Show those Finnish uniforms!

[NickG]

Svir river Puuka blade close up

Svir river (Leningrad battle) Finnish Puuka blade close up

[NickG]

Svir front period picture

To get a sense of the Svir river battle front here's a period picture of entrenched Finnish troops at the river bank 1942. That knife was there!
This was the most southern deployment of Finnish troops close to Leningrad... The German forces would have liked their Finnish allies to tighten the ring around Leningrad even further but the Finns stayed put at the river which still contributed to the blockade which almost worked if the Russians had not opened the ice road across Lake Ladoga......

[MASteel]

Nick, your collection is amazing...

From the link below you can see few that I posted years ago from my collection + also few that others posted to the same thread

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...ad.php?t=80448

(Btw, officers black color "Sam Brown" belt was only used by police as their issue item. All military belts were brown)

[hanswurst18]

very nice indeed, the finns had some interesting stuff.

[NickG]

Nick, your collection is amazing...

From the link below you can see few that I posted years ago from my collection + also few that others posted to the same thread

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...ad.php?t=80448

(Btw, officers black color "Sam Brown" belt was only used by police as their issue item. All military belts were brown)

Thanks for the thumbs up. I like your finnish collection a lot + you have real mannequins, makes all the difference in the quality of the display. I've seen your collection before and I've printed the pictures for reference already, as there are not that many Finnish Army reference books out there! Thanks again!
Nick
PS: Yes somebody else had also corrected me before on the pilot's black Sam Brown belt...so all Finnish Armed forces had brown belts...Somewhere I read (incorrectly) that the airforce liked black belts to stand out and I accepted that explanation as these matched the black pants perfectly that they often wore...but that's a mistake...So police = black...Still a nice belt and its dated 1943 ! I'll probably just keep it like that for now... Finnish stuff it hard to find on this side of the Atlantic!

[MASteel]

Thanks Nick!

I must agree that real mannequins can make the difference while displaying uniforms. But those mannequins usually cost a lot (especially old ones) and don't we rather spend our money to uniforms

Finnish AF actually had dark blue pants/breeches up to model 1936 (ie. with uniforms m/22 & m/27 light). On b/w pics those sure look like black! And yes, AF personel wanted to stand out and used their dark blue trousers also with grey m/36 uniform...

Yep, hold on to that belt, it's lot more rare than military belts !

-Miikka