Hmmmmmm Beer

Did you know that SAKO's first factory location was in a defunct brewery?

And that they were founded to be the sole supplier of rifles to the Soujeluskunta (SKY or Civil Guard)?

The Army and Civil Guard split in Finland is a bit fascinating to me.

Calling the Civil Guard the equivalent to our National Guard misses that it was entirely independent of the army.  It's not a "mere" militia because it was more active and was a state institution.

The main purpose of the Civil Guard was to sit back and keep Suomi from going Communist.  The idea was that they'd declared independence from Russia for a reason and going commie and rejoining was stupid.  An independent military whose sole job was to prevent a single political movement and was kept strong enough to take on the actual army.

Of course after World War 2, The Soviets demanded the SKY be disbanded because it was a fascist organization.

Near as I can tell neither Finland or its Civil Guard were actually fascist.  What they were was a nation, pinned against neutral Sweden and being invaded by the USSR, and because The Soviets were allied with the US and UK they really only had one place they could ask for help; The nazis.

I think that assistance and the Finnish use of a swastika for it's military roundels makes people think NAZI.  Except that they'd been using that roundel since WW1...