"Fire and Ice" Documentary

[Cosmoline]

http://www.mastersworkmedia.com/fireandice/

http://www.shoppbs.org/sm-pbs-fire-and-ice--pi-2188776.html

I just picked this one up. It's about the 1939 Winter War beween the USSR and Finland. It's a fascinating documentary, which highlights among other things the importance and power of trained riflemen and sound tactics even against overwhelming technological superiority. The Finns had an officer corps trained at the best Prussian academies and soldiers who came from the same farming/hunting background that gave us our own greatest warriors. The overview of the war and order of battle is about the best I've seen. It makes the complex lines easy to understand.

Needless to say, there's a lot of excellent Mosin vs. Mosin action, and some shots of all the various rifles and tanks involved in the combat. Both Finnish and Russian reenactors were involved in the filming. They also interview a range of survivors, though of course almost no Russians involved in the 39 war survived to 45, let alone to the time of filming. Stalin erased those who survived the frozen hell. The bravery on both sides is highlighted.

The knives also make an appearance. One of the scenes features an interview with a veteran Lotta Svaard (female volunteer) who points out that the Finns had to rely on backup defense when ammo ran low. To demonstrate she whips out a rather long puukko blade in a still-strong hand and pricks her thumb across the tip. "Believe me, when you get that under your ribs, it doesn't feel so good."

It's also ironic that while the Russians, renowned for doing better in the cold than invaders, were totally unprepared for the *REAL* cold of that winter, when the mercury dropped to arctic lows. I've had to prepare dog food at forty below, and I can't imagine having to fight in it. Physics seems to change. Things that should be soft are harder than steel, and things that should be strong shatter like glass.

 

[James T Thomas]

day that Hell turns cold

Thanks for the commentary Cosmoline. It sounds very interesting.

Our nation's own experience at Valley Forge is another saga of hardened men in a desperate fight.

I agree with your estimate of below zero conditions. I think the Battle of the Bulge and some of the battles in Korea had to have been the most difficult, although the current "Iwo Jima; Flags of Our Fathers," is a depiction of warm weather hell on earth.

Every time I hear mention of Joseph Stalin, I cringe thinking of politicians who come to power, usurp more and more power, and turn into ruthless, cold blooded tyrants.

We will have to see what happens here on election day.

 

[Cosmoline]

Chosin was probably the closest US forces ever came to fighting in that kind of cold. It got to -40 f. there on some nights, compared with about -20 f. at the lowest in the Bulge, with most temps around zero to -10 f. There's a surprisingly big difference between twenty below and forty below, and again between forty below and sixty. The sustained deep cold is also something different. Zero is livable, even comfortable in good clothes. Ten below tends to take the fun out of things, and twenty below makes you want to hurry up. But at forty below you start to feel like you're on a different planet and at sixty below you *ARE* on a different planet. Sounds change, if you can imagine that. Your skin starts to lose its ability to register the temperature, and you have to be very careful to make sure you don't start to freeze up without knowing it.

I remember trying to pour radiator fluid into the poor old S-10 at thirty five below in Willow a few years ago and some of it got on my glove and soaked through. It was like pouring boiling water on my finger, because the liquid was super cooled. I had blisters that looked like a serious burn. And most of those guys had no gloves at all. Just wool greatcoats and pointy hats designed for warfare in the wet cold of eastern Europe. They describe in the film how whole squads of Russians would be found frozen in place as they were just moments after the bullets hit and their hearts stopped beating.

The poor Russians and Ukranians were thrown into this surreal landscape with no training to speak of, let alone training in arctic combat. Stalin was still very mistrustful of his own generals even after the purges and kept their Mosins and heavy weapons from them until the last possible moments. Many of the men who rushed the Finnish lines had never even fired their rifles, while the Finns had been literally living with theirs for years.

 

[SSN Vet]

Netflix doesn't have it, so....

I requested that their purchasing department buy it (a little know Netflix feature that is kind of hard to find on their web site....use the help command and then do a search.

Maybe if some others do so as well, they'll pick it up.

OBTW.....any comparison of any President of United States (take your pick of the litter) to either Hitler or Stalin reflects a complete ignorance of what those brutal dictators actually did.

IMO, a couple hundred Jihadis down at Gitmo awaiting their trials....buy military tribunal or otherwise....is nothing to compare to the est. 30 million Stalin waxed in his purges or the 6+ million Hitler waxed in his final solution.

Any one doling out that kind of inflammatory rhetoric should be ashamed of themselves and deserves to be transported in space and time to the Gulags so they can experience the difference.

 

[Cosmoline]

Let's not derail the thread, por favor. The 67th anniversary of the war is coming up soon, and I'm hoping more people can learn about it. Esp. since we now own many if not most of the rifles that served in that war.

 

[hso]

Another great pair of films covering that conflict and showing the weapons in accurate historical detail are "Ambush" and "The Winter War (Talvisota)".

Remember that the Finns were using weapons captured during the White/Red Revolution as well as firearms loaned and purchased immediately following their overthrow of the Communists. With this hodgepodge of firearms and a great outdoors tradition they ground the Soviet Army to frozen meat.

 

[El Tejon]

hso, don't forget the Swedish Mausers used by the Finns (and Swedish volunteers).

 

[ilbob]

A number of years ago it got into the minus 20 region and stayed there for a couple days here in Northern Illinois. I never thought much of going out in zero degrees, but minus 20 was just so much colder, I was shocked. I could hardly breath.

 

[svtruth]

The LGS

has a Lahiti (?sp) on display. It has runners, iron sights, and a shoulder stock.

 

[hso]

I just helped Tuco acquire a Lahti anti-tank rifle. It was a de-mil and headed for the scrap yard when Big Mike at Gunworld in OKC rescued it. He let us have it at a good price and it will become a great restoration project and display piece.

ElT, Thanks for the reminder. The first gun I bought on Gunbroker was a Finn marked Swedish Mauser.

 

[Lonestar]

OBTW.....any comparison of any President of United States (take your pick of the litter) to either Hitler or Stalin reflects a complete ignorance of what those brutal dictators actually did.

IMO, a couple hundred Jihadis down at Gitmo awaiting their trials....buy military tribunal or otherwise....is nothing to compare to the est. 30 million Stalin waxed in his purges or the 6+ million Hitler waxed in his final solution.

Any one doling out that kind of inflammatory rhetoric should be ashamed of themselves and deserves to be transported in space and time to the Gulags so they can experience the difference.

While I'm not too fond of some of Bush's policies, He is definitely no Stalin or Hitler

I have some Lithuanian relatives in my family, some that came to America after the Soviet takeover after WWII. The Baltics had a tough time under Stalin, on top of purges and exiles to Siberia, the Lithuanian language was outlawed, and people had to go underground just to teach and read in their native tongue. Still bands of resistance fighters, who started fighting the Nazi and then the Soviets were able to cause trouble for the Occupying forces up until 1953 when the last holdouts where wiped out. I seen a display of these battles and the weapons that were used. The Lithuanians had a hodge podge of Western and Eastern weapons, including Mosin and Nagants.

http://www.speakeasy.org/~maly/lith.html

While gun and war enthusiast seem to focus on WWII, I love learning more about the Soviet resistance. I'll bug Netflix about buying this documentary too.

 

[ACP230]

My late friend Rick S. fought for Finland in The Winter War.
He was an American of Finnish descent and decided to help Finland against the Russian Bear. After training, he spent about a month in actual combat and gave me the impression that was enough. He was trained as a machine gunner and worked a Lahti-Saloranta LMG. He was also issued a pistol and from talking to him it appeared to be a BHP.

He had his Finnish discharge papers, signed by Mannerheim, prominently displayed on his wall.

In WWII he was in the U.S. Coastal Artillery and lost some of the sight in one eye in an accident with a cannon.

He was a tough old bird.

 

[Cosmoline]

That's a fascinating tale ACP230. It's a shame so many vets have passed away now that interest in the WW is growing. For most of the past 60 years the Russians were told nothing about the war and its vets were erased, while the Finns had to be very careful what they said. They weren't directly controlled by the USSR, but they were "Finlandized" as they say. It's only been since the fall of the USSR that both sides have been able to reexamine the war freely.

In WWII he was in the U.S. Coastal Artillery

Isn't that typical. Americans like this who'd actually seen recent front line action were worth their weight in gold as advisors and instructors, and here our military in its usual fashion sends him to work on a coastal battery. They should have been picking his brain for every possible detail of his experience with the Finns.

Getting back to rifles, the supply of them was so small in 1939 for the Finns and the action so universal that any pre-39 SA Mosin you find is likely to have seen active service, even front line service. Most war rifles on the surplus market probably never fired a shot in anger. This includes most all of the Garands available for sale. But the M-28's, M-28/30's and M-27's were all pressed into service. It was one of the most intense conflicts during the whole WWII era. Even in the USSR's eastern front in 41 and 42, there were vast sections of the nation and supplies of rifles that never saw any action at all. But all of Finland from north to south saw warfare in 39/40. Later Finnish rifles such as the Tikka M-30's and the M-39's were less likely to have seen front line combat due to the less intense and more static nature of the Continuation War.

 

[Kor]

Fire and Ice is really excellent - when I got my copy from MasterWorks, I also ordered the companion book, A Frozen Hell, which amplified on the story of the Winter War even further.

I noticed that Fire and Ice cribbed some footage from Talvisota(a.k.a. The Winter War), but you wouldn't notice unless you owned both movies and could compare side-by-side.

Another BBC documentary I have, The War of the Century: When Stalin Fought Hitler, actually includes a 1998 interview with a surviving Russian veteran of both the Winter War and the Great Patriotic War - although one factor that would probably explain his continued survival was the fact that he was a political officer instead of an ordinary combat soldier.

Finally, ACP230's story reminded me of a Finn I read about who won the Mannerheim Cross(Finnish equivalent of the Medal of Honor) during the Winter War as a lieutenant, then emigrated to the US, enlisted in the Army, became one of the first Green Berets, and finally was lost in battle in VietNam(either KIA or MIA, not sure which).

 

[Lucky]

"They describe in the film how whole squads of Russians would be found frozen in place as they were just moments after the bullets hit and their hearts stopped beating."

A little dramatic? They probably mean piles of bodies lay in the snow, but it reads like people would get shot and freeze upright before they could fall over

 

[Cosmoline]

Some of it is probably a little exaggerated, but only a little. For example, the legend that a skier shot past a squad of Russians with a puukko tied to his pole and slit all their necks, leaving them frozen in mid stride, was probably a bit over the top. But only a little. Photos from the war do indeed show corpses frozen upright and with arms outstretched, as if writhing in pain or even holding a rifle. When you get into that depth of cold, all the usual assumptions about how long it takes to freeze are right out the window.

 

[Lucky]

Sounds like a job for Mythbusters!

 

[Bart Noir]

Mythbusters! Now that is funny. My imagination is going along weird paths right now. Not even OT since it deals with myths of the Winter War.

But they will have a hard time doing that in San Francisco, unless they are skiiing on soap flakes.

Bart Noir

 

[Bart Noir]

hso, thanks for the ID

For the last year or more, I have been wondering what that weapon at Gunworld really was. I recently was guessing the Lahti but wasn't sure.

Bart Noir
Gunworld - very modern and clean range, and handgun prices that will take you to the cleaners.

 

[Trebor]

Getting back to rifles, the supply of them was so small in 1939 for the Finns and the action so universal that any pre-39 SA Mosin you find is likely to have seen active service, even front line service. Most war rifles on the surplus market probably never fired a shot in anger. This includes most all of the Garands available for sale. But the M-28's, M-28/30's and M-27's were all pressed into service.

I have a Finn 28/30 that I *know* saw front-line service. There are still pieces of shrapneal embedded in the stock. I fear for the Finnish soldier who carried this rifle.