Holding down the Hanko

Some 85 years ago. The siege of the Soviet naval base on Hanko Cape in occupied southwestern Finland, north of Leningrad, during the Continuation War, November 1941. Swedish Volunteer Battalion (Svenska Frivilligbataljonen, SFB) member Erland Petrus Malmström (#872910) seen on the line with a 6.5mm Gevär m/96 Mauser and a commercial optic. Note how he uses his thumb around the stock’s wrist to raise his view of the scope, which is mounted too far forward for a normal face-on buttstock position. Also note the puukko knife hanging from his belt and the Swedish m/37 helmets to his right. The Swedes later picked 5,300 m/96s and converted them into scoped sniper rifles (the Prickskyttegevär m/41) based on experience in Finland, though the above is not one. The Swedes have long been a traditional enemy of the Russians, fighting a dozen wars with them between 1554 and 1809. In the 20th Century, they proved willing on numerous occasions to rise to the occasion against the old foe when…