carbine M/05 Japanese

Finnish use: Over 7,000 infantry rifles and few hundred carbines were used in Finnish Civil War of 1918. Suojeluskunta (Finnish Civil Guard) used some in 1920's.

Infantry rifle and carbine M/05 replaced infantry rifle M/97, carbine M/97 and navy rifle M/02 in Japanese use before WW1. The main designers for this rifle were Colonel Nariaki Arisaka and Captain Kijiro Nambu, who had seperately designed also earlier Japanese rifles, but who now worked together for this rifle. The bolt used in rifle M/05 was more clearly related to ones used in Mauser designs than in earlier Japanese rifles. With old M/97 and M/02 rifles and carbines the Japanese sold to Great Britain and Russia during World War 1 they also sold considerable number of new M/05 rifles and carbines. Bolt structure with and metal dust cover plate moving with the bolt make separating M/05 from another Japanese military rifles easy. Unlike earlier rifles M/05 also saw large-scale use with Japanese military during World War 2. All of these rifles could be reloaded with 5-round chargers, which closely resemble the ones used in Mauser-rifles. British troops used Japanese rifles in training between 1915 - 1918. October 1921 British declared them obsolete. In Russia the Japanese rifles saw bit more action and the ones which survived Russian Civil War were later shipped to Spanish Civil War.

Japanese rifles in Finland:

Japanese rifles and carbines were used in large numbers during Finnish Civil War of 1918. In fact it seems possible that Finland was the main area of using Japanese rifles for Russian military during WW2. Russia had acquired some 62,000 Japanese rifles during World War 1 in addition of small number of rifles captured by Russian military during 1904 - 1905 war. After the war Finnish military had about 24,000 Japanese rifles and former participants of the war returned thousands more during the couple of years following the Civil War.


Finnish military personnel had some problems identifying Japanese rifles and carbines, so a special naming system was developed and used until late 1920's. The names given in this naming system looked like this:

- "Japanese infantry rifle m. II" (infantry rifle M/97 / Meiji 30).

- "Japanese carbine m. II" (carbine M/97 / Meiji 30).

- "Japanese infantry rifle m. I" (naval rifle M/02 / Meiji 35).

- "Japanese infantry rifle m. III" (infantry rifle M/05 / Meiji 38).

- "Japanese carbine m. III" (carbine M/05 / Meiji 38).

Year 1919 Finland sold some 10,000 Japanese rifles to Estonia, where they were used by Estonian troops in their Civil War. In Estonia the rifles remained in use of Kaitseliit (Estonian Civil Guard), who got them modified to calibre .303 British before World War 2 and renamed them "KL .303". Some 15,000 Japanese rifles were also given to Suojeluskunta soon after Finnish Civil War. The Japanese rifles given to Suojeluskunta were little by little replaced with Mosin-Nagant rifles in 1920's. So the Japanese rifles of Suojeluskunta were gathered back and warehoused at late 1920's. Some 8,000 that had yet remained in Army warehouses were sold to Albania in 1928. All remaining Japanese rifles (about 15,000) of Suojeluskunta were sold with spare-parts and ammo to Oy Transbaltic Ab, which sold them abroad between 1932 - 1934. The few hundred Japanese rifles, which survived in Finland until World War 2 saw use with Finnish merchant navy and Suojeluskunta in home front and merchant ships. The rifles, which survived the war, were sold soon after it and were usually modified as hunting rifles.
Looking for T30 bayonet info.
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Pirkka
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Post by Pirkka »

Thanks for the info! Amazingly detailed, and another possible Finnish weapon to add to the collection.
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jdeleur
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Post by jdeleur »

Also have a couple of photo's but these are MIA :roll:
Looking for T30 bayonet info.
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jdeleur
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Post by jdeleur »

Did my homework today and found a pic of a Finnish Arisaka stock.
These are marked with an S and a few digits.

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Looking for T30 bayonet info.
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Peter Bauer
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Re: Issued small arms?

Post by Peter Bauer »

The Konepistooli M/31 Suomi is not a copy of some soviet weapon! If anything, it's copy of early german ones!

It influenced the designs of PPD40, but PPSCH didn't come around until 41 and well after Barbarossa. Winter war didn't really affect russian SMG's that much, they noticed the effectiveness of SMG's simply by using them themselves :P
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