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< h1 class="ql-align-justify" > forgotten fierce war - the Unknown Soldier</h1>
When people think of the Battlefield on the Eastern Front during World War II, people will think of the struggle between the Soviet union and Germany in the quagmire of war, and the familiar battle terms of Kiev, Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Moscow will emerge. But few people remember that there was a small Nordic country with a population of only four million who fought against the powerful former Soviet Union twice in three years and did not fall behind, and there are very few film and television works about these two wars, but there is a film based on the novel of the same name, which is still very well received after three remakes, which is Finnish writer Vajnolina's "The Unknown Soldier".
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > highly reduced Finnish army armament</h1>
The most recent version, made in 2017, tells the story of the experience of a group of soldiers in a machine gun company of the Finnish army during the "continuation war" that broke out at the end of June 1941, and the film does not deal too much with political factors, nor does it comment on the rights and wrongs of the two sides of the war, but explores the impact and change of the war on the fate of ordinary people from the perspective of ordinary soldiers.
Movie poster for the Unknown Soldier film
The director's intertwining of the fates of the character team and the battle scenes makes such a three-hour film without the slightest sense of boredom. The high degree of restoration and detail of the use of the Finnish army's weapons and equipment in the film has become a highlight in the eyes of military fans.
To tell the truth, when Xiaobian saw this kind of picture, the first feeling was why it resembled Li Yunlong's posture
Since Finland was controlled by Tsarist Russia for nearly a hundred years before the end of World War I, the Finnish army was heavily influenced by Tsarist Russia and made extensive use of Russian-made weapons. As the most basic weapon of infantry, the rifle, Finland, after declaring independence in 1917, has been producing and improving and using various models of Mosin Nagant series rifles, until World War II, the Mosin Nagant rifle is still the main rifle of the Finnish army.
Main rifle: Mosin Nagant series rifles
The Finnish soldiers in the film use a number of Finnish self-improved Mosin Nagant series rifles, including the P26, M27, M28, M39. It is worth mentioning that the Mosin Nagant series of rifles used by the Finnish army was not entirely made by itself, and the receiver of the rifle was partly captured from the Soviet Union/Russia through the international arms trade or wartime, and most of them were hexagonal receivers before the thirties, rather than the round receivers that followed.
(From top to bottom: P26, M27, M28, M39)
Main heavy machine gun: a mixture of models
The company where the protagonist is located is a machine gun company, whether it is offensive or defensive, machine guns are the main force that cannot be obtained, and there are also a large number of battle scenes using machine guns in the film. The heavy machine guns used by the Finnish army are mainly the Water-cooled Heavy Machine Gun of the Maxim series, the German MG08, the Russian-made Sokolov M1905/1910, and the Finnish models that have been improved according to their own needs. The film features Finnish M09-21 and M32-33 based on Sokolov M1905/1910.
The M09-21 was based on the feedback of the Finnish army, the wheeled gun frame of the Sokolov heavy machine gun was changed to a light tripod with a foldable sled board, the original water cylinder with a grooved water cylinder was replaced with a Finnish handmade simplified process barrel cooling water cylinder, and the original 250 rounds of canvas metal magazine belt was replaced by a 200 round metal bullet chain, which greatly improved the reliability of the feed supply.
The M32-33 took into account the needs of field air defense, replaced the M09-21 with a high-level dual-purpose tripod, added a anti-air sight base, increased the acceleration mechanism, increased the rate of fire and replaced it with a large muzzle flame suppressor.
(M09-21 heavy machine gun)
(M09-21 heavy machine gun appearing in the film)
(M32-33 heavy machine gun appearing in the film)
(Finnish soldiers using the M32-33 heavy machine gun, note the unique snow cover design on the upper part of its barrel cooling water barrel)
In terms of light machine guns, the film appears several times in Finland's own Rati-Salorenta LS26 light machine gun, which was led by the best light weapons designer in Finnish history, Emma Johannes Ratti (the aforementioned improvement of the Russian-made machine gun was also led by him) and A. Berger. Designed by E. Salorenta, it was officially put into production in 1927.
The LS26 has a long barrel recoil automatic with a caliber of 7.62X54R and a 20-round magazine or 75-round drum. The Finnish army used a total of more than 4,000 LS26 light machine guns, and during the same period, China placed orders for a total of 30,000 guns, but due to the political pressure of the Japanese government, the actual number of goods arrived was only more than 1,300, and the caliber was changed to the 7.92 Mauser rifle cartridges mainly used by the Chinese army at that time. The structure of the LS26 is more complex, and it often fails in harsh battlefield environments, but its shooting accuracy far exceeds that of contemporaneous products, which is also flawed.
(LS26 light machine gun appearing in the film)
(LS26 with 20-round magazine supply)
(Drum-fed LS26)
(Finnish LS26 machine gun set)
(LS26 in China)
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > "submachine gun plus grenade, melee gold does not change"</h1>
The principle of "submachine gun plus grenade, melee gold is not changed" is vividly reflected in the brutal street battles in Stalingrad, and in the film, the Finnish army has educated Soviet soldiers with practical actions several years in advance.
In several trench clearance operations in the film, the company's veteran 3-4 group of units with submachine guns and grenades to defeat the Soviet army in a row, and the vanguard of the group used a Finnish homemade submachine gun - KP31 Somi submachine gun. As one of the masterpieces of small countries, KP31's performance is outstanding among products in the same period.
The history of the use of submachine guns in the Finnish army stems from the Bergman MP18, which was ordered in Finland after the end of World War I and copied a small number of MP18s for their own use in the early 1920s. After unsuccessful attempts at the M22 and M26 submachine guns, in 1931 Ratti brought with him his improved KP31 "Somi" submachine gun.
The gun uses a 9MM Baraberum pistol cartridge and was produced by Joonas Matarainen, a well-known Finnish manufacturer of precision instruments. Using the rare principle of early firing automatic, the barrel and bolt are made of chrome-nickel steel produced in Sweden, which is generally used in sniper rifles and machine guns, and the manufacturing standards of the whole gun are much higher than those of general light weapons. The result of such an effort is the excellent reliability and accuracy of the KP31 submachine gun.
In the film, the protagonist uses it to ambush the Soviet patrol at a distance of 100 meters, shooting five drums in a row, killing at least forty Soviet soldiers, and fully embodying the performance of the KP31. Within its effective range, whether it is semi-automatic or long or short point shot, the accuracy of the KP31 can make many modern automatic rifles ashamed, and the Finnish army sometimes even uses 9 mm strong charge bullets to make the KP31 effective range of 300 meters.
(KP31 "Somi" submachine gun)
(KP31 series submachine gun)
(Finnish soldier holding KP31)
The KP31 appears in the film using a 50-round magazine or 71-round drum to feed, and in addition to earlier versions, there is a KP31 SJR model with the addition of muzzle brakes. However, Somi is not perfect, high-quality materials and exquisite craftsmanship is also a double-edged sword, which seriously hinders the subsequent development of KP31, the weight of seven kilograms after installing the drum greatly reduces portability, and the ultimate processing material also makes the cost of KP31 high and the output is very limited. The KP31 series of submachine guns produced more than 80,000 units throughout World War II, which is really different from the millions of famous submachine guns of the same period.
(KP31 SJR appears in the film)
(The unique shooting posture of veterans when using KP31 is conducive to controlling the muzzle to jump up and improve shooting accuracy)
Protagonist pistols: German-made Luger P08, Mauser C96
Officers in the protagonist's unit were issued with two pistols, a German-made Lug P08 and a Mauser C96. These two well-known German goods, coupled with the German steel helmets worn by the officers and soldiers, also properly reflected Finland's status as a servant state of Nazi Germany in World War II.
(Finnish officer using Mauser C96)
(Finnish officer using Lugar P08)
In addition to the above-mentioned weapons with more ink, there are several relatively rare pieces of equipment in the film, one of which is that when dealing with Soviet tanks, the Finnish army used the Ratti L39 20 mm anti-tank gun, which is Rati's last work, using 20X138B caliber ammunition, 2.24 meters long, 49.5 kg empty weight, effective range of 1400 meters, 10 rounds of magazine supply, using tungsten carbide bullet tip armor piercing bullets at a distance of 60 degrees, at a distance of 300 meters can penetrate 20 mm tank armor.
This ability, in the early stages of the war against the T26 or BT series light tanks, is relatively easy, with the emergence of heavy tanks in the T34, IS series, L39 in the field of anti-tank has been insufficient, the use of the gun in the film also reflects this situation.
(Ratti L39 vs. PKM)
(Huge soot generated by the Ratti L39 shooting)
Second, during an attack on a Soviet machine gun fortification, a 4-kilogram giant grenade called "Casapanos" thrown by the Finnish demolitionist instantly leveled a bunker, and the power of its explosion was very impressive. The emergence of these unpopular weapons also shows that the film was carefully studied for real history when filming.
"Casapanos" that appears in the game
Requires the user to throw with both hands
The huge explosive power of "Casapanos", due to the excessive weight of "Casapanos", the throwing distance is relatively close, if the user does not have a cover to cover, it will inevitably be affected.
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