The Finnish Marksman
There was a Finnish man named Simo Häyhä, aka “the white death” who was born around 1906 when Finland was a part of Imperial Russia. I have found his life and his times fascinating to study and I believe has relevance for today. One thing that parallels his life and ours is that there are many forces at work which will affect our life. We may not understand these forces but they have their own agenda and whatever they decide to do will force us to react as Simo had to do. In 2001, at the age of 95 Simo reflected on his life and said although he did kill many enemy he did what he was told to do and if he didn’t there would be no Finland today. He lived a long life and he is a great example for all who love their country and would be willing to defend it from foreign invaders. Finland became part of Imperial Russia after Russia defeated Sweden in the 19th century. During this time, Finland maintained autonomy under the Czar of Russia but in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution Finland declared independence. However Russia wanted to control Finland due to its close proximity to both Europe and Russia. Finland was used by the German’s to travel through on their way to Russia and as such Finland found itself in the middle of two powerful nations at war.
Simo’s story is the story of one man protecting his country from invaders. This same thing could happen here in the near future and all of us must be willing to follow Simo’s example to protect our nation. Soviet Russia was the same then as it is now and they decided to invade Finland to create a buffer between them and European powers such as Germany. When World War II started they saw that as an opportunity to invade Finland and use it as a buffer against Germany. Simo and his countrymen of 3 million defended against a country of 170 million. The Finns did so well against the Russians during what is known as the 1939 “Winter War” that it emboldened the Germans to invade Russia. The war started three months after the outbreak of WWII in November 1939. Temperatures were cold and could reach -45 F. The Winter War eventually ended and the Soviets did gain some Finnish land during peace negotiations. However, after Germany declared war on the USSR in 1941 the Finnish people found themselves at war again.
In 1925, Simo had served in the military as a young man to meet his mandatory fifteen month enlistment. In 1939 at the start of the Winter War he joined the Finnish Army and became a sniper. It was said he could estimate distances to the meter with only his eyesight. This would become a valuable skill as a sniper must know how how to estimate distances. Simo was excellent with both rifle and machine gun. Simo was said to be able to shoot accurately at 500 yards with iron sights, without a scope, and is said to be the most successful sniper ever, with 500 plus kills, however some dispute that number. The rifle he used was a Finnish M/28-30 Mosin–Nagant, an adaptation of the Russian Mosin-Nagant, originally built in 1891. The Finnish Army inherited thousands of these rifles and made modifications to it and manufactured their own version in 1930. You can still find the 91/30 Mosin-Nagant today. It’s long barrel and powerful 7.62 x 54mm round made it accurate out to 600 yards.
To set the distance on the rifle the shooter could adjust the rear site to raise and lower to a major setting and then he could refine to a minor setting. The original Russian model used “arshins” which was Russian for “yard” as it distance setting. The arshin came from the Imperial Russian measurement system. An arshin is about 2.33 feet, not quite a yard but it held the factor of “1” relative to other distances. Meaning, whatever measurement they used was relative to the arshin. For example, the Russian distance they called a “fathom” was 3 arshins or 7 feet (2.33 feet x 3). Their “foot” was 3/7th an arshin or about 1 foot American. The later models utilized the metric system because after 1917 the Russian Bolsheviks took power and establish communism and the metric system.
The sight settings are used to make a rifle accurate at a particular distance. As one raises the rear sight, that also raises the trajectory of the bullet as it exits the barrel because the shooter must raise the front sight height so that it is centered within the rear sight. A bullet is part of the round. A round is not a bullet. The round contains all the elements necessary to become a projectile. The basic elements are a casing, a bullet, a primer and powder. When the trigger hits the primer is creates a small explosion which then ignites the powder and from this gases are created which need to go somewhere and the only place they can go is forward. And so, the bullet is pushed out at a high rate due to black powder explosion. As the bullet travels, gravity and air will affect it’s trajectory, pulling and pushing it downward, so as one shoots further, one needs to elevate his trajectory.
A rifle is a direct fire weapon as opposed to artillery or mortar fire which is indirect. However, despite it’s direct fire nature, it does have a curved trajectory, and the bullet will reach a maximum height above the starting point, then travel for a distance, and eventually falling until it hits the ground. The shorter the distance it travels the more it resembles a straight line but as it travels further it resembles an arc. Because of this, shooting a target at long distances such as 500 yards takes skill and knowledge on how to set the rifle to match the right distance. The Mosin-Nagant could be set to a major setting such as 400 arshins or meters but then it could have a refined setting of 430, as an example. The 400 setting he could set by depressing a button to slide the rear sight setting until it clicked into place and then by depressing another button one could manually set it to a more refined setting of 430. This allowed for a more accurate setting. If one were to find an original Russian M91 with arshin settings one would see settings of 2,4,6,8,10 and 12. These equated to 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000 and 1200 arshins. An arshin is about 28 inches or 2.33 feet which is (12 inches x 2.33 = 27.98 or rounded up to 28 inches). So, the 600 arshin setting is 16,800 inches or (16,800 / 12 / 3) 467 yards. Likewise, the 800 setting would be 621 yards.
The Mosin-Nagant, image from Wikipedia
During Viet Nam the United States military went away from the 7.62 x 51mm and started using a 5.56 x 45mm round. The weapon we designed was an Armalite rifle which received the designation AR-15. The original was an AR-10 which was designed with a 7.62mm round. However, we wanted a smaller round for a number of reasons so we went to a 5.56mm round. One of the reasons they wanted to do this was to standardize the ammunition used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the 5.56mm was a common round. It was also smaller and lighter so more round could be carried by NATO troops. The other factor was that a lighter weapon could be used more effectively. The lighter round could travel faster as well so it could create a large impact as “Force” is measured as mass times acceleration. An example of force to visualize is that a light car traveling very fast could create the same force as a heavier car going slower. The smaller round also had less drag on it so it could travel straighter for a longer distance. In the North Atlantic one might find a country named Finland and not too far away another called the Soviet Union when the AR-15 was designed. The AR-15 military equivalent is the M-16A2 service rifle.
The M-16A2 is still in service today, although there are many better variants that are used and better sights as well but even those are a version of the M-16. The M-16A2, the one I trained on as a recruit, had iron sights as well. We were trained to shoot a target as 200, 300 and 500 yards using only iron sights. We had the ability to set our rear sight in a similar fashion as Simo set his Mosin-Nagant. And so Simo, the Finnish sniper, shot a bigger, heavier 7.62mm round down range towards the Russians, killing many and we, the US military, as part of NATO, adopted the 5.56mm round designed to kill the Russian soldier.
Simo, while setting up his position in the winter, would melt the snow in front of his rifle so there was no snow powder created from the round’s black-powder gas exhaust. The air created by the exhaust could stir up the snowy powder in front of him and this would give his position away and would have led to his own death. He would also chew snow and ice so his breath wouldn’t create visible vapors. The reason he didn’t use a scope was he was afraid of showing his head as it would have to elevate higher in order to see through the scope. He was also weary of the scope’s glass reflecting the sun and giving his position away.
The 7.62x51mm vs the 5.56x45mm round
At the end of World War II, Finland lost about 10% of it’s territory because they sided with Germany. However, Simo’s bravery and the bravery of his countrymen was noted by many. He lived to be a very old man but eventually died in 2002 at the age of 96.
The Finns used terrain to their advantage, knowledge of their own land and even molotov cocktails to kill the enemy within tanks. A molotov cocktail is made up of a flammable liquid contained within a glass bottle and affixed to the bottle with tape were two “woodsman” matches or long burning matches. A match is a thing which contains the elements within it to start fire, the elements of wood and phosphorous which when given enough friction, ignites. Phosphorous was invented in 1699 and is used on a match head. It was originally created by allowing urine to rot and then boiling down the urine until it formed a white, waxy substance that glowed in the dark. The man responsible was a German of course, Henning Brand of Hamburg. What was he trying to do? He was an alchemist searching for the Philosopher’s Stone but instead distilled urine into what we now call phosphorous. Urine contains phosphorous and when urine is distilled it will become an oil which is then distilled a second time. It let off, in three stages, different elements, the last being phosphorous. According to scientists, all life contains phosphorous and it is the backbone of our DNA.
“(Brand’s) recipe was:
Let urine stand for days until it gives off a pungent smell. (This step was not necessary, as later scientists discovered that fresh urine yielded the same amount of phosphorus).
Boil urine to reduce it to a thick syrup.
Heat until a red oil distills up from it, and draw that off.
Allow the remainder to cool, where it consists of a black spongy upper part and a salty lower part.
Discard the salt, mix the red oil back into the black material.
Heat that mixture strongly for 16 hours.
First white fumes come off, then an oil, then phosphorus.
The phosphorus may be passed into cold water to solidify. (taken from a wikipedia article on Hennig Brand).”
Phosphate rock is now mined around the world so we don’t have to pee into a jar to create it. It was said Brand used about 1500 gallons of pee to make his batches of phosphorous. Without it there would have no way for the Finns to stop the Russian tanks and the Germans by way of Henning Brand, the German alchemist, were right in the middle again.
I remember when I was in boot camp and how painful it was to learn to shoot the Marine Corps’ way. There’s a right way, a wrong way and then there’s the Marine Corps’ way. We learned three basic positions. The first is prone, the second kneeling and the third is off-hand or standing. Prone was the most painful. We would take our slings and create a tourniquet that fitted high on our left arm if you are a right handed shooter, all the way to the shoulder. By making a loop with the sling which we fitted around around left arm we could have better tension. The front part of the sling attached to through the front of the rifle’s forward sling keeper and was cinched by feeding the sling back through a metal clamp. The sling was short from shoulder to where it was affixed to the rifle so that maximum tension would be created but it also created maximum pain. We cinched it way down so when we rolled into position we would create tension between the rifle and the arm. We rolled into position by starting in a prone position, on our left side (for a right handed shooter) and then while holding the pistol grip and forward barrel hand guard would roll from our left side to a flat position while the sling would feel like it was going to dislocate our shoulder. Our base was created by the V of our forward arm resting on the elbow, left hand holding the barrel guard, and the rear arm also rested on elbow, right hand on the pistol grip. We would create forward tension with our hand against the pistol grip and thereby create a system of tension. Tension creates stability. Our cheeks and the skin of our face would rest on the rifle’s butt stock creating downward tension. The butt of the rifle was firmly against the hollow of our shoulder creating forward tension.
During the battle of Belleau Wood, Germany, World War I, Marines were killing the enemy at 600 yards. The Marines fought so fiercely they received their nickname there, the “tuefel hunden” in German or Devil Dog. When asked for a report of the battle the German’s replied “they fight like devil dogs.” A good deal of that fierceness was their exceptional skill as marksman.
“When Marines of the Fourth Brigade stopped a German attack at Les Mares Farm, on the eve of the battle of Belleau Wood, Allied observers were incredulous. The Marines, in prone positions, were calmly firing at the attacking Germans over 600 yds away and the Marines completely disrupted attack after attack. Marines now truly were legendary riflemen, and have been such to the present day” (The beginnings of Marine Corps marksmanship, 2021).
We are great marksman because of the great pain we endured for two weeks of marksmanship training, eight plus hours a day, laying around in a circle dry firing at white barrels with small black targets. Our shooting spirit was born there. Whether our leaders sent us into the right things is not for us to know, how could we? We could only know how to fight and to shoot, not international politics or the reasons why we fight. That is what they taught us and we were but instruments to them.
Depiction of a Marine at Belleau Wood fighting the Germans