Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, your
Speaker 1: podcast about people who were cool and did cool stuff,
Speaker 1: like in the snow. The snow is goh fuck. I
Speaker 1: wrote that on later into the script just locked it up.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy and with me as this
Speaker 1: week's guest and probably next week's guest, depending on the
Speaker 1: linearity of when we release these episodes, is Carl. Hi.
Speaker 2: Carl, Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Carl is the host of in Range TV, which
Speaker 1: is where you can go to learn about guns from
Speaker 1: people who aren't bad people.
Speaker 2: Oh no, we definitely don't want to be that's such
Speaker 2: a touchy topic, but we try to touch on things
Speaker 2: that from a very different perspective and bring like, for example,
Speaker 2: I know we're going to be talking about war today,
Speaker 2: and war is something that needs to be talked about
Speaker 2: as part of the human condition, but it shouldn't be glorified.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the things, Like we talk about war,
Speaker 2: and we talk about guns, and we talk about topics
Speaker 2: around that on in Range, but it's not glorification at
Speaker 2: least it isn't meant to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you'll do a good job. Actually,
Speaker 1: even before I or do you want anything else, I've
Speaker 1: been watching in range TV because when I got into
Speaker 1: firearms after Nazis docked me, I was looking for things
Speaker 1: I didn't even like. I was like, oh, this person
Speaker 1: is not a right winger and isn't telling me to
Speaker 1: hate everyone. Not that everyone on on YouTube is that right,
Speaker 1: but it was just something I really appreciated about the
Speaker 1: way you handle it. And you know who else handles firearms, well,
Speaker 1: Sophie two guns Licktormen.
Speaker 3: Wow, what an honor. I'll take that nickname.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I was.
Speaker 2: Funny about the nickname from historical speaking is in the
Speaker 2: Old West, which is not what we're talking about today.
Speaker 2: But if someone was called a two gun person, they
Speaker 2: were actually a bad actor because you wouldn't come into
Speaker 2: town with two guns.
Speaker 1: It's actually so your dog is secretly insult.
Speaker 2: You just got secretly dissed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I probably deserved it.
Speaker 1: Well, it's because you just keep dropping one, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, pirates had lots of guns, but that's because they
Speaker 1: were single shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean you hold ten of them and you
Speaker 2: had eight shots. The two wouldn't go off on the
Speaker 2: other eight. Mite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I have a really big axe. Does that make me cool?
Speaker 2: Yes? Axes are cool. Yeah, of course they're cool.
Speaker 1: Axes are actually cooler, although the only time they've appeared
Speaker 1: so far in this story is real bad. But so
Speaker 1: do you think you're the greater wrath? I think you're
Speaker 1: the greater wrath, Sophie, the greater wrath. Licktermen, I'll take it. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's our producer, and Ian the lesser rat no no,
Speaker 1: Ian's nickname six guns. Yeah, I'm out of ideas. Uh
Speaker 1: Ian is the Ian the audio engineer. That is, that's
Speaker 1: Ian's name. And on woman whose name is already a
Speaker 1: nickname made our music for us. So the full round
Speaker 1: of and I got killed Joy, I'm good, I already. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This week we are talking about snipers, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about World War Two. It's all an excuse to talk
Speaker 1: about the Eastern Front World War two and how complicated
Speaker 1: it was, and to make you all actually think it's interesting,
Speaker 1: because it is interesting, but not always what Okay. The
Speaker 1: thing that's really interesting to me about this, and I
Speaker 1: swear I'll get back into the script at some point,
Speaker 1: is that I thought I knew this story because I
Speaker 1: knew the broad strokes, and then when I looked closer,
Speaker 1: it was a different picture than what I knew from
Speaker 1: the broad strokes, like the fact that, as we talked
Speaker 1: about last week, that the Finnish Civil War was not
Speaker 1: between Soviets or Bolsheviks and capitalists but instead between social
Speaker 1: democrats and bootlockers who want to be part of the
Speaker 1: German Empire. But then also a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about about what comes after
Speaker 1: the Winter War is going to be a similar thing
Speaker 1: where it's a different picture than I expected. It's not
Speaker 1: a pretty picture. We're not talking about pretty stuff today,
Speaker 1: which I about interesting stuff today because this is part
Speaker 1: two in our four part series about some snipers in
Speaker 1: World War Two. So Simo hahe was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: oh five, which is a good year to be a
Speaker 1: failed revolutionary in Russia. That is the only thing I
Speaker 1: know about nineteen oh five. Besides that there's a good
Speaker 1: punk band called nineteen oh five. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they're named after the nineteen oh five revolution. Probably you
Speaker 1: should look them up. Good anarcho punk from the late nineties,
Speaker 1: maybe the early odds. Much like Simo, who was the
Speaker 1: seventh of age kids into a Lutheran family, not punk
Speaker 1: Rock at all. In Karelia, which at that point was
Speaker 1: part of Russian Finland, in the southeast corner next to
Speaker 1: and now part of Russia. His family's farm wasn't a nice,
Speaker 1: good growing soil big old. It was like mostly forest,
Speaker 1: right because it's not a place full of fertile soil.
Speaker 1: So he grew up a lot of hunting, and it
Speaker 1: seems like his only interests. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: mythologizing about him. But his main interests were hard work, hunting,
Speaker 1: hanging out in the snow with his dog, and also
Speaker 1: hard work. This guy's completely mythologized. He's maybe the best
Speaker 1: sniper in history. There's a lot of argument about that.
Speaker 1: And he's a national hero. So people ascribe lots of
Speaker 1: good Finnish values, like hard work, humility, and never expressing
Speaker 1: emotion to him. It might be true, that's the vibe
Speaker 1: I get from me.
Speaker 2: He's like a finished Johnny appleseed, but instead of trees,
Speaker 2: he's planting bullets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's planting Russians.
Speaker 2: Into Russians. Bullets into Russians. Was then germanyed into trees?
Speaker 1: Yeah, put the little seeds in each bullet. The hollow
Speaker 1: point is for you covered up with wax. Oh, little
Speaker 1: oak tree. I don't know what trees are common, they're
Speaker 1: probably pine trees. He went to school for a hot minute,
Speaker 1: just long enough for reading and arithmetic, and then he
Speaker 1: went back to the farm for his real love, hard
Speaker 1: work and snow. When he was nineteen, he went off
Speaker 1: to his compulsory fifteen months of military service, where he
Speaker 1: was an officer in a bicycle battalion, which will never
Speaker 1: stop seeming both cool and funny to me every time
Speaker 1: bicycle battalions come up. Last time I think was that
Speaker 1: the Dutch had bicycle battalions before the Nazis invaded them.
Speaker 1: He was a crack shot with a rifle and he
Speaker 1: did his fifteen months. He got out, he went back
Speaker 1: to hard work and snow farming. I think he was
Speaker 1: a snow farmer. He stayed active in the Civil Guard,
Speaker 1: which is basically the reserves, and he won every shooting
Speaker 1: contest he entered, as far as I can tell, and
Speaker 1: he just like filled his house up with trope, like
Speaker 1: he just was like because he was in the shooting
Speaker 1: club and they would give awards the best could you
Speaker 1: imagine how annoying it would be to be in the
Speaker 1: same shooting club as this man.
Speaker 2: Ah Simo showed up. Let's just go home, no, yeah today?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well then you're just like arguing who gets second?
Speaker 1: You know, like you know what.
Speaker 2: That's still like that in the competition circles in a
Speaker 2: different way. There's certain times you go to an event
Speaker 2: and someone shows up and you just know that you're
Speaker 2: not first that day. Whether you wouldn't get a chance
Speaker 2: at first or not irrelevant. You know you're not because
Speaker 2: you know who will be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. It seems like shooting is a
Speaker 1: skill that the the gradients of levels like are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would make sense to me that there's like certain people.
Speaker 1: I'm like, like, I know a lot of people I
Speaker 1: can out shooting a lot of people who can out
Speaker 1: shoot me.
Speaker 2: It's a weird thing. It's something that you can put
Speaker 2: a lot of time and effort into and you can
Speaker 2: always increase your skill, but there's like your skill only
Speaker 2: increases based on some level. Other level of also included
Speaker 2: natural ability. Natural ability. He won't get you there by itself.
Speaker 2: You have to practice to get it. But your natural
Speaker 2: ability plus the time you put in ultimately gives you
Speaker 2: your skill points whatever you want to do in like
Speaker 2: a role playing game kind of way. So there are
Speaker 2: some people whose natural ability is just there and they
Speaker 2: put the time in and they will always beat you.
Speaker 2: And that's just how it works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is why I'm glad I don't even stick
Speaker 1: to shooting competitions. I stick to plinking in my yard.
Speaker 1: But that's why I'm glad that I don't enter wars
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. I'd be more likely to enter competitions.
Speaker 2: Oh what war is a shooting competition? Well, the part time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he he was real humble about it though,
Speaker 1: which I feel like I don't wantedst to be mad
Speaker 1: at right, he shows up, he's gonna win, and then
Speaker 1: he's gonna stand at the back of the group photo,
Speaker 1: which one if I'm a photographer, I kind of hate him.
Speaker 1: He's five foot three, like he wants to stand at
Speaker 1: the back of the photo. Finns not traditionally tall people.
Speaker 1: Another thing that people don't understand because people assume that
Speaker 1: Fins are Swedes, and this is not true. Not a
Speaker 1: traditionally tall people necessarily, but five foot three is not
Speaker 1: towering over anyone and he's standing at the back of
Speaker 1: these things, and so he's like gonna win, and then
Speaker 1: he's gonna stand at the back and like everyone's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're the most humble, and he's like, I do win
Speaker 1: the word for most humble, but he actually seems really
Speaker 1: genuine about it. His rifle of choice was basically everyone
Speaker 1: on the planet's rifle of choice at this time, or
Speaker 1: at least everyone in that corner of the planet, which
Speaker 1: is the Mosen the Gaunt. This was developed in the
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties. It is a bolt action rifle. Every time
Speaker 1: you shoot, you have to manually cycle the next round
Speaker 1: into the chamber. I'm clearly not explaining this for Carl's sake.
Speaker 1: I'm clearly explaining this for the audience's sake. It holds
Speaker 1: five rounds in a fixed magazine, which means you can't
Speaker 1: like pop the magazine out and put in a new one.
Speaker 1: The magazine stays in the gun and you feed another
Speaker 1: five rounds into it. You either have to do it
Speaker 1: one at a time or with what's called a stripper clip,
Speaker 1: which is a little clip of metal that holds five
Speaker 1: rounds for faster reloading. And this was an advancement over muzzleloaders,
Speaker 1: but it is not an easy gun to shoot fast.
Speaker 1: Is was the gun that helped the Russians and the
Speaker 1: Russo Japanese War of nineteen oh four nineteen oh five,
Speaker 1: which means it didn't help them enough, because the Russians
Speaker 1: lost the shit out of that war. It was used
Speaker 1: in by all sides of the Russian Civil War and
Speaker 1: by all sides of the Winter War, which we're coming to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the most in the Gaunt is a really interesting
Speaker 2: rifle in terms of it's one of the earliest bolt
Speaker 2: action designs that was one would say, is modern and
Speaker 2: viable from a modern perspective, and as many of them did.
Speaker 2: It held five rounds in a box magazine. It was
Speaker 2: chambered in a cartridge that at least in this instance
Speaker 2: we're talking about here with the Russians of the Fins
Speaker 2: with around seven sixty by fifty four rimmed. And that's
Speaker 2: interesting because rimmed is not modern and it's even though
Speaker 2: the so or so the Russians now fades of gray
Speaker 2: there shades of gray, they still use this round and
Speaker 2: a rimmed round means that it has this little extended
Speaker 2: piece of metal at the end of the cartridge itself
Speaker 2: that is a rim. Most modern cartridges are rim list.
Speaker 2: There's a little divot cut out from the back of
Speaker 2: the cartridge and that's what's used to extract the cartridge
Speaker 2: from the chamber. But these are rims. That means that
Speaker 2: when you stack them on top of each other, imagine
Speaker 2: like a little pie dish on the back of each round.
Speaker 2: And if you stack them incorrectly and your gun isn't
Speaker 2: designed to work with it properly, they'll have something called
Speaker 2: rimlock where the rim of the cartridge in front of
Speaker 2: it will prevent the rim from or behind it will
Speaker 2: prevent it from feeding when you try to cycle the bolt.
Speaker 2: So the most in the Gaunt has this interesting system
Speaker 2: called the interrupter that when you cycle the bolt, it
Speaker 2: only allows one round to pop up into the feeding
Speaker 2: angle to chamber into the chamber, because if it didn't
Speaker 2: you could have a rimlock issue. The other gun that
Speaker 2: deals with that is the old Enfield from Britain with
Speaker 2: their rimmed round, but the Most of the God did that.
Speaker 2: It's also one of the earliest bolt action modern guns
Speaker 2: that dealt with smokeless ammunition versus black powder. And one
Speaker 2: of the things and the reasons you see it common
Speaker 2: in these environments. Is while it is I think, by
Speaker 2: most modern statements, not a good baul to action rifle.
Speaker 2: It is slow, clunky, and hard to use, and in
Speaker 2: some instance jams a lot. It is sort of better
Speaker 2: in some ways in very low temperature environments. It does
Speaker 2: work well in cold.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes a lot of sense with what we're
Speaker 1: what I've learned. My experience with the MOZONEA gaunt is
Speaker 1: that it's the only gun I've ever handled that went
Speaker 1: off without anyone pulling the trigger.
Speaker 2: That's nice.
Speaker 1: My friend had a broken one. Everyone was fine because
Speaker 1: we followed the rules of firearms safety. And then we
Speaker 1: put down the gun. And then my friend, who actually
Speaker 1: worked in a gun manufacturer or something, stop shooting that gun.
Speaker 2: Did it happened when the bolt was closed. I bitched,
Speaker 2: the firing pin was frozen forward or something.
Speaker 1: I couldn't I don't know. This was before I knew
Speaker 1: shit about guns.
Speaker 2: So these things are like prolific. They made the Russians,
Speaker 2: the Soviets made sivee seven gazillion of these, and for
Speaker 2: a long time in the market, American market, whatever, these
Speaker 2: were the cheapest guns you could buy. You could get
Speaker 2: most of the guns for like sixty bucks. You can't anymore,
Speaker 2: but you could.
Speaker 1: And I'm so sad I missed that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean their need is a history.
Speaker 1: They're not great. I don't think it's like a useful
Speaker 1: firearm for anything, but.
Speaker 2: I mean they can be still. I mean they are
Speaker 2: intrinsically oz bolt actions are very accurate, right it is,
Speaker 2: and that's something we'll get into, I'm sure talking about
Speaker 2: today with Cimo. But it's an accurate rifle and it's
Speaker 2: an accurate round. The Russian manufactured ones tend to be
Speaker 2: very clunky and hard, and sometimes bring a hammer with you,
Speaker 2: a rubber mallet because they'll get stuck. Called it's just
Speaker 2: the bolt. We'll get stuck closed. You have to beat
Speaker 2: it open with a mallet. What's all about finish stuff
Speaker 2: is the fins took Russian most of the gunes, rework them,
Speaker 2: put better sights on them, and a finish most of
Speaker 2: the Gune, even though it was made on Russian machines,
Speaker 2: is a wholly different gun. It's actually reliable, it doesn't jam,
Speaker 2: and it's really good.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, if you hear of one for sixty dollars,
Speaker 1: please let.
Speaker 2: Me know finish. Most of the gunes command a premium,
Speaker 2: but if I see one for sixty bucks, I'll keep
Speaker 2: you in mind.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. So so Simo. He's in this hunting
Speaker 1: club and he's doing his thing. He's hunting Santa Claus,
Speaker 1: he's winning medals, he's pulling off wild feats like the
Speaker 1: one that get cited all the time. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: I can fucking dream of doing this. He would with
Speaker 1: a mozaa Gaunt. He would hit a target one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty meters away sixteen times in one minute with
Speaker 1: no scope and a rifle that only holds five rounds
Speaker 1: at a time.
Speaker 2: That's that's a real feat from a stripper clip perspective,
Speaker 2: because you mentioned a stripper clip, which is the way
Speaker 2: you get five rounds quickly back into the gun instead
Speaker 2: a single one at a time. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 2: another deficiency of the most inda Gaunt. The stripper clips
Speaker 2: are wonky and tend to cut you when you use them.
Speaker 2: So if he's doing that, he's doing a good job
Speaker 2: and not hurting himself in the process. So yeah, that's impressive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't find a fucking word about his politics.
Speaker 1: If you know, please let me know. There are a
Speaker 1: million books written Abouthim and I have not read all
Speaker 1: of them or most of them, and which has me
Speaker 1: thinking he wasn't particularly political, because otherwise people will be
Speaker 1: trying really hard to claim him. Or he was like
Speaker 1: kind of right wing and people don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about it because being right wing is embarrassing. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it seems like the things that he did were
Speaker 1: all legit and cool. His priorities were defending his home
Speaker 1: and being a cool guy who liked nature and farming
Speaker 1: and hard work. He talks about hunting and respecting in
Speaker 1: the forest in a way that reminds me a lot
Speaker 1: of the animist roots of Finnish culture honestly, Like he
Speaker 1: talks about like the spirit of animals that he's killing
Speaker 1: and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never seen a thing about it. As well.
Speaker 2: Everything I've ever seen about Simo is exactly that, which
Speaker 2: is stalwart defender of Finland and an amazing sniper.
Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, I think that this thing. So he's
Speaker 1: doing his thing, he never gets married. Then the USSR
Speaker 1: invades his home and specifically his home like he is
Speaker 1: in the line of he is in Karelia and people
Speaker 1: are like, he defended his home successfully in Finland State Finland.
Speaker 1: He loses his home spoiler alert. During this war, the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union takes Karelia and his home. But he's like,
Speaker 1: all right, back into the army, that's what I'm here for.
Speaker 1: And he starts off as a machine gunner. And half
Speaker 1: of his kill count was a machine a submachine gun,
Speaker 1: the Swami KP thirty one, and it's one of the
Speaker 1: first really good You talked about this a little bit before,
Speaker 1: but what I've learned about it is this is one
Speaker 1: of the first really good submachine guns. It's way more
Speaker 1: accurate than most submachine guns. This list has a longer
Speaker 1: barrel than what you think of when you think of
Speaker 1: a submachine gun. It's heavy as fuck for submachine gun,
Speaker 1: which helps with recoil and muzzle rise and later if
Speaker 1: you read about it, it's like a seventy one drum magazine,
Speaker 1: but actually when he was using it, I believe it
Speaker 1: was more likely a forty round drum magazine, and then
Speaker 1: had an interchangeable barrel so you could swap it out
Speaker 1: when it got too hot. That's what I got about it.
Speaker 2: Honestly, it is one of the best submachine guns, like
Speaker 2: there's more undred generations stow machine guns now that are
Speaker 2: maybe safer for lack of a better phrase, but the
Speaker 2: KP thirty one, the Saomi is a fantastic gun. It's
Speaker 2: well machined, it's well made, the parts are interchangeable, the
Speaker 2: magazines work from one gun to another. It's incredibly reliable.
Speaker 2: It's weight, and some of them have a muzzle break
Speaker 2: on at A muzzle break is a little some cuts
Speaker 2: in the front of the barrel that reduce climb when
Speaker 2: it's firing in filado. It has a high rate of fire,
Speaker 2: typically like nine hundred rounds a minute or even a
Speaker 2: little more. But with the weight and the muzzle break
Speaker 2: and the capacity, you can pull what are called bursts
Speaker 2: for you press the trigger and let out like say three,
Speaker 2: four or five rounds and reliably hit at distances with
Speaker 2: that subgun that you normally couldn't with others, like one,
Speaker 2: two hundred even three hundred round Aimed fire at a
Speaker 2: man sized target with a Sawomi is totally viable. In fact,
Speaker 2: I have a video not to promote in range, but
Speaker 2: I have a video on in range where we were
Speaker 2: shooting one of those original saamis and you can see
Speaker 2: the what's called beat zone where the bullets hitting the
Speaker 2: berm and it's it's extremely accurate. They're a pleasure to shoot.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I get the impression he did some of
Speaker 1: it sniping with this thing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I believe he did a lot of work
Speaker 2: with the song. With the song, he did a lot.
Speaker 1: He absolute a lot of work with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's because sniping is always considered like, I don't
Speaker 2: want to get too far and what we're getting into now.
Speaker 2: So many people think about sniping is this long range
Speaker 2: precision work, and there's some truth to that sometimes, but
Speaker 2: sniping is actually more field craft than it is precision fire.
Speaker 1: And that actually seems to be like most of the
Speaker 1: people that he shoots are going to be one hundred,
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty meters away from him when he's
Speaker 1: shooting them, which is very different than like modern sniper stuff,
Speaker 1: as I understand, where you have a lot of like
Speaker 1: killing people at a half mile whatever, you know they're
Speaker 1: in the forest and shit. Yeah, and the fact that
Speaker 1: he knows a fucking forest is why he's so effective.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. In Finland, like the idea of shots, long shots
Speaker 2: are not a commonality there. Like you said, it's almost
Speaker 2: all forested. There's not a lot of large areas to
Speaker 2: see for very far field craft applies, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: making one hundred or one hundred and fifty meters hits
Speaker 2: with a KP thirty one sub machine gun is is
Speaker 2: totally doable.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the USSR invades and they have tanks, planes, artillery,
Speaker 1: and just fuck tons of people. No one in history
Speaker 1: has cared less about the value of his own people
Speaker 1: than Joseph Stalin. If there is a problem, throw Soviets
Speaker 1: at it. That is how he gets shit done. On
Speaker 1: the other side, the Fins have a grand total of
Speaker 1: thirty two tanks one hundred and fourteen aircraft compared to
Speaker 1: like three thousand and four thousand, three thousand tanks and
Speaker 1: four thousand airplanes on the Soviet side. But they've got
Speaker 1: skis and unlike the Soviets, they've got weather appropriate clothing,
Speaker 1: which is funny because the Soviets are even from a
Speaker 1: fucking cold place.
Speaker 2: Not as cold as Finland. Yeah, at least not as cold,
Speaker 2: or at least not as in terms of maybe that's
Speaker 2: not fair. They have places that are as cold as Finland.
Speaker 1: Right, Soldier is not equipped or a place like Finland totally.
Speaker 1: The Finns mostly don't have uniforms. They just have a
Speaker 1: military hat and whatever clothes they were able to show
Speaker 1: up to do to even which means that they have
Speaker 1: a lot of white clothes for snow and they're actually camouflaged.
Speaker 1: They they've got morale on their side, and they grew
Speaker 1: up in these woods, and so they fuck the Soviets up.
Speaker 1: At the end of this one hundred and five I
Speaker 1: think day war, Stalin loses like one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand soldiers. Finns lose about twenty six thousand. That's a
Speaker 1: really good I don't want to be one of the
Speaker 1: twenty six thousand to die, right, but that's a fucking
Speaker 1: good ratio. The Soviets are still gonna win sort of,
Speaker 1: but they're not going to steamroll like they thought they would.
Speaker 1: And it is quite likely that this fierce defense is
Speaker 1: the reason that Finland is around today. I don't know
Speaker 1: whether or not Stalin could have held Finland or not,
Speaker 1: but Simo specifically, we'll get to the quote later speaks
Speaker 1: about how this is why there's a Finland. So he's
Speaker 1: a machine gunner and he's fighting gorilla style. He's fighting
Speaker 1: under a man named arna Edward Utulnen aka the Terror
Speaker 1: of Morocco, who is not a good person. He fought
Speaker 1: in the Finished Civil War on the White Side when
Speaker 1: he was fourteen years old. I think he was like
Speaker 1: helping load ammunition or something, and then he went and
Speaker 1: there wasn't enough war happening, so he went and joined
Speaker 1: the French Foreign Legion. He fought in the colonial forces
Speaker 1: occupying Morocco, earning his shitty nickname. But apparently he didn't
Speaker 1: like really like he wasn't like such an effective soldier
Speaker 1: that like people were like the Terror of Morocco while
Speaker 1: he was in the French Foreign Legion. It's when he
Speaker 1: got back to Finland people are like, oh, where were
Speaker 1: you Morocco? Oh yeah, you're like the Terror of Morocco,
Speaker 1: aren't you. There's this probably apocryphal story about his leadership
Speaker 1: style where he one time joining a firefight in order
Speaker 1: to convince his friends his soldier sorry not friends, he's
Speaker 1: an asshole, to convince them to not worry. He pulls
Speaker 1: out a chair and he just like sits there on
Speaker 1: the firing line. He's like, what the fuck fighting fucking
Speaker 1: cowards or whatever you know, which is always like a
Speaker 1: cool move when the like officer fights in the front line.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 1: Anyway, he's also known for getting drunk and beating his
Speaker 1: own soldiers. He's not a cool guy at all. His
Speaker 1: own nephew wrote, and I'm gonna quote this, Arnae was
Speaker 1: a bad person. That's the quote. I didn't cut the
Speaker 1: sentence short. There's not a butt after it. The full
Speaker 1: quote is like a paragraph about like people call him
Speaker 1: a war hero. I guess that's technically true. God, he's
Speaker 1: a piece of shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like if like speaking from like just finish,
Speaker 2: like my knowledge of Finish culture, that sentence is all
Speaker 2: you need to know. That says it, all right, we
Speaker 2: don't need to add more to that. This is Matt person. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take your I'm gonna believe that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know what you should believe also, you
Speaker 1: should believe that every one of these ads for goods
Speaker 1: and services was made in good faith, with your best
Speaker 1: interests at heart, and not within the context of a
Speaker 1: capitalist system that only rewards short term gain of profit.
Speaker 2: Nothing says altruism like corporation. So I believe you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta be rich to be a philanthropist. You
Speaker 1: gotta steal everyone's shit in order to here's some advertisers
Speaker 1: and we're back. Sosimo started off not as a sniper, right,
Speaker 1: but as a unit leader submachine gunning Russians. Overall. The
Speaker 1: Fins had a strategy where like, Okay, so the Russians
Speaker 1: have like tanks and shit, and there's only certain paths
Speaker 1: and roads that they can move on. Like one thing
Speaker 1: I read was like it took a lot while to
Speaker 1: like pack down the snow enough to get a fucking
Speaker 1: tank across, right, So there was a lot of long,
Speaker 1: single file marches into Finland. Basically there was a lot
Speaker 1: of like, let's get ambushed, and so the Fins were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we can do that for you. They would cut off
Speaker 1: the tanks from the rest of their support and then
Speaker 1: just fuck them up by using Molotov cocktails. I am
Speaker 1: not going to tell you how to make. You can
Speaker 1: look it up yourself with a VPN, but it is
Speaker 1: a homemade firebomb that is easiest shit to make. I
Speaker 1: am not advocating that anyone do it because the cost
Speaker 1: benefit analysis of making them molotovs in the US is grim.
Speaker 1: They will not advocate anyone break any laws.
Speaker 2: You know, Molotov got a cocktail and Ribbentrop did not.
Speaker 1: That's true. That's fucked up. That's not your range. Fuck,
Speaker 1: So the history of the Molotov cocktail. Fortunately, I James
Speaker 1: Stout Channel zero network what no Cool Zone Media. The
Speaker 1: problem is that I'm on two podcasts networks with the
Speaker 1: named fucking initials basically CZN and CZM, and I get
Speaker 1: that mixed up constantly. Cool Zone media journalist James Stout,
Speaker 1: that's an article. Oh, he's cool. Most famous as a bicyclist.
Speaker 1: He has an article about the origin of Molotovs in
Speaker 1: the Winter War quote. The war began with a bombardment
Speaker 1: of Helsinki, which Soviet foreign Minister Vitchislav Molotov claimed was
Speaker 1: a humanitarian aid drop. The Fins, retaining their dark humor,
Speaker 1: called the bombs Molotov's bread baskets. Soon everything bad was
Speaker 1: associated with Molotov. Blackout curtains used to stop bombers from
Speaker 1: spotting urban areas from overhead by blocking out visible light
Speaker 1: from the windows at night, were called Molotov curtains, and
Speaker 1: bombing planes were called Molotov's chickens. So the Fins found
Speaker 1: a great pairing for the bread baskets and churned out
Speaker 1: at an industrial scale by distilleries the Molotov cocktail with
Speaker 1: which to toast the invader, which.
Speaker 2: By the way, if I might add, when you look
Speaker 2: into this, if you do listener, the Finnish Smotov cocktails
Speaker 2: are actually interestingly better than what you think of. They're
Speaker 2: not as crude. They're actually produced and manufactured and almost
Speaker 2: like how I put this, they're not they're not they're
Speaker 2: not they're not rogue at all. There's a sign that's
Speaker 2: better than most. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, interesting, they have.
Speaker 2: Their own ignition systems and such that are better.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's actually really interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they made their own thing. Not to go too
Speaker 2: deep into it. Instead of just a burning rag, they
Speaker 2: actually had like burning flares that were taped to the glass.
Speaker 1: No, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: just know someone who went to jail for At a talk,
Speaker 1: someone asked him how he had already gone to jail
Speaker 1: for burning some shit as part of the Animal Liberation Front.
Speaker 1: And at the talk someone was like, oh, how did
Speaker 1: you burn the things? And he described how he burned
Speaker 1: the things, and so then he went back to prison. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like real fucking nervous about that shit.
Speaker 2: No, totally, but it is an interesting topic and if
Speaker 2: you look at it, it's interesting to see how the
Speaker 2: Finnish Molotov cocktail is actually greatly improved over the let's
Speaker 2: say original design.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that makes sense. Do you know it was
Speaker 1: originally a fascist invention?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Actually didn't.
Speaker 1: The Spanish fascist in nineteen thirty six, under Franco invented
Speaker 1: the bottle bomb, as we understand it now.
Speaker 2: Didn't know that. That's fascinating consider now it's seen.
Speaker 1: Now, I know absolutely it's the weapon of the working class.
Speaker 2: It's like the Molotov cocktail and the machete, right, those
Speaker 2: two things are like so iconic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally. Both have been used by good people
Speaker 1: and bad people.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty six, Spanish fascist troops started using them, and
Speaker 1: then soon enough both sides of the Spanish Civil War,
Speaker 1: including the good guys, were using them. But they got
Speaker 1: their name during the Winter War a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: and they are a great way to fuck up a tank.
Speaker 1: I actually don't know as much about I've heard. Basically,
Speaker 1: it was like the old tanks weren't enclosed, and so
Speaker 1: if you like set the outside on fire. It's like
Speaker 1: causing a lot of problems and it like forces the
Speaker 1: tank people to get out and you can shoot them
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: The rear of the tanks usually have a ventilation system
Speaker 2: which allows for the intake of air for the people
Speaker 2: inside to actually survive, or ventilation system for the actual
Speaker 2: engine because it needs air to be able to do
Speaker 2: combustion and drive. And so the target on the tank
Speaker 2: where the ventilation systems at the rear. So if you
Speaker 2: threw fire into that, it would leak down into the
Speaker 2: ventilation system and either a make it impossible to survive
Speaker 2: inside by breathing, or it would choke out the engine
Speaker 2: or get to a part that would cause the rest
Speaker 2: of the tank to combust.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, and they were I love when there's a
Speaker 1: I remember reading this article a million years ago called
Speaker 1: bashing the laser rangefinder with a rock about like low
Speaker 1: tech solutions to modern problems, you know, mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they have these low tech solutions to modern problems,
Speaker 1: but they do it at an industrial scale, and they
Speaker 1: do it with their own actual carefully engineered they put
Speaker 1: their own on it. Eh ah. Yes, So Finns on
Speaker 1: skis are fucking up the tanks, burning the shit out
Speaker 1: of him after cutting them off from everyone else, and
Speaker 1: pretty soon Simo's commander needs a specific Russian sniper takeout
Speaker 1: taken out who keeps killing Finnish officers and I think
Speaker 1: this guy's off. His officer Arna is like, I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get shot, Hey, Simo, can you go?
Speaker 1: Can you go shoot a dude? And Simo's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can go shoot a dude, and he shifts over
Speaker 1: to sniper and counter sniper duty. Back to the mozen Nagaunt,
Speaker 1: he was offered one with a scope. Supposedly, he had
Speaker 1: no interest for a few reasons. First, and I think
Speaker 1: this is the actual main reason. The first and foremost,
Speaker 1: he'd never trained with a scope. That just wasn't this,
Speaker 1: that wasn't what he's used to. But this worked out
Speaker 1: really well for him. One, you have to raise your
Speaker 1: head an inch or two or higher to cite a scope.
Speaker 1: Two And if you're trying to get shot, the higher
Speaker 1: you lift your head, the more likely area to get
Speaker 1: you shot. Apparently the glass could fog up in the cold,
Speaker 1: and this is minus forty degrees out And the cool
Speaker 1: thing about minus forty degrees is I don't have to
Speaker 1: tell you whether it's celsius or fahrenheit because it's the
Speaker 1: one place where they both meet.
Speaker 2: Ah, the neutral ground of temperatures.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the dead Man, but that's land of.
Speaker 2: That's specifically true about the most and na gaunt sniper,
Speaker 2: which is the most common iteration. It's called the ninety
Speaker 2: one thirty. But the scope is really high off of
Speaker 2: the comb of the stock where you would normally rest
Speaker 2: your cheek to look down the iron sights, so you
Speaker 2: do this thing called chin weld where you kind of
Speaker 2: rest your chin on the stock to see it. And
Speaker 2: the scope isn't bor centric. It's kind of off to
Speaker 2: the left of the actual rifle bore, and so sides
Speaker 2: fog ammunition in it. Well, it's just kind of up
Speaker 2: and high, so you can get your hands and you
Speaker 2: can't use stripper clips anymore when it's gotta Yeah, there's
Speaker 2: another example of going with iron sights. Because the scope
Speaker 2: is on there, you can no longer use the stripper
Speaker 2: clip and feed quickly. You have to feed into wividual
Speaker 2: rounds one at a time. Yeah, But it's also so
Speaker 2: the scope has to be higher on offset so that
Speaker 2: you can actually throw the bolt and cycle the gun.
Speaker 1: Ah okay, okay.
Speaker 2: All that turns into harder to shoot. So him being
Speaker 2: already proficient with iron sights makes a lot of sense
Speaker 2: that he would stick with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, totally. And then the other thing is that
Speaker 1: half of how he killed enemy snipers is he'd like
Speaker 1: wait till the sun reflected off of him. Like he
Speaker 1: literally wait all day till the sun was in the
Speaker 1: right place reflect off of the enemy sniper off the scope,
Speaker 1: and then shoot them in the face. And Simo wanted
Speaker 1: to go as long as possible before he got shot
Speaker 1: in the face.
Speaker 2: So that's a usual you know what. I spend every
Speaker 2: day of my life trying to not get shot in
Speaker 2: the face. That's a good goal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually take it for granted.
Speaker 2: But the United States, you never know.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm like, wait, I got my concealed Gary
Speaker 1: permit because Nazi sent me pictures of my family, Like anyway,
Speaker 1: fuck those people. So he's the original no scope guy,
Speaker 1: and he is fucking methodical. He works sometimes alone, sometimes
Speaker 1: with a spotter. This actually like fucks up his like
Speaker 1: kill count, you know, and like as if it's as
Speaker 1: if life is a video game. Because only confirmed kills
Speaker 1: get to count, and if no one's around to see
Speaker 1: if a tree the Soviet falls in the forest. So
Speaker 1: he goes out at night. He gets himself nice and
Speaker 1: cozy in a spot, uses natural cover, lots of snow.
Speaker 1: He wears all white. He wraps a white bandage around
Speaker 1: the stock of his rifle. And apparently he shot. I
Speaker 1: only found this in one place, But apparently he shot
Speaker 1: from a sitting position, not prone, because and because he
Speaker 1: is in a foxhole natural depression anyway, and he's not
Speaker 1: very tall. This is not a problem for him. I
Speaker 1: mean it clearly worked. Then the sun would rise, he
Speaker 1: would do a murderer thirty he aimed center masks instead
Speaker 1: of for the heads, sorry video game players of the world.
Speaker 1: And then the sun would set and he'd leave. And
Speaker 1: before he when he was setting up, he'd pack down
Speaker 1: the snow in from of his position, so the report
Speaker 1: didn't set up a cloud of snow. Other versions that
Speaker 1: he poured a little bit of water on it so
Speaker 1: that it would freeze. And he also sometimes supposedly kept
Speaker 1: snow in his mouth to keep his breath from showing.
Speaker 1: He sustained himself by chewing on bread and sugar that
Speaker 1: he just like had in his pockets, and then he
Speaker 1: laid still in the middle of the fucking winter, coldest
Speaker 1: winter in years, and waited. The Soviets had green uniforms,
Speaker 1: made them very easy to pick out and then pick off.
Speaker 1: And of course it didn't help that Stalin had just
Speaker 1: purged seventy to eighty percent of all of his top
Speaker 1: leadership during one of his fits of paranoia, so there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of good leadership in the Soviet Army
Speaker 1: at this point. There's one story that is probably apocryphal,
Speaker 1: but one of my Finnish friends told me about Semo.
Speaker 1: I remember when I first like asked my Finnish anarchist
Speaker 1: friends about Simo. I was like expecting them to all
Speaker 1: be like, are you fucking kidding me? Fuck, that guy's
Speaker 1: a national hero, and instead, at least the person I
Speaker 1: talked to was like, oh, my god, let me tell
Speaker 1: you stories about him. And one of the stories I
Speaker 1: heard is that he would basically just get buried under
Speaker 1: the snow and then he'd wait for a rabbit to
Speaker 1: go over his head and then he would like stick
Speaker 1: a knife up through the snow to catch the rabbit
Speaker 1: and then like bring it down in and eat it raw.
Speaker 1: I have no source on this besides a fucking drunk
Speaker 1: friend of mine at a party, but I wouldn't put
Speaker 1: it past Semo is what I'll tell you now.
Speaker 2: I mean it kind of tracks and like everything you
Speaker 2: just mentioned about what Simo would made him effective at
Speaker 2: what he was doing was like mentioned earlier in the discussion,
Speaker 2: was field craft not to undermine the marksmanship, but this
Speaker 2: is all field.
Speaker 1: Craft totally, no, that is yeah. I remember like reading
Speaker 1: something that was like with no sniper experience, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: the guy was a moose hunter since he was like
Speaker 1: the baby like anyway, whatever, Soon he gets the nickname
Speaker 1: the White Death. The general version of the stories that
Speaker 1: the Russian started calling this because they're afraid of him.
Speaker 1: The far more likely version of the story is that
Speaker 1: the Finns started saying that the Russians started calling him
Speaker 1: in this because it's because it's good propaganda to be
Speaker 1: like everyone's afraid of the White Death, which apparently was
Speaker 1: also like the word for just like dying in the
Speaker 1: fucking snow is the White Death.
Speaker 2: I don't know, what's a cool name. I think you
Speaker 2: should take it. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, absolutely, someone did. Yeah. Absolutely. The Russians
Speaker 1: are really fucking not excited about him. The Fins also
Speaker 1: started calling him the magic shooter, but no one mentions
Speaker 1: that nickname in the English language accounts because it does
Speaker 1: not sound cool or metal in English. Sorry, magic shooter,
Speaker 1: white death translates better. Several times Soviets call down artillery
Speaker 1: strikes just to get him to flush him out, but
Speaker 1: he wouldn't flush. He actually apparently like turned down orders,
Speaker 1: like his commander was like, get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 1: They're fucking artillery, and he's like, I'm good, and he
Speaker 1: just sits there and he lets the artillery come and
Speaker 1: go like a bad storm. One time shrapnel caught his
Speaker 1: coat on fire. Apparently there's other versions where he lost
Speaker 1: his coat in it, but it like fucks up his coat,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't get him. Enemy snipers are constantly trying
Speaker 1: to hunt him, but they all die mysteriously, and by
Speaker 1: mysteriously I mean from bullets that Simo has shot them
Speaker 1: with the same Finnish friend telling me apocryphal stories says,
Speaker 1: and one time shooting people with a rifle wasn't effective enough.
Speaker 1: Too many people were coming through the past, so we
Speaker 1: just went down to the enemy camp and submachine gun
Speaker 1: submachine gun to them all down only grammatically correct, And
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean he absolutely killed a fuck
Speaker 1: ton people with submachine gun and a sniper rifle. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that particular story is true or not. Overall,
Speaker 1: the war wasn't going well for anyone. The Russians wanted
Speaker 1: to steamroll, but no steamrolling was possible, kind of the
Speaker 1: original like Zurig Rush Army. The Finns wanted to drive
Speaker 1: the Russians out, but no driving out was possible either,
Speaker 1: And in February a new wave of Russians hit the
Speaker 1: country and the Fins fell back to a line that
Speaker 1: they were trying to hold. Sniping wasn't the only thing
Speaker 1: he was doing. He was still a commander, he was
Speaker 1: still fighting as a machine gunner, and during some battles,
Speaker 1: and during one battle, like a week maybe before the
Speaker 1: end of the war, and exploding bullet hit him in
Speaker 1: the face. Now I know what you're thinking, Carl, you've
Speaker 1: never heard of exploding bullet before. But I googled and
Speaker 1: I found a video explaining exploding bullets with a nice
Speaker 1: man named Carl explaining it, which is basically that these
Speaker 1: bullets were initially designed to help zero rifles, making little
Speaker 1: explosions when they hit, So maybe it's a little less
Speaker 1: like some of the what I read is like and
Speaker 1: those evil Soviets used exploding rifles because they hate humanity.
Speaker 1: It sounds like these were more like what was used
Speaker 1: for piercing armor. And also, if you're shooting some in
Speaker 1: the face, you're shooting some in the face. What's your
Speaker 1: take on this?
Speaker 2: Actually? And even more than that, they were used most
Speaker 2: The most common use of the exploding bullet or was
Speaker 2: for hit indicators from coaxial machine guns and tanks, so
Speaker 2: when the tanks would fire, they would fire machine gun
Speaker 2: rounds to try and see if their ranging estimate was correct,
Speaker 2: and when the bullets would hit the enemy tank, these
Speaker 2: exploding rounds would make visible sparks and explosions and smoke
Speaker 2: when they were hitting the armor of the enemy tank,
Speaker 2: which helped them zero the main gun. That same concept
Speaker 2: of technology got put into aircraft for armour piercing inscyndianary,
Speaker 2: which is rounds that are intended to cause fire or
Speaker 2: flame inside the tanks and the gas tanks of enemy aircraft.
Speaker 2: They are also standard rifle rounds that can be fired
Speaker 2: in standard rifles most of the time, and so they
Speaker 2: started getting used very much so on the Eastern Front
Speaker 2: as well as in Finland by both sides or high
Speaker 2: value targets, because once they penetrate a couple inches of material,
Speaker 2: they detonate, and of course if you are doing that
Speaker 2: in a person's chest, that is a confirmed kill for sure.
Speaker 2: In fact, yeah, oh, we show some of that in
Speaker 2: the video which we shoot this ballistic soap stuff and
Speaker 2: you can see them detonating. It's really just an inertial
Speaker 2: firing pin with a primer and some some sort of
Speaker 2: explosive compound and when the bullet accelerates, the firing pin
Speaker 2: hits the primer and then it causes to detonate inside
Speaker 2: the target. And Okay, what's interesting about that is it's
Speaker 2: again a Navy, not cool person that didn't do cool stuff.
Speaker 2: But there's a book sniper on the Eastern Front which
Speaker 2: was a Nazi sniper, and he talks about the use
Speaker 2: of this ammunition against high value targets, typically Russian or
Speaker 2: Soviet officers, and describes in grim detail about their heads
Speaker 2: turning into like mist and such from it.
Speaker 1: No, that makes a lot of sense, because I've read
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different accounts about this, particular like
Speaker 1: his injury that took him out and stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and some was like a lucky shot, and some was
Speaker 1: like it was an enemy sniper, And that makes an
Speaker 1: enemy sniper seem way more likely, right because if it
Speaker 1: was like because there was almost certainly someone who's like,
Speaker 1: at any given battle, it's like, your job is to
Speaker 1: kill Semo.
Speaker 2: You know, if Simo was your target, it would make
Speaker 2: sense to use explosive ammunition for a high value target
Speaker 2: because if you got the hit, you would hope that
Speaker 2: it would be amazingly he survived it, but yep, it's
Speaker 2: not likely to survive and exploding around yet they're quite lethal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. On March sixth, nineteen forty, Simo took an
Speaker 1: exploding bullet to the jaw, destroyed half of his face.
Speaker 1: He went down thousand versions of how he was saved.
Speaker 1: The version that seems to line up the most with
Speaker 1: his own recollections is that basically people were like, we
Speaker 1: are not fucking leaving until we find Semo, Like, we
Speaker 1: are not leaving this, and so probably at the bottom
Speaker 1: of a pile of bodies, someone's like, oh, that leg's
Speaker 1: twitching or whatever, you know, But he wasn't dead. He
Speaker 1: was just missing half of his face and looked real
Speaker 1: dead and was unconscious for most of it. Ragged off
Speaker 1: to safety. By the time he came to the war
Speaker 1: was over and the Fins had lost after one hundred
Speaker 1: and five day war. He read a newspaper report about
Speaker 1: his own death and sent a correction to the paper.
Speaker 1: Stalin The way that the war had come to an
Speaker 1: end is Stalin had kept trying to install this puppet government, right,
Speaker 1: so he wasn't negotiating with the actual Finnish government. He
Speaker 1: couldn't because he didn't respect them. They weren't a legitimate force.
Speaker 1: But somewhere around like January or so, I can't remember exactly,
Speaker 1: he gave up. He was like, all right, no one
Speaker 1: fucking believes my fake government. I guess I'll start talking
Speaker 1: to the actual Finnish government. And so the Finns had
Speaker 1: to give up half of Karelia, which was Simo's homeland,
Speaker 1: as well as the city of Viporo, which is one
Speaker 1: of the largest cities in the country. There's different It
Speaker 1: was either the second biggest or the fourth biggest, depending
Speaker 1: on which population survey you're looking at. But it was
Speaker 1: a big fucking important place. A huge chunk of the
Speaker 1: Finnish population lived in this area. It's a small country
Speaker 1: and most of the people live way in the south,
Speaker 1: and Karelia is as south as you can get in Finland.
Speaker 1: At first, the government is like, no, you can't fucking
Speaker 1: have our second biggest city. What the fuck? And they
Speaker 1: kept writing the Western power Sweden and France for military support.
Speaker 1: They kept being like, hey, we we're democracy, we don't
Speaker 1: want to become Bolsheviks. Excuse you give us some stuff.
Speaker 1: And everyone's like, oh, what's that. I can't hear you
Speaker 1: over the sound of not listening to you. Sweden, I
Speaker 1: think I think they had this thing where like they
Speaker 1: were like, look, we're not going to stop volunteers from
Speaker 1: going over, but we're not going to do anything beyond that.
Speaker 1: I think I might be mixing that up with like
Speaker 1: I read about like five Finish wars to write this
Speaker 1: fucking thing. Anyway, twelve percent of the Finnish population has
Speaker 1: to flee the conquered territory because they're genociders, right. That
Speaker 1: is the thing is the people who just genocided all
Speaker 1: the Finns took a bunch of Finland. Everyone has to leave,
Speaker 1: so they lost, but they took out so many Russians
Speaker 1: in the process. Stalin himself said, and I cannot tell
Speaker 1: if this is a direct quote or paraphrase, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna present it as a quote. The Finns were a
Speaker 1: primitive people, the inhabitants of marshes and forests, but they
Speaker 1: had stubbornly defended their independence, unlike the Belgians, civilized people
Speaker 1: who surrendered right away. If they had been Fins instead
Speaker 1: of Belgians, I thought they would have fought hard against
Speaker 1: the German aggression. So Stalin did this like weird kind
Speaker 1: of racist, like you know, oh, you primitive strong people,
Speaker 1: you backwards fighty assholes anyway, whatever kind.
Speaker 2: Of shades of something you'd hear way a way later
Speaker 2: in a much different conflict with two different countries of
Speaker 2: the Vietcong.
Speaker 1: Oh huh, I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: That's how they were labeled too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: So Simo exits world history at this point. I mean,
Speaker 1: we know what happened to him. He doesn't disappear, but
Speaker 1: he wanted to fight in the ongoing hostilities against the USSR,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to those. But he was too wounded.
Speaker 1: He had twenty six surgeries and his face was reconstructed
Speaker 1: with grafts from his hip. He lived a long and
Speaker 1: healthy life, probably not a happy life. He preferred to
Speaker 1: never marry. He just hunted moose and raised dogs and
Speaker 1: tried to stay out of the limelight. But he would
Speaker 1: like go hunting with like the president and shit, there's
Speaker 1: this centrist guy from the Agrarian Party named Kekkonen who
Speaker 1: was president of Finland for twenty six years, who was
Speaker 1: anti communist but also anti fascist. He was a centrist guy.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Simo struggled with PTSD. It seems like
Speaker 1: you know, talks about him like having night terrors the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. Most reports say that he was
Speaker 1: fairly lonely and he was isolated by from society by
Speaker 1: his experience, and like mostly only hung out with fellow vets.
Speaker 1: He wrote a memoir and he wrote it like right
Speaker 1: after he's recovering in the hospital, I think, and he
Speaker 1: refers to the around five hundred people he'd killed as
Speaker 1: his sin list. It is unclear to me. Someone probably knows,
Speaker 1: but no one I read about nos. No, it's unclear
Speaker 1: if this is an earnest expression of like penance or
Speaker 1: whether it was this dry, finish humor. It doesn't like.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's like sorry, right, but like you
Speaker 1: kind of can't tell whether it's just a dry, dry
Speaker 1: humor or whether it was a you know, a religious
Speaker 1: thing in a more penitent way. When asked if he
Speaker 1: felt remorse near his ninety sixth birthday, he said I
Speaker 1: did what I was told to do as well as
Speaker 1: I could. There would be no Finland unless everyone else
Speaker 1: had done the same, And he also talked about who
Speaker 1: he didn't hate, the Soviet soldiers, even though he knew
Speaker 1: that he had to fight them. His actual sniper count
Speaker 1: is hard to confirm. Five hundred five is the most
Speaker 1: common number of confirmed kills. It's also the lowest number
Speaker 1: by far, of the people of what is ascribed to him.
Speaker 2: It's been a while since you told me there's something
Speaker 2: I need to buy.
Speaker 1: Oh what? I I can't believe I left that out.
Speaker 1: If you buy a cool People Who Did Cool Stuff notebook,
Speaker 1: you can keep track of your confirmed Nope, Nope, probably shouldn't. No, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you what did we advertised last time, and there
Speaker 1: was like something I liked advertising last time. Say something
Speaker 1: more positive, go.
Speaker 2: Do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't get your dogs from breeders. Get your dogs
Speaker 1: from rescues, because you should be raised right to understand
Speaker 1: that that's where dogs come from, the ones who need homes.
Speaker 1: That's dogs are great. Uh. Also these other ads that
Speaker 1: if you were This.
Speaker 3: Podcast is sponsored by Anderson. My dog, yeah skewed me.
Speaker 1: It's true. Sophie was like bleeding out in the street
Speaker 1: after getting by a car and then ran out.
Speaker 2: There and apply to tourniquet.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's an impressive dog.
Speaker 3: I know. Yeah, doesn't even have thumbs. It's incredible.
Speaker 1: No fucking good at it. Here's some other ads. We're back. Okay,
Speaker 1: So his actual sniper count is hard to confirm. Five
Speaker 1: hundred and five is the most common number of confirmed kills,
Speaker 1: but this is the lowest number also that has ever
Speaker 1: ascribed to him. There's an expectation that this leaves off
Speaker 1: a lot like times where multiple people shot the same
Speaker 1: target or no one was around to confirm. I cannot
Speaker 1: imagine being in a shooting war and then being like
Speaker 1: fucking legoless and gamely being like forty three forty four like,
Speaker 1: I just I can't imagine this process. Some people think
Speaker 1: that the number is closer to eight hundred. Other people
Speaker 1: are like, look, this guy's like real good, but this
Speaker 1: is all propaganda. The number is probably like two hundred
Speaker 1: or something. I actually think that the around five hundred
Speaker 1: is a pretty safe I guess he is not a braggart.
Speaker 1: That is not a thing that one get ascribed to
Speaker 1: this man who stands at the back of his fucking photos.
Speaker 1: You know, he's seen as the most successful sniper in history,
Speaker 1: which is incredibly disputed and probably not true. And also whatever,
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's non Western snipers with counts that
Speaker 1: are presented as way higher. Those are harder to verify.
Speaker 1: There's also a fuck ton of Soviet snipers from the
Speaker 1: war against the Nazis with very similar accounts to his.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is that life is in
Speaker 1: a video game and we don't actually keep score this way.
Speaker 1: I don't know what have you heard about, Like is
Speaker 1: it in your world? Is it like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: seme as number one, or is it like, oh, it's disputed, or.
Speaker 2: There's a handful of these of these famous snipers that
Speaker 2: are It's interesting sometimes their fame doesn't come from their
Speaker 2: supposed kill count, but from other things they've done in
Speaker 2: terms of like amazing shots or whatever. Like. Yeah, Carlos
Speaker 2: Halfcock is an example of that. His marksmanship was like
Speaker 2: considered legendary and some of the things he did in
Speaker 2: that regard. But and that also has a high number
Speaker 2: as well. But in general, I that the the consensus
Speaker 2: seems to be that Simo might be, if not the top,
Speaker 2: he's He's definitely right up there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And what matters the reason he's on Kobeble
Speaker 1: did cool stuff. One is because I want to talk
Speaker 1: about something real messy, and two because he was a
Speaker 1: farmer who, alongside countless others, went and did what he
Speaker 1: had to do to save his homeland from genocidal invaders
Speaker 1: and got shot in the face for it, and then
Speaker 1: tried to survive and did survive the rest of his
Speaker 1: life dealing with the ramifications of what had happened, and
Speaker 1: in the process he and his compatriots likely save Finland.
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously this completely transformed his life and
Speaker 1: likely not for the better. But I don't blame his
Speaker 1: actions for that. I blame Stalin for that, just clearly
Speaker 1: and simply It's worth talking about the rest of Finnish
Speaker 1: history in World War Two, though, because it's one of
Speaker 1: the messiest political webs I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: I remember once I was like started reading the Finnish
Speaker 1: history and I was like talking to my girlfriend and
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, when I was like teenager
Speaker 1: or whatever, and I was like, wow, you fins like
Speaker 1: you never did anything wrong because I'm an American and
Speaker 1: all I come from is I'm a white American, so
Speaker 1: I come from all we did is wrong, right, And
Speaker 1: I don't even mean that. I guess Civil War was
Speaker 1: all right when we stopped the Confederacy, but like, overall,
Speaker 1: we're not.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of shining moments, but.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, like D Day and yeah, D.
Speaker 2: Day's pretty amazing, right, Yeah, there's some stuff that's good.
Speaker 2: There's just it's it's moments of good. The best thing
Speaker 2: I ever heard was someone that said to me on
Speaker 2: in Range and maybe I don't know if they quoted
Speaker 2: this or they quoted someone else, but American history is
Speaker 2: punctuated with doing the right thing after exhausting all the
Speaker 2: other choices.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is it. Yep, even like trying to stay
Speaker 1: out of World War two or trying to not abolish slavery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I remember I saw. I was talking to my
Speaker 1: girlfriend about it. I was like, you didn't do anything
Speaker 1: wrong in history and she's like nope. And then I
Speaker 1: like I sorrow. Week later, I was like, you were
Speaker 1: an axis power and she's like, ooh, you got me.
Speaker 1: And that is Yeah, that is the finish attitude about this.
Speaker 1: They were not technically an axis power in that they
Speaker 1: did not sign the you were an axis power?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: The tripe prior to a pact.
Speaker 2: But they were driving around Nazi Nazi armor like the
Speaker 2: Stug three. In fact, if you go to the Finnish
Speaker 2: Armor Museum, there's a bunch of what would have been
Speaker 2: like German era Nazi technology tanks and uh huh. Their
Speaker 2: helmets are the stahl helm right, they're using all of
Speaker 2: this German gear. Yeah, because the Germans were supplementing their
Speaker 2: war effort against the Soviets seeing it, you know, because
Speaker 2: at that point the Germans were clearly losing on the
Speaker 2: Eastern Front. Always were really, they just didn't know it yet. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: And but forgiving a bunch of gear to the Finns
Speaker 2: was like they saw the Finns as there as one
Speaker 2: of the few allies that was actually successful against the Soviets,
Speaker 2: and so, yeah, they used a lot of Nazi equipment
Speaker 2: and met with Nazi leaders. There's necessarily notes about Mannerheim
Speaker 2: meeting with Himmler and it's interesting and they talk about
Speaker 2: the tactics of the war, and then there's a quote
Speaker 2: and a paraphrasing where later Mannheim was like, what an
Speaker 2: unimpressive man. So they had this weird relationship in which
Speaker 2: they used the gear and were allies but didn't necessarily
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm going to talk about some of that
Speaker 1: because they yeah, it's okay. So Hitler sees Stalin failed
Speaker 1: to conquer this tiny, sparselyss sparsely populated Finland, and suddenly
Speaker 1: Hitler gets an idea, And the idea is, what if
Speaker 1: Stalin is a fucking push This turned out to be
Speaker 1: an incorrect assessment of the situation, luckily for the rest
Speaker 1: of the world. A year or so later, on June
Speaker 1: twenty second, nineteen forty one, Hitler betrayed his friend Stalin
Speaker 1: and invaded in Operation Barbarossa. Basically, Germany had no oil
Speaker 1: production and didn't want to rely on foreign aid. That
Speaker 1: is the quickest version I've ever heard. It seemed to
Speaker 1: make sense to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a quote from Hitler where he
Speaker 2: essentially said, you kick in the door and the whole
Speaker 2: rotten structure will come falling down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, worked just as well as it did for Napoleon.
Speaker 1: Don't invade Finland and the winner and don't invade the
Speaker 1: USSR basic rules of life or Russia whatever, Okay, And
Speaker 1: so Finland helped Germany invade the USSR. Finland joined World
Speaker 1: War Two on the side of Nazi Germany in what
Speaker 1: is called the Continuation War. For three years, they fought
Speaker 1: against the USSR and helped the Nazis do the same.
Speaker 1: They let Nazis set up bases and launch attacks and
Speaker 1: ship from their territory. They never officially joined the Axis Club.
Speaker 1: They have the odd to distinction of being the only
Speaker 1: German ally to remain a democracy during the war. All Right,
Speaker 1: here's where it gets real wild from my point of view.
Speaker 1: During the Finnish far right had a lot of Jewish leaders,
Speaker 1: and the leftist didn't hate the Jews either. So Finland
Speaker 1: was on World War II on the side of the Nazis,
Speaker 1: which means that Finnished Jews were in World War Two
Speaker 1: on the side of the Nazis. The Finnish soldiers had
Speaker 1: a field synagogue at the front so that they could
Speaker 1: keep going to synagogue. It's probably the only synagogue for
Speaker 1: soldiers fighting alongside Hitler. History is so fucking messy. Finland
Speaker 1: didn't deport its Jews. At one point, someone in the
Speaker 1: Finnish government turned over eight out of five hundred refugees,
Speaker 1: and the rest of the Finnish government like flipped the
Speaker 1: fuck out and was like, this is not happening. Several
Speaker 1: Jewish officers were offered the German Iron Cross. They did
Speaker 1: not accept it. They were probably like what the fuck,
Speaker 1: Oh god, what the fuck is happening? Oh God, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine being a Finn in World War two and
Speaker 1: not just spending the entire time being like what the
Speaker 1: fuck is happening? Over and over. The Finnish government, especially
Speaker 1: the Social Democrats who were allies with Germany, were like, hey,
Speaker 1: once again, we're not Hitler's allies. Were co belligerents in
Speaker 1: a war, right, and that is their line. Other Finns
Speaker 1: are like, fuck yeah, being a Hitler's ally rules and
Speaker 1: they are like fighting for like greater Finland and shit like.
Speaker 1: Most Finnish historians agree that it is fair to refer
Speaker 1: to Finland as a German ally for most of World
Speaker 1: War two, but there's a lot of tension. Most Finns
Speaker 1: were fighting to reclaim the nineteen thirty nine border. They
Speaker 1: just wanted back what they had just lost. Other folks
Speaker 1: wanted greater Finland, which involves concrete and all the places
Speaker 1: the Finnic people traditionally lived, like Iningria and therefore Saint
Speaker 1: Petersburg slash Leningrad. When the Finnish soldiers passed the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty nine lines in December nineteen forty one, some soldiers
Speaker 1: started basically being like, oh shit, are we the baddies?
Speaker 1: Because they're no longer reclaiming territory, they are now invaders.
Speaker 1: The Finish top general Mannaheim, is that his name Mannaheim.
Speaker 1: At one point he refuses to attack Leningrad. And there's
Speaker 1: like historical argument about whether or not the Finns participated
Speaker 1: in the Siege of Leningrad, and the fact that historians
Speaker 1: don't know this is wild to me. That is a
Speaker 1: not a small thing, you know, No.
Speaker 2: It's a huge thing. The siege of Leningrad was horrendous,
Speaker 2: and so to not be able to ascertain that is
Speaker 2: a weird I don't know. I gotta say what, every
Speaker 2: time I run into something in my historical work, whether
Speaker 2: it's this recent or older, because World War Two is recent,
Speaker 2: When something like that isn't known, my little antenna goes
Speaker 2: up and it feels like something that's been suppressed.
Speaker 1: That's Finland is trying really hard to come out of
Speaker 1: this clean. They're trying as hard as possible to be
Speaker 1: the best Nazi allies that have ever happened. Not the
Speaker 1: best is in the most allied with Nazis, but the
Speaker 1: least allied with Nazis. And so they're playing up a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff. But it also but some of
Speaker 1: it is true, you know, but it doesn't make it okay.
Speaker 1: And that's what's so interesting to me about this. Finland
Speaker 1: maintained relations not with the Nazi occupation government of Norway,
Speaker 1: but with the government and exile of Norway, and they
Speaker 1: tried really hard to play both sides. They weren't starving
Speaker 1: to death because they were getting German grain, but they
Speaker 1: were making like secret deals with Western powers to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: like we promise we won't do this or that attack
Speaker 1: on the USSR. We promised we won't go along with
Speaker 1: this particular part of it, or this is all Finland
Speaker 1: trying to cover it tass in history books. The Eastern
Speaker 1: Front didn't go well for anyone. The Finns hadn't really
Speaker 1: been big on the war ever since they'd hit their
Speaker 1: old territory and reclaimed it. After the fail of the
Speaker 1: Battle of Stalingrad nineteen forty three, the Finns formed a
Speaker 1: new government mostly concerned with how to get the fuck
Speaker 1: out of the war. The Soviet Union kept offering them
Speaker 1: peace terms which involved taking even more finished territory, and
Speaker 1: basically the Finns felt like they couldn't say yes to
Speaker 1: it because Stalin genocides them, right or because of pride,
Speaker 1: But yeah, they they didn't know what the fuck to do.
Speaker 1: Seems to be the impression. But in nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: the Fins were beat. The Soviets successfully invaded them right back,
Speaker 1: and they're just like, the Fins are in no position
Speaker 1: to be picky about the terms anymore, right, so they
Speaker 1: sign a peace treaty with USSR on September nineteenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: forty four. They lose even more territory than the nineteen
Speaker 1: forty line. But once again, their fierce defense once the
Speaker 1: war turned might have been part of why they didn't
Speaker 1: lose at all. I don't really know. Then Finland joins
Speaker 1: the war again, this time on the Allied side, and
Speaker 1: they go to war against Hitler in the Lapland War.
Speaker 1: It's not like a they're not like invading Germany, right,
Speaker 1: but they are like militarily shooting the Nazis who aren't
Speaker 1: leaving Lapland the northern part of Finland. So you have
Speaker 1: the same folks who the Soviets then alongside the Nazis
Speaker 1: marched up to northern Finland and did a war against
Speaker 1: the Nazis. The Nazis or fucks. So they did scorched earth,
Speaker 1: they burned everything, they landmned everything, which of course mostly
Speaker 1: fucks up the indigenous Sami people who were part of
Speaker 1: all of these wars on all of the sides, including
Speaker 1: the bad sides with reindeer pulled sledges, which is cool.
Speaker 1: The Communists, they weren't fucking around with the continued The
Speaker 1: Communists in Finland weren't fucking around with the Continuation War.
Speaker 1: When I was talking earlier about how the Communists went
Speaker 1: and joined the Winter War to fight against the Soviet invasion.
Speaker 1: When it came time to be allies with the Nazis,
Speaker 1: they were like fuck no. Right the far left in
Speaker 1: Finland fought against the Finnish government. It fought against the
Speaker 1: Nazi allied government. Hundreds of leftists were arrested and many
Speaker 1: were executed for fighting against the Finnish government because you
Speaker 1: can't be allied with fucking Hitler. After the war, anti
Speaker 1: communism was turned into right wingness and Finland to turn
Speaker 1: to the right. By the late sixties you get anarchist
Speaker 1: groups like the Winnie the Pooh Society who used folklory
Speaker 1: mythology to talk about leftism, which did not single handedly
Speaker 1: bring leftism back to Finland. I'm just including it because
Speaker 1: when you run across the anarchist group called Winnie the
Speaker 1: Pooh Society, you have to include it in your script.
Speaker 1: If you're Margaret Kiljoy and that's Finland ed Simo. Next week,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about sniper on the opposite side, Ludmilla Pavlchenko,
Speaker 1: who fought the Nazis more consistently the entire time because
Speaker 1: the Nazis were the ones invading her country, and she
Speaker 1: fought Soviet sexism. Along the way, she became close personal
Speaker 1: friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, first Lady of the United States.
Speaker 1: And we get to talk about more messy history on
Speaker 1: go people do cool stuff. Do anything more about like
Speaker 1: FEMO or anything major imissed or No.
Speaker 2: It's just so wild, isn't it. I just it's like
Speaker 2: I think about it, and it's in a smaller context.
Speaker 2: It was a couple of years ago when I was
Speaker 2: in Finland. There's this sounds off topic, but it isn't
Speaker 2: There's this really interesting strange art complex north of Helsinki,
Speaker 2: a couple hours drive, and it's this weird statuary with
Speaker 2: a bunch of statues with filled with dentures and maybe
Speaker 2: human teeth. You can look it up on Atlas Obscura.
Speaker 2: It's insane, okay, But it's right on the Finnish Russian border.
Speaker 2: And this is of course before the current conflict was
Speaker 2: going on in Ukraine that forced, not forced, finally got
Speaker 2: things to change where Finland is now part of NATO.
Speaker 2: But at any rate, it's right there on the border.
Speaker 2: And this was there was this barbed wire fence and
Speaker 2: this sign in Finnish and Russian about the gigantic minefield
Speaker 2: that existed just east of that. So you're standing in
Speaker 2: this statuary and like a few feet away as a minefield,
Speaker 2: and that was a couple of years ago. And that's
Speaker 2: an example of the of the feeling in Finland about
Speaker 2: their Russian neighbors, and of course now with what's happening
Speaker 2: with Ukraine that that feeling is not just justified legitimately
Speaker 2: concerning like there's a real real thing there that they
Speaker 2: experienced once before and they look at what's going on
Speaker 2: now and they see it like that's not that different,
Speaker 2: and who knows if it's next us next again? Right.
Speaker 2: So I think that that has shaped so much Finnish culture.
Speaker 2: And I think the Winter War and Continuation Wars shaped
Speaker 2: Finnish culture not just from a military perspective, not just
Speaker 2: from a from a from a from a war type perspective,
Speaker 2: but in how they just approach life like compulsory service.
Speaker 2: A lot of people are reservists still. They have a
Speaker 2: shooting culture now called the SRA, but the same was
Speaker 2: over the US ESRAH and they go out and they
Speaker 2: practice and train and all of that is the idea
Speaker 2: that they're trying to be potentially ready if the Russians
Speaker 2: did it again. And I think that that's part of
Speaker 2: the psyche. And I think that that trickles down into
Speaker 2: even other simple things like how you prepare for winter
Speaker 2: or your food stores or other things. Yeah, and it
Speaker 2: still affects them.
Speaker 1: Now, Okay, I have a question though about standing next
Speaker 1: to a minefield? Did you have intrusive thoughts about wanting
Speaker 1: to throw rocks into the minefield?
Speaker 2: Yes? How do you not have that as a human being?
Speaker 1: I can't imagine otherwise?
Speaker 2: That seems like the natural order of things?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, also the natural order of things is watching
Speaker 1: in range TV. Do you want to talk about that
Speaker 1: or something else?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, sure, that's the I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: know if that's part of the natural order, but it's
Speaker 2: it's not.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to, Yeah, make weird transitions. No, I like,
Speaker 1: do it in regular conversation now, And my friends are like,
Speaker 1: you're not recording. You don't have to make transitions anyway. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you're a podcaster, I know.
Speaker 2: Being a content creator, it is nice to know people
Speaker 2: want to watch your work or listen to your work,
Speaker 2: or consume your work because it has value. To them
Speaker 2: and hopefully that's the case. So yeah, you can find
Speaker 2: in range TV at range dot tv, which is my website,
Speaker 2: and from there you can find all the different distribution points.
Speaker 2: Predominantly most people watch on YouTube, and it is a
Speaker 2: I always hesitate to call it a firearms channel, although
Speaker 2: it is. We have a lot of gun content, a
Speaker 2: lot of competition content, but it's mixed in with history
Speaker 2: and culture and hopefully that shapes the narrative in a
Speaker 2: way that it's unique and is more about community and
Speaker 2: humanity than it is about glorification of the horrors. And
Speaker 2: so it's also very much about where firearms like messy
Speaker 2: history like this, which is where firearms have been used
Speaker 2: in what I call intentionally induced amnesia events where people
Speaker 2: don't know about it because it's been left out of
Speaker 2: the general cultural narrative to do amazing things and save lives.
Speaker 2: And there are people alive today because they had a gun,
Speaker 2: and we don't talk about that as much as much
Speaker 2: as we talk about the times where people have been
Speaker 2: lost to them. But it's a difficult and messy topic. Anyways,
Speaker 2: if you like that approach to it in range dot.
Speaker 1: Tv, yeah, and I do like that approach, and I
Speaker 1: suggest people listen to it. The history of One of
Speaker 1: the things that comes up over and over again on
Speaker 1: the show is people fighting and dying literally to just
Speaker 1: find small arms. You know, so many times access to
Speaker 1: small arms is the difference between being wiped out as
Speaker 1: a culture and not. It's not a great system by
Speaker 1: which to wage a war, but it is a great
Speaker 1: system by which to offer community defense, which can make
Speaker 1: all of the difference of being a spiky target versus
Speaker 1: a not spiky target. But it's also complicated and it's
Speaker 1: more than I can get into right now. Obviously, choosing
Speaker 1: to be armed as a very personal choice with a
Speaker 1: lot of variables, but okay, I want to plug. I
Speaker 1: wrote a book a while ago called A Country of
Speaker 1: Ghosts is an anarchists utopia book, and it's about some
Speaker 1: people in some mountains defending themselves on skis and rifles
Speaker 1: against It's like an against an invading army, and it
Speaker 1: is absolutely People are like, wow, what is your inspiration
Speaker 1: on this, And I'm like, I was a finophile as
Speaker 1: a kid. I read about the Winter War was very
Speaker 1: influential on me. I had to at some point do
Speaker 1: something with people with rifles and skis and it's called
Speaker 1: a country it goes. That is not the part of
Speaker 1: it that is what most people think about. But I'll
Speaker 1: plug that. The most recent publisher of it is Akpress
Speaker 1: and has a fantasy city painted on for the cover,
Speaker 1: and I was like so excited. It's my first like
Speaker 1: fantasy city painting on a cover. And I actually am
Speaker 1: probably going to write a book with a dragon in
Speaker 1: it literally just so that I can have a book
Speaker 1: of mine with a painted dragon on the cover at
Speaker 1: some point in my life. Sophie, what do you.
Speaker 3: Got just at cool Zone Media?
Speaker 1: Buck, Yeah things. Next week we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: more of the shit and it's going to be good
Speaker 1: buck to you.
Speaker 3: Then, Hey, people who did Cool Stuff is a production
Speaker 3: of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 3: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
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Speaker 3: your podcasts.