OldSchoolSissivanska
Unverified
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2016
- Messages
- 5
When talking about FDF "Special Forces" we need to be careful as things have changed dramatically from 80s to how they are today. The changes are also quite asymmetrical... like the forces we are talking about.
I served in 1989-1992 as a LRRP/LRP Team Leader (also trained later to Sr. Battalion Recon Officer duties on a separate course) and also served as "a Summer LT" (FDF slang for a prospect) before self-initiated Honorable Discharge as a protest because we weren't sent to the Gulf with the rest of the Coalition. I was not the only one BTW... Interestingly FDF troops were sent to Afghanistan this time around -- so they learned a lesson from us. "Use us or lose us."
When I was in the term "Special Forces" was still a BIG no-no. Why? Simple -- it would have been a breach of the 1948 Paris Treaty with Soviet Union which dictated that Finland was not allowed to have "special type infantry used only in aggression, but serves no purpose in defense" (they meant really Sissi troops like 'Detachment Torni' / ERPs / etc., but later it was defined as SOF). However FDF never stopped Sissi-training, but did not even use that moniker (that has been around since 1500s BTW and since late 1700s it has meant what it means today) until in the 60s when they grew enough balls to openly call out Sissi-training with its real name. However... you were NOT to EVER say you were "Special" anything! Sissi was OK and that was it. Period.
That said my commander in RUK 3K / SissiK wore US Army Ranger tab on his FINNISH uniform with a special permission (he was a US Ranger School grad from the 70s and a damn fine soldier!). His comparison between us and US Rangers was "the 60-some day Ranger School is more muscle strength oriented and heavy on physical toughness, but we will go far beyond in mental toughness during the next 105-days"... The reason is simple: you will start permanently breaking bodies if you keep up the Ranger School momentum for 105 days. But I can tell you that you can make the sleep deprivation + mighty fine amount of physical stress going a while... It was the best time of my life and also the most terrible at the same time = hard to describe in words.
One of the visiting DIs on my course also wore SEAL trident on his Finnish Navy uniform with the same exception granted for them as my commander's Ranger tab (i.e. he was a Finnish Combat Diver who had passed the BUD/S -- yes, and therefore a fully qual'd SEAL). The LT answered when asked what if FDF HQ would have not allowed the trident on the uniform: "You think anyone in the HQ would be able to come and take this off my chest?" The answer is ... November-Oscar.
We also had "consultants" from IDF (for KM and Israeli instinct shooting training), we trained together with US forces and taught Arctic Warfare in return of wealth of information to our direction (I am not ID'ing the units involved, but this was well over 10 years before the now openly published co-ops with US Marines and US Army Special Forces and FDF in Finland), we trained FFL 2eme REP forces in Arctic Warfare (tough bunch of mothers right there BTW!), we had "sanitized" satellite pics at our disposal at times that were of high resolution (so def not Soviet... so you do the math), and so on and so on.
Our training was still at the time every-now-and-then-and-there-and-where "hinted" / speculated to be that of "a SOF" in the outside of the inner circle -- and a bit leaked when one of the main duties for us was published (on FDF site) "to be hunting down and neutralizing enemy Special Forces". Now replace SF with Spetsnaz in that sentence for more accurate job description... Logical hint: you do not send a bunch of regulars / conscripts to hunt down that caliber of an enemy force... So that was either a calculated "message" to the Soviets or a simple mistake. Who knows, who cares.
But like said I almost never spoke of my service in detail and everyone, including my family, basically just knew that I had been "a Sissi in the service" and that was it. Most Finns -- even -- have no idea what some of the end times of Cold War era Sissi troops (and now a distinction = not the NCO and lower ranks, but the CO level personnel) get to do training-wise.
As a quick checklist -- I received Sniper (but not designated / advanced sniper training -- we did not hand load, etc.), Advanced Small Arms (lot of pistol and rifle; some shotgun work), Canine Ops (both as a handler and as a defender), Escape & Evasion, Land Infiltration, Shallow Water Infiltration, POW/Escape, Demolitions (breach and demolish), Krav Maga, FIBUA, Forward Observer (to direct arty on large stationary target; for hitting convoys with big tubes we had specifically trained Artillery Specialists, etc.), Advanced Comms (long/short wave, Morse, etc.), Medical (Combat Medic Lvl III; IV is a field surgeon), Anti-Tank (both man-portable and mines), Tracking / Stalking, Trapping, Summer / Winter Survival from shelters to nutrition, NBC, Combat Skiing (I was on a Winter course), Prisoner Capture, Advanced Observation / Reaction, Raiding (e.g. Comm centers, supply dumps, etc.), Ambush with and without demos, "sleeping" tank / armored vehicle and general sabotage, Soviet General Doctrines and Special Unit Doctrines (we had bunch of their literature and some hilarious videos of them, too, and I complained that they make Spetsnaz look like Circus Moscow with back-flips while wielding RPK / jumping on guard's shoulders from full run / snapping necks with thighs, etc. and some of our guys might not take them seriously enough after seeing that nonsense, which is actually really bad!), and bunch of academic crap on top of all this along the lines of Leadership, Tactics & Strategy, etc. etc.
So yup, you could have called us what whatever moniker pops into mind, but that is a quick list off the top of my head after over 20 years. Then again to us 'Sissi' was a much more revered title than 'Special Forces'. The first Finnish Sissi Leader was Pekka Antinpoika Vesainen (1540-1627) who raided the tar out of Russians during the Long Wrath in the late 1500s -- he pretty much went with his men from village to village to town to monastery and burned them down / killing everyone in sight. It was a bit different times back then, but defines the mentality of a Sissi force when you end up at odds with it...
The old doctrine was based on us, the Sissi Officers, to be Asymmetrical Warfare trained and then put together / train our teams in a case of war. Being "nolla kiireysluokan joukko" (Zero Urgency Class Troops; where 1 is really urgent, 0 is "pre-emptive") it means that we'd have been called in arms quietly months before the start of the hostilities to start forming / training our teams with which we'd dig in to wilderness of the border region. If / when war would start, we'd wait the Soviet/Russian spearhead and main force to pass us... giving us free land infiltration to the six o'clock and then we'd go to work as totally independent units from the centralized command and with predetermined AOs...
With literally thousands of caches from Gulf of Finland to the Ice Sea containing ammo, explosives, medical supplies, etc. etc. and pretty damn effective life-of-the-land skills, we'd have been able to wage war without centralized command for quite a while and that as a HIGHLY TRAINED insurgency force of thousands of men.
So that's about it for now, but I am able and willing to talk more shop and answer questions.
As an end note couple of clarifications:
The Bear Unit is a police unit and NOT under Ministry of Defense / FDF (they are a crack SWAT team, that's it). Also Border Jaegers are NOT under Ministry of Defense, but Ministry of Interior. So therefore they should not be listed under FDF as such -- certainly Border Jaegers operate along FDF (with the Ministry of Interior's blessing and do get their CO training in RUK SissiK; and yes, they are generally a really good bunch of guys) and Bear Unit CANNOT operate under FDF command at all -- by the law that is. On the contrary when we were out and about helping Finnish Police in couple of lost folks in the woods cases, we had to be under their command (infuriating as shite BTW).
Also as a side note... I left FIN 1998 for the US and I am a naturalized US Citizen -- just like CPT Lauri Allan Torni aka US Army Special Forces MAJ Larry A. Thorne, KIA Vietnam / over Laos in helicopter crash during OP Shining Brass, buried in Arlington (unarguably my unit's doctrinal grandfather).
I served in 1989-1992 as a LRRP/LRP Team Leader (also trained later to Sr. Battalion Recon Officer duties on a separate course) and also served as "a Summer LT" (FDF slang for a prospect) before self-initiated Honorable Discharge as a protest because we weren't sent to the Gulf with the rest of the Coalition. I was not the only one BTW... Interestingly FDF troops were sent to Afghanistan this time around -- so they learned a lesson from us. "Use us or lose us."
When I was in the term "Special Forces" was still a BIG no-no. Why? Simple -- it would have been a breach of the 1948 Paris Treaty with Soviet Union which dictated that Finland was not allowed to have "special type infantry used only in aggression, but serves no purpose in defense" (they meant really Sissi troops like 'Detachment Torni' / ERPs / etc., but later it was defined as SOF). However FDF never stopped Sissi-training, but did not even use that moniker (that has been around since 1500s BTW and since late 1700s it has meant what it means today) until in the 60s when they grew enough balls to openly call out Sissi-training with its real name. However... you were NOT to EVER say you were "Special" anything! Sissi was OK and that was it. Period.
That said my commander in RUK 3K / SissiK wore US Army Ranger tab on his FINNISH uniform with a special permission (he was a US Ranger School grad from the 70s and a damn fine soldier!). His comparison between us and US Rangers was "the 60-some day Ranger School is more muscle strength oriented and heavy on physical toughness, but we will go far beyond in mental toughness during the next 105-days"... The reason is simple: you will start permanently breaking bodies if you keep up the Ranger School momentum for 105 days. But I can tell you that you can make the sleep deprivation + mighty fine amount of physical stress going a while... It was the best time of my life and also the most terrible at the same time = hard to describe in words.
One of the visiting DIs on my course also wore SEAL trident on his Finnish Navy uniform with the same exception granted for them as my commander's Ranger tab (i.e. he was a Finnish Combat Diver who had passed the BUD/S -- yes, and therefore a fully qual'd SEAL). The LT answered when asked what if FDF HQ would have not allowed the trident on the uniform: "You think anyone in the HQ would be able to come and take this off my chest?" The answer is ... November-Oscar.
We also had "consultants" from IDF (for KM and Israeli instinct shooting training), we trained together with US forces and taught Arctic Warfare in return of wealth of information to our direction (I am not ID'ing the units involved, but this was well over 10 years before the now openly published co-ops with US Marines and US Army Special Forces and FDF in Finland), we trained FFL 2eme REP forces in Arctic Warfare (tough bunch of mothers right there BTW!), we had "sanitized" satellite pics at our disposal at times that were of high resolution (so def not Soviet... so you do the math), and so on and so on.
Our training was still at the time every-now-and-then-and-there-and-where "hinted" / speculated to be that of "a SOF" in the outside of the inner circle -- and a bit leaked when one of the main duties for us was published (on FDF site) "to be hunting down and neutralizing enemy Special Forces". Now replace SF with Spetsnaz in that sentence for more accurate job description... Logical hint: you do not send a bunch of regulars / conscripts to hunt down that caliber of an enemy force... So that was either a calculated "message" to the Soviets or a simple mistake. Who knows, who cares.
But like said I almost never spoke of my service in detail and everyone, including my family, basically just knew that I had been "a Sissi in the service" and that was it. Most Finns -- even -- have no idea what some of the end times of Cold War era Sissi troops (and now a distinction = not the NCO and lower ranks, but the CO level personnel) get to do training-wise.
As a quick checklist -- I received Sniper (but not designated / advanced sniper training -- we did not hand load, etc.), Advanced Small Arms (lot of pistol and rifle; some shotgun work), Canine Ops (both as a handler and as a defender), Escape & Evasion, Land Infiltration, Shallow Water Infiltration, POW/Escape, Demolitions (breach and demolish), Krav Maga, FIBUA, Forward Observer (to direct arty on large stationary target; for hitting convoys with big tubes we had specifically trained Artillery Specialists, etc.), Advanced Comms (long/short wave, Morse, etc.), Medical (Combat Medic Lvl III; IV is a field surgeon), Anti-Tank (both man-portable and mines), Tracking / Stalking, Trapping, Summer / Winter Survival from shelters to nutrition, NBC, Combat Skiing (I was on a Winter course), Prisoner Capture, Advanced Observation / Reaction, Raiding (e.g. Comm centers, supply dumps, etc.), Ambush with and without demos, "sleeping" tank / armored vehicle and general sabotage, Soviet General Doctrines and Special Unit Doctrines (we had bunch of their literature and some hilarious videos of them, too, and I complained that they make Spetsnaz look like Circus Moscow with back-flips while wielding RPK / jumping on guard's shoulders from full run / snapping necks with thighs, etc. and some of our guys might not take them seriously enough after seeing that nonsense, which is actually really bad!), and bunch of academic crap on top of all this along the lines of Leadership, Tactics & Strategy, etc. etc.
So yup, you could have called us what whatever moniker pops into mind, but that is a quick list off the top of my head after over 20 years. Then again to us 'Sissi' was a much more revered title than 'Special Forces'. The first Finnish Sissi Leader was Pekka Antinpoika Vesainen (1540-1627) who raided the tar out of Russians during the Long Wrath in the late 1500s -- he pretty much went with his men from village to village to town to monastery and burned them down / killing everyone in sight. It was a bit different times back then, but defines the mentality of a Sissi force when you end up at odds with it...
The old doctrine was based on us, the Sissi Officers, to be Asymmetrical Warfare trained and then put together / train our teams in a case of war. Being "nolla kiireysluokan joukko" (Zero Urgency Class Troops; where 1 is really urgent, 0 is "pre-emptive") it means that we'd have been called in arms quietly months before the start of the hostilities to start forming / training our teams with which we'd dig in to wilderness of the border region. If / when war would start, we'd wait the Soviet/Russian spearhead and main force to pass us... giving us free land infiltration to the six o'clock and then we'd go to work as totally independent units from the centralized command and with predetermined AOs...
With literally thousands of caches from Gulf of Finland to the Ice Sea containing ammo, explosives, medical supplies, etc. etc. and pretty damn effective life-of-the-land skills, we'd have been able to wage war without centralized command for quite a while and that as a HIGHLY TRAINED insurgency force of thousands of men.
So that's about it for now, but I am able and willing to talk more shop and answer questions.
As an end note couple of clarifications:
The Bear Unit is a police unit and NOT under Ministry of Defense / FDF (they are a crack SWAT team, that's it). Also Border Jaegers are NOT under Ministry of Defense, but Ministry of Interior. So therefore they should not be listed under FDF as such -- certainly Border Jaegers operate along FDF (with the Ministry of Interior's blessing and do get their CO training in RUK SissiK; and yes, they are generally a really good bunch of guys) and Bear Unit CANNOT operate under FDF command at all -- by the law that is. On the contrary when we were out and about helping Finnish Police in couple of lost folks in the woods cases, we had to be under their command (infuriating as shite BTW).
Also as a side note... I left FIN 1998 for the US and I am a naturalized US Citizen -- just like CPT Lauri Allan Torni aka US Army Special Forces MAJ Larry A. Thorne, KIA Vietnam / over Laos in helicopter crash during OP Shining Brass, buried in Arlington (unarguably my unit's doctrinal grandfather).
Similar threads
