Current Finnish OOB - some notes for discussion

[PvtJoker]

Originally Posted by shahadi

Please consider citing sources when suggesting changes to an OOB. If a designer is going to use your suggestions for Finnish TO&E, he or she may very well need to know the source.

IMHO

The problem with sources on old Finnish post-war infantry TO&E's is that there are very little in the way of secondary sources. The old Field Manuals are not available in electronic form, and often they are not available in normal libraries. Getting sources for 1950s and 1960s stuff would therefore require serious historical research, and I'm pretty sure the original OOB designer did not do that, either. Most likely he used what he could find on-line and in the few secondary sources that are available.

Personally I base a lot of this on what I have heard from people who were in the Finnish army in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of it like the use of mixed bolt action rifle / SMG armament squads was standard in WW2, well documented for that period and even included in WinSPWW2 Finnish OOB. The desire to increase the number of SMGs in squads was also clear; hence the purchase of Stens in 1957 (sources for that are easy to find, but here is one: http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/RIFLES6.htm).