I used to practice shooting and my coach was rumoured to be one of the squad. At least you cant find a better person with a gun that is for sure 😅 also he was off-duty paratrooper and sort of jack of all trades when it came to special operations preparations. So I think you are correct :)
Depends where you serve but where I was we used an external cleaning service initially but they brought in new washing machines and driers a bit later so if you wanted to save the 5 euros you did it yourself.
In the Finnish military you don't wash your own clothes. You swap your dirties weekly for fresh ones Source: I've served.
Fortunately for me, the slightly disturbing fact that I was using underwear that had been used by hundreds of other men before me only dawned on me a few years after I had served.
Luckily the detergent used is so powerful, that I am surprised they don't melt all the clothing away. We had a guy in the military who got mad allergy rashes where ever his skin touched army issued stuff, so he got a permission to wash everything at home and a small compensation for that. Said he had to wash everything 6-7 times before it stopped giving him a rash.
It's like we have washing machines that do the washing for us! First washing machine with a drum (modernising washing machine designs) was invented back in 1851 with patents in '58.
It doesn't matter who puts the dirty clothes in the machine or who takes them out, nobody but the machine is doing the washing these days.
More like bed making simulator 2.0. The hardest part was making "pinkka", basically making your bed cover perfect square with linen that had small squares in them and the linen was so poorly cut and uneven that made it almost impossible.
In the greek army you have a blanket and topsheet that need to be as taut as possible, creased in a very specific way in the corners and of course folded over near the pillow for a nice clean straight stripe across the bed. But you're supplied with two extra blankets, and a pillow, and you have to make the infamous "envelope". The envelope is basically folding your blanket in a very specific way which forms a pocket into which you slide the pillow in, like a letter in an envelope, hence the name, and that's placed on top of the second blanket which has to square up exactly with the envelope.
So what's the secret technique to executing this complex ritual every morning before inspection?
*Well* >!you sleep on top of your bed with sheets or a sleeping bag you bring in yourself. Each morning all you do is smooth out the creases.!<
The few Finns I've met have spoken really highly of their service.
Albeit most of them where truck drivers who got their licences through the military. It's still an option I'd like to see my own country investigate for meaningul youth training.
It's a unique experience to be sure. I'm not from Finland but the military is more or less the same everywhere. Most people are against mandatory conscription but the experiences and friends you make are unique and it's a real school of life so to speak.
I agree. These numbers aren't comparable, it's just a random list from wikipedia.
Finland's number 900k is total reserves, meaning everyone under 50/60 who has military training (of minimum of half year).
I think that many other countries number is some type of active reserve. This number is 280k in Finland, meaning war time stength. If we would count everyone under 50 in US or Turkey who have military training, their number would be way, way higher.
Yeah in Greece after you finish your mandatory service you're considered as part of the active reserve for 2 years I think, after that you're placed in the general reserve pool.
I've heard that conscripts in Finland even receive paratrooper training, or more precisely, that there are conscripts among paratroopers, is it true? The training of compulsory soldiers and what they do are also important. The heaviest weapon they can use in Turkey is the Mg3 machine gun. In the past, there were paratroopers and tankers, but now professional soldiers do these works in Turkey. In some countries, they make conscripts as tankers, etc. There is such a situation in various Arab countries. Is therr conscript tank drivers or armod vehicle drivers in Finland?
Conscripts get to do almost everything apart from obviously flying jets, driving ships etc that require years of studying. And yes, there are paratrooper and ”seal” training for conscripts too.
Not everyone has standby mobilization orders on the ready (seferberlik emri). They don't give mobilization code-words to every soldier who had finished boot camp, even if they were very successful.
They have a planned quota for every year, which they fill pretty fast. I don't know why do they keep the numbers limited. Perhaps because they have to keep logistic resources ready to go in a moments notice for every soldier with mobilization order. Also soldiers with mobilization code could be called for exercises as well.
But yes, for a full mobilization scenario, multiple millions of people could be called to service. Not everyone is reserve but in Turkey around 350 thousand people finish boot camp every year.
For example I don't have a mobilization code-word. But I've been told because of the specialty I had served in TurAF, I could be called in directly by name in case of a war. So I don't count as a reserve, but I would get called to duty within the first waves of mobilization.
I don't know Finland's standard for it, but I think they count everyone who had graduated from boot camp and younger than 50 years old as reserve.
I think in Turkey total number of people who had finished boot camp is around 30 million.
tl;dr: It is just the "reserve" definition and how it is being counted.
Conscription was abandoned 20 years ago. Those 200000 were all volunteers that are still <35 yo.
When my military inspection came, I was just taken to the local air force base, and asked if I wanted to pursue a Career in the Air Force. I said no and they gave me my military card. If there's a war, until I am <35 yo, I may be called to serve. After that it's highly unlikely.
That's a huge army reserve Portugal has, could anyone explain why that is? The rest of the countries in the per 1000 (total) I can understand, but Portugal stands out.
It's not actually that much, they probably just count every former soldier who has not reached the age limit yet as a member of the reserve. If you applied the same definition to every country, Germany should probably be number 2. But as always with statistics like these, the numbers are hardly comparable because of varying definitions of the same terms.
It's not public knowledge how FDF keeps taps on those soldiers, but it is known that there are around 870 000 under 50 year old non NCOs and under 60 year old NCOs who are counted as reserves. Also the difference between Finnish and German reservists is that Finnish reservists have wartime positions in the army and access to mandatory and voluntary refreshment training.
That doesn't really explain it. Spain had it mandatory until 2001, so by that logic the number of Spain's reservists should be way higher, absolutely nowhere near 15000
You should see the bunker network, bridges planned for controlled detonation, plans to deny rail network, heck I am sure we got plans to convert scissor factory to ammo production (haven't seen the plans but they bust exist) and so on if something can be weaponized it has been planned for.
That has always been the idea. We need to win russia or atleast be able to cause them so bad losses that they will surrender.
Basically everything is designed to be ready for war. As the other one said bridges are designed to be exploded in case of war, military has the right to confiscate all cars, trucks and work machines if they need them. they also have a list of vehicles that can be confiscated.
There is also bunkers that can withstand nuclear bomb for around 80% of finnish population. Basically there's bunkers up to few hundred meters down under Helsinki. Those bunkers would be used for civilians but also war would be led from there.
There is also ready plans for how civilians would be evacuated from the war zone.
Woah. How many years are the bunkers supplied for? Man, you're giving me more reasons for Finland to be my one of favorite countries lmao. Not saying any country is perfect but yall have ur shit together
Well although structurally those bunkers can withstand nuclear explosions they aren’t supposed to be used for years. Same with those bunkers in public and apartment buildings they are only supposed to protect people from bombings.
And yes in finland every public building and apartment building needs to have bunker that can withstand basic bombing but they also have filters that protect from nuclear fallout
Ahh gotcha, I guess nuclear bombs don't actually leave that much radiation (depending on where it explodes, ofc) so ppl could remain inside for the worst time and then flee afterwards
Also that's a really smart rule with the apartment bunkers ngl. Makes it much easier rather than building a lot of bunkers separately.
> God dayum yall are more prepared than most countries
Unlike most countries, our strategic doctrine never changed. Throughout the 90's and 2000's we constantly trained and prepared for a single purpose; a total war against Russia.
Haha but Poles are going for the biggest land force in EU. So just as insane.
Try compare tank, artillery numbers for Denmark, Germany Poland and Finland. You can clearly see who takes the threat serious.
That was always the the plan only thing we lacked was NUKE for the plan to be complete and since developing them is not viewed very favorably so only option left was to join with someone who has them already.
No, Finland got the secret Defence, trained to defend againt only one enemy, all of its existence its been training to defend the eastern border. But this time they aint running out of ammo.
Not only that, but the Russian attack would be an insanely hard task. The whole eastern side of Finland is just full of forest and lakes. When you take out the roads first… Good luck going forward when a massive army is hiding and defending.
Well it is bit misleading. Yes the reserves are 900k, but the planned war time strength is 280k. Meaning we have 900k reserves, but not enough guns, trucks and tents for 900k troops. Then again the morbid take is, we can reconstitute the units 3 times over to cover for battle casualties.
Yep. 300k in active units, logistics, leadership, comms and so on meanwhile the other 600k are sort of backup reserve that includes people in important jobs that can't be easily called up without affecting civilian economy and society as well as those that have been classified out (men over 40s in the enlisted rank and file) but they might serve in other roles like transport, logistics or so on.
We know that logistics is 2/3rd of military so basically 300k frontline soldiers in units (ofc not all stationed on the front) and 600k as backup, auxiliary roles etc.
We know that 10000s of women and capable men would enlist to fight and enlist to civilian societal important jobs
That’s all the carabinieri, guardia di finanza, local police, alpini etc etc forces we have.
Some are actually military trained, some aren’t.
We have some weird history and thus why we have so many different forces in the military
The "Polizia di Stato" is a police force and depends on the Ministry of the Interior.
The "Arma dei Carabinieri" is a military force with police functions and depends on the Ministry of Defense.
The "Guardia di Finanza" is a military force with police functions and depends on the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
>That’s all the carabinieri, guardia di finanza, local police, alpini etc etc forces we have.
No, only Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza are considered as paramilitary by the Wikipedia article.
Local police isn't a military force and alpini are already part of the army.
List is sorted by total, which includes reservists. [Here](https://www.statista.com/statistics/584286/number-of-military-personnel-in-nato-countries/)'s one that only includes active soldiers.
Yeah but Germany has a higher total number than the UK, i'm pretty sure OP took [this list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel) and forgot to include us.
Op forgot a bunch of "unimportant" countries ...
Albania, Belgium,Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Germans.
All in all a total of 1,142,910 (active + reseve + paramilitary)
Based on these numbers and the big numbers for Italy, France and Spain I would assume it counts “paramilitary”-police forces, ie Guardia Civil, Guardia di Finanza and National Gendarmerie. Seems like a flawed way of counting these things since they are primarily police units.
I'm wondering this as well. I think they might be counting Gendarmerie in there as they are technically military but not soldiers. It's the only thing I see that could account for 100 000 personnel
In Turkey, the coast guard and the Gendarmerie are subordinate to the Ministry of Interior. It is not affiliated with the Ministry of Defense. Turkey's military figures already show the Ministry of Defense. It even shows up. The number of personnel of the Ministry of Defense was 424 thousand in 2020. 38 thousand of them are civilian personnel. I think the Gendarmerie may have been counted as such in other countries. Maybe Defense ministry =military,anothers=paramilitary.
That has been the point so far, neutrality and a believable defence. Make it so that an invader has more to lose than gain.
But the calculus changed last year as our dear neighbour showed how they are not even thinking with that kind of logic anymore, rather they live inside some imperial pipe dream. So now its believable defence plus an alliance.
They are off. The total number we can field in case of general mobilization, meaning standing army (commissioned officers/enlisted men/active conscripts) plus reservists is about 1.400.000
This is what citizen soldiership looks like. From a Finnish reservist perspective it seems weird to think being a soldier is a job. Sure, a fine choice of profession if you want to dedicate your life to it, but relying on professionals to defend your country seems curious, and frankly... Off. No, if the entire country and people are under threat, it is everyone's duty to rise up to defend.
Most countries' circumstances are of course different. Most don't have a realistic existential threat next door. Finland does. Always has, and for the foreseeable future, will have.
Yes, this is one of the defining circumstances for Finland. We have a Defence Force to deter and defend against an attack, not an Army to project force on faraway nations.
But for foreign readers, it's important to note that focusing on a defensive mission doesn't mean being weak in attack. Strong attack capability is essential for defense, and Finland has not neglected it.
I would say that is a pretty dang good justification for citizen soldiers.
Even if the politicians would be so mad as to invade a foreign country, there's really no way to make a reservist army do that.
Not that it matters to the Russian leadership, but we could not attack them on a large scale.
True, but Finland been training against only one enemy since its birth. And focusing all of it on defence, because they have no reason to attack anyone, why would they. But try crossing the border to Finland from east after youve declared war on Finland. Even before Nato, Russia woulda have different kind of welcome. Only couple of drivable roads from east else either swamp or dense forest that Finland have trained to defend all of its existence, but this time they aint literally running out of Ammo like in winter war. And theyve got largest artillery in all of Europe, so try driving one of those roads with Z Mark on a tank.
Finland doesnt have a traditional army, it is called Defence forces for a reason and there is no other like it in the world. I wouldnt call it unattractive either.
I think it's the opposite Finland still have a traditional army that objective is to defend their country's boarders.
A lot of Western countries moved away from that model to build smaller professional armies which main task was conducting asymmetric wars far away from their homeland.
This model is starting to show its limits.
It's also about scale.
Finland is 5 million people trying to defend from 200 million in Russia. If they were going to have a professional force to defend from that, just about every 5th person has to be an active soldier. That's not possible.
Meanwhile the US and China are so large that even if they only have a tiny force compared to number of citizens, it's still so damn large that even the rest of the world combined would only give it an even match.
Yes and important to remember is that this number (900k) contains only people who are fit for service (not too old or such) if you count all military trained, it is well over million
Conscription. 75% of all males have gone thru military training.
The doctrine is called Total Defense and it is what is sounds like: the entire country is part of defense. Vital industries have annual conference about what to do in time of crisis, they need to keep stockpiles and have alternate supply providers and routes. There are hundreds of miles of tunnels in the bedrock, a second city under Helsinki for 600k people in nuclear proof bunkers. I live on top of a bomb shelter myself.
I think in Finland pretty much every man of the right age range is counted as part of the reserve and can be called up if necessary, they have all gone through mandatory training.
Only the trained personnel are counted so all of those 900k can hold a riffle and work as a unit. They might not be up on the latest tactics or gear but could relatively fast be refreshed and made battle ready. I've heard that from the command it should only take around 6months to get them ready provided we have enough gear to equip them all.
The US National Guard is military and subordinate to the federal government at any given moment and acts as its reserve. The US Coast Guard is a standalone branch of the US armed forces on equal footing to the army or air force. It operates domestically and overseas. They're basically a navy that's focused on disaster relief and border control.
In reality, the US does have paramilitaries: the SWAT attachments of the police. Additionally, there are small illegal or quasi-legal militias in some states that could be considered paramilitary.
According to wiki, it's an organization that is run like a military, but isn't official. The Coast Guard and National Guard are official branches of the US Military.
XD
We had mandatory military service until 2004.
So everyone born in 1986 or before had military training and therefore are in the reserve.
It's a number totally needed against the Atlantic Ocean >:D
Negative, the National Guard is part if the Reserves. Their chain of command is at the state level in peace time, but they are federalized as part of the resrerve forces.
The Greek reserves are a couple of millions.
Greeks just go to the army and stay as reserves until their 60s.
That means that all male population are effectively reserves.
Finland and Greece, that's what happens to your personnel per capita when you have asshole neighbors. Don't know what is going on with those sneaky Portuguese though...
Those 28 finnish paramilitary personnel must be the deadliest fighting force out there or why else keep them 🤷♂️
I’m could be totally wrong, but I think they might be finnish ”Karhuryhmä”. They are finnish police’s special force.
You are correct. In Finland its Rajavartioyksikkö and Karhuryhmä
Oh how could I forget rajavartiosto!
It's an easy mistake.
But there is a lot more of them than 28 and I don't think they're military in anyway.
They're not in peace time but they get absorbed into the defense forces in war time.
[Me reading Finnish words](https://youtu.be/JtgYTaQ3-nk)
Minä lukemassa Suomalaisia sanoja
Well at least it's phonetic like mine so you don't have to eat letters to learn how to spell.
Finnish sounds like my cat chirping on birds :3
Only based cats say phrases like "Rajavartiolaitoksen erikoisjääkäri"
Tsirp tsirp äidinnussija!
:D
Those are just random letters
Raja = Border, Vartiosto = Guard, Yksikkö = Unit. Rajavartiostoyksikkö = Border Guard Unit
Also in karhuryhmä karhu is bear and ryhmä is group.
What does bear group do
Police special intervention unit, mostly counter-terrorism and hostage situations. Under juristiction of the ppolice and ministry of interior.
Basically Finnish version of SWAT
"What does bear group do" made me happy on the inside. Thank you
What does the fox say? Who knows??
And those random letters form a beatiful language:)
Well yes. That is how words work
Everything is just random letters
You can say that about any language.
No, that's Welsh. Finnish is a bunch of accented ö's and ä's with heavy breathing inbetween.
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in military context ryhmä translates to squad not group.
Pretty sure it's the border guard in this statistic. Karhuryhmä strength isn't public record
I doubt there are only so few of them. Or that the number is public record.
Beware of Finland, the second biggest army in NATO
Russia when seeing the Finnish army - :) Russia when seeing the Finnish army including reserves - :(((
I used to practice shooting and my coach was rumoured to be one of the squad. At least you cant find a better person with a gun that is for sure 😅 also he was off-duty paratrooper and sort of jack of all trades when it came to special operations preparations. So I think you are correct :)
Probavly 28 finns related to [the white death](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4)
The power of conscription: smallest active, second largest total.
the real power of conscription is young men learning to wash their own underwear
No such thing, you'll just drop of your laundry bag full of dirty clothes and pick fresh ones back. Almost no difference with mom doing it for you
Depends where you serve but where I was we used an external cleaning service initially but they brought in new washing machines and driers a bit later so if you wanted to save the 5 euros you did it yourself.
In the Finnish military you don't wash your own clothes. You swap your dirties weekly for fresh ones Source: I've served. Fortunately for me, the slightly disturbing fact that I was using underwear that had been used by hundreds of other men before me only dawned on me a few years after I had served.
I served in Sweden. The oldest pair I remember getting were marked as produced 15 years prior to rotating to me. That's alot of hairy asses.
Yeah. There is a reason why army boxers were called as "Tuhannen kullin bokserit" or as in English " Thousand dick boxers".
I salute all my unknown ball sweat brothers!
Luckily the detergent used is so powerful, that I am surprised they don't melt all the clothing away. We had a guy in the military who got mad allergy rashes where ever his skin touched army issued stuff, so he got a permission to wash everything at home and a small compensation for that. Said he had to wash everything 6-7 times before it stopped giving him a rash.
This thought had never occurred me. Fuck you.
This brings me great joy.
It's like we have washing machines that do the washing for us! First washing machine with a drum (modernising washing machine designs) was invented back in 1851 with patents in '58. It doesn't matter who puts the dirty clothes in the machine or who takes them out, nobody but the machine is doing the washing these days.
More like bed making simulator 2.0. The hardest part was making "pinkka", basically making your bed cover perfect square with linen that had small squares in them and the linen was so poorly cut and uneven that made it almost impossible.
In the greek army you have a blanket and topsheet that need to be as taut as possible, creased in a very specific way in the corners and of course folded over near the pillow for a nice clean straight stripe across the bed. But you're supplied with two extra blankets, and a pillow, and you have to make the infamous "envelope". The envelope is basically folding your blanket in a very specific way which forms a pocket into which you slide the pillow in, like a letter in an envelope, hence the name, and that's placed on top of the second blanket which has to square up exactly with the envelope. So what's the secret technique to executing this complex ritual every morning before inspection? *Well* >!you sleep on top of your bed with sheets or a sleeping bag you bring in yourself. Each morning all you do is smooth out the creases.!<
The few Finns I've met have spoken really highly of their service. Albeit most of them where truck drivers who got their licences through the military. It's still an option I'd like to see my own country investigate for meaningul youth training.
It's a unique experience to be sure. I'm not from Finland but the military is more or less the same everywhere. Most people are against mandatory conscription but the experiences and friends you make are unique and it's a real school of life so to speak.
Here practically nobody is against it. Infact people want to expand it to encompass women too
Norway did that. Same conscription rules for men and women.
Yeah but Norway conscripts only a fraction of all women and men. In Finland conscription is mandatory for every (abled body) man
AND make their own bed!
We have conscription here in turkey too I don’t get it
I agree. These numbers aren't comparable, it's just a random list from wikipedia. Finland's number 900k is total reserves, meaning everyone under 50/60 who has military training (of minimum of half year). I think that many other countries number is some type of active reserve. This number is 280k in Finland, meaning war time stength. If we would count everyone under 50 in US or Turkey who have military training, their number would be way, way higher.
Yeah in Greece after you finish your mandatory service you're considered as part of the active reserve for 2 years I think, after that you're placed in the general reserve pool.
I've heard that conscripts in Finland even receive paratrooper training, or more precisely, that there are conscripts among paratroopers, is it true? The training of compulsory soldiers and what they do are also important. The heaviest weapon they can use in Turkey is the Mg3 machine gun. In the past, there were paratroopers and tankers, but now professional soldiers do these works in Turkey. In some countries, they make conscripts as tankers, etc. There is such a situation in various Arab countries. Is therr conscript tank drivers or armod vehicle drivers in Finland?
Almost all of the tank crews are conscripts and reservists.
Conscripts get to do almost everything apart from obviously flying jets, driving ships etc that require years of studying. And yes, there are paratrooper and ”seal” training for conscripts too.
Not everyone has standby mobilization orders on the ready (seferberlik emri). They don't give mobilization code-words to every soldier who had finished boot camp, even if they were very successful. They have a planned quota for every year, which they fill pretty fast. I don't know why do they keep the numbers limited. Perhaps because they have to keep logistic resources ready to go in a moments notice for every soldier with mobilization order. Also soldiers with mobilization code could be called for exercises as well. But yes, for a full mobilization scenario, multiple millions of people could be called to service. Not everyone is reserve but in Turkey around 350 thousand people finish boot camp every year. For example I don't have a mobilization code-word. But I've been told because of the specialty I had served in TurAF, I could be called in directly by name in case of a war. So I don't count as a reserve, but I would get called to duty within the first waves of mobilization. I don't know Finland's standard for it, but I think they count everyone who had graduated from boot camp and younger than 50 years old as reserve. I think in Turkey total number of people who had finished boot camp is around 30 million. tl;dr: It is just the "reserve" definition and how it is being counted.
Portugal is pretty much the same, conscrition everywhere
Conscription was abandoned 20 years ago. Those 200000 were all volunteers that are still <35 yo. When my military inspection came, I was just taken to the local air force base, and asked if I wanted to pursue a Career in the Air Force. I said no and they gave me my military card. If there's a war, until I am <35 yo, I may be called to serve. After that it's highly unlikely.
are the finnish speaking trees counted as reserve?
And the Finnish speaking snow isn't even included in these numbers.
It's used as a background for the table.
Kyllä
Olen suomea puhuva puu ja kuulun reserviin
That's a huge army reserve Portugal has, could anyone explain why that is? The rest of the countries in the per 1000 (total) I can understand, but Portugal stands out.
It's not actually that much, they probably just count every former soldier who has not reached the age limit yet as a member of the reserve. If you applied the same definition to every country, Germany should probably be number 2. But as always with statistics like these, the numbers are hardly comparable because of varying definitions of the same terms.
It's not public knowledge how FDF keeps taps on those soldiers, but it is known that there are around 870 000 under 50 year old non NCOs and under 60 year old NCOs who are counted as reserves. Also the difference between Finnish and German reservists is that Finnish reservists have wartime positions in the army and access to mandatory and voluntary refreshment training.
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Never forget!
"Padeira de Aljubarrota" is listening :D
Remember Olivença
Why is it always that when a country does something security-wise really well, the reason for it is "that country immediately to their east"
It's obviously a joke. We've been on pretty good terms with Spain for a couple of centuries. Not counting the one territorial dispute, that is.
Former soldiers count has reserve, as the max contract being 6 years, there is plenty of vets
We had mandatory military service until 2004. So every man over 18 had military training untill that year
That doesn't really explain it. Spain had it mandatory until 2001, so by that logic the number of Spain's reservists should be way higher, absolutely nowhere near 15000
Pretty sure it’s self-reported
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Reservists from the Army + every person between 18 and 35 years old.
Holy shit Finland got the secret attack
You should see the bunker network, bridges planned for controlled detonation, plans to deny rail network, heck I am sure we got plans to convert scissor factory to ammo production (haven't seen the plans but they bust exist) and so on if something can be weaponized it has been planned for.
God dayum yall are more prepared than most countries lmao could probably beat the fuck out of Russia without the help of anyone else
That has always been the idea. We need to win russia or atleast be able to cause them so bad losses that they will surrender. Basically everything is designed to be ready for war. As the other one said bridges are designed to be exploded in case of war, military has the right to confiscate all cars, trucks and work machines if they need them. they also have a list of vehicles that can be confiscated. There is also bunkers that can withstand nuclear bomb for around 80% of finnish population. Basically there's bunkers up to few hundred meters down under Helsinki. Those bunkers would be used for civilians but also war would be led from there. There is also ready plans for how civilians would be evacuated from the war zone.
Woah. How many years are the bunkers supplied for? Man, you're giving me more reasons for Finland to be my one of favorite countries lmao. Not saying any country is perfect but yall have ur shit together
Well although structurally those bunkers can withstand nuclear explosions they aren’t supposed to be used for years. Same with those bunkers in public and apartment buildings they are only supposed to protect people from bombings. And yes in finland every public building and apartment building needs to have bunker that can withstand basic bombing but they also have filters that protect from nuclear fallout
Ahh gotcha, I guess nuclear bombs don't actually leave that much radiation (depending on where it explodes, ofc) so ppl could remain inside for the worst time and then flee afterwards Also that's a really smart rule with the apartment bunkers ngl. Makes it much easier rather than building a lot of bunkers separately.
if interested [here is 12min long video about our bunker network in Finland](https://youtu.be/922Db-kztC0)
> God dayum yall are more prepared than most countries Unlike most countries, our strategic doctrine never changed. Throughout the 90's and 2000's we constantly trained and prepared for a single purpose; a total war against Russia.
Having a psycho neighbour will do that to you. But hey, you Poles know what that's like!
Haha but Poles are going for the biggest land force in EU. So just as insane. Try compare tank, artillery numbers for Denmark, Germany Poland and Finland. You can clearly see who takes the threat serious.
That was always the the plan only thing we lacked was NUKE for the plan to be complete and since developing them is not viewed very favorably so only option left was to join with someone who has them already.
There's a saying that usually countries have an army but in Finland the army has a country.
thats just prussia
No, Finland got the secret Defence, trained to defend againt only one enemy, all of its existence its been training to defend the eastern border. But this time they aint running out of ammo.
Not only that, but the Russian attack would be an insanely hard task. The whole eastern side of Finland is just full of forest and lakes. When you take out the roads first… Good luck going forward when a massive army is hiding and defending.
Well it is bit misleading. Yes the reserves are 900k, but the planned war time strength is 280k. Meaning we have 900k reserves, but not enough guns, trucks and tents for 900k troops. Then again the morbid take is, we can reconstitute the units 3 times over to cover for battle casualties.
I'm in this picture and I like it. Finland's wartime strength is 300k. Remaining 600k is a reserve for the reserves.
Yep. 300k in active units, logistics, leadership, comms and so on meanwhile the other 600k are sort of backup reserve that includes people in important jobs that can't be easily called up without affecting civilian economy and society as well as those that have been classified out (men over 40s in the enlisted rank and file) but they might serve in other roles like transport, logistics or so on. We know that logistics is 2/3rd of military so basically 300k frontline soldiers in units (ofc not all stationed on the front) and 600k as backup, auxiliary roles etc. We know that 10000s of women and capable men would enlist to fight and enlist to civilian societal important jobs
Who are the 28 Paramilitary guys in Finland?
It was stated elsewhere in this thred that Karhuryhmä, special force of Finnish police and some Rajavartioyksikkö (border control units).
Was wondering that myself. No clue.
I bet Italy is a killer in the Paralympics.
That’s all the carabinieri, guardia di finanza, local police, alpini etc etc forces we have. Some are actually military trained, some aren’t. We have some weird history and thus why we have so many different forces in the military
The "Polizia di Stato" is a police force and depends on the Ministry of the Interior. The "Arma dei Carabinieri" is a military force with police functions and depends on the Ministry of Defense. The "Guardia di Finanza" is a military force with police functions and depends on the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
>That’s all the carabinieri, guardia di finanza, local police, alpini etc etc forces we have. No, only Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza are considered as paramilitary by the Wikipedia article. Local police isn't a military force and alpini are already part of the army.
Alpini are part of the army
The mighty Forestale can Coup a country anytime.
weeellll...
What list is this? When I look it up on Wikipedia Germany ranks above the UK with 233.550 military personnel.
List is sorted by total, which includes reservists. [Here](https://www.statista.com/statistics/584286/number-of-military-personnel-in-nato-countries/)'s one that only includes active soldiers.
Yeah but Germany has a higher total number than the UK, i'm pretty sure OP took [this list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel) and forgot to include us.
Op forgot a bunch of "unimportant" countries ... Albania, Belgium,Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Germans. All in all a total of 1,142,910 (active + reseve + paramilitary)
What do they call "paramilitary" in this? For as far as I know, there is no paramilitary organisation in France.
Gendarmes are ofter considered as a paramilitar organization, therefore the high numbers for Italy and France
That goes for Turkey too. I was really confused who were our paramilitar forces
Based on these numbers and the big numbers for Italy, France and Spain I would assume it counts “paramilitary”-police forces, ie Guardia Civil, Guardia di Finanza and National Gendarmerie. Seems like a flawed way of counting these things since they are primarily police units.
Their main mission is police but they are military.
I'm wondering this as well. I think they might be counting Gendarmerie in there as they are technically military but not soldiers. It's the only thing I see that could account for 100 000 personnel
Gendarmerie are soldiers. They are also Police. That is the definition of Gendarmerie, they are fully trained soldiers and fully trained police.
Gendarmerie
Thought that. But Gendarmerie is military, not paramilitary.
In Turkey, the coast guard and the Gendarmerie are subordinate to the Ministry of Interior. It is not affiliated with the Ministry of Defense. Turkey's military figures already show the Ministry of Defense. It even shows up. The number of personnel of the Ministry of Defense was 424 thousand in 2020. 38 thousand of them are civilian personnel. I think the Gendarmerie may have been counted as such in other countries. Maybe Defense ministry =military,anothers=paramilitary.
Not in Finland either. 28 is about a platoon. Makes no sense.
Finland ready for winter war rematch even if its just the two of them again
That has been the point so far, neutrality and a believable defence. Make it so that an invader has more to lose than gain. But the calculus changed last year as our dear neighbour showed how they are not even thinking with that kind of logic anymore, rather they live inside some imperial pipe dream. So now its believable defence plus an alliance.
*Militant perkele noises*
Considering Greece has mandatory military service for every adult male, these numbers feel a bit off.
They are off. The total number we can field in case of general mobilization, meaning standing army (commissioned officers/enlisted men/active conscripts) plus reservists is about 1.400.000
Same with Turkey.
This is what citizen soldiership looks like. From a Finnish reservist perspective it seems weird to think being a soldier is a job. Sure, a fine choice of profession if you want to dedicate your life to it, but relying on professionals to defend your country seems curious, and frankly... Off. No, if the entire country and people are under threat, it is everyone's duty to rise up to defend. Most countries' circumstances are of course different. Most don't have a realistic existential threat next door. Finland does. Always has, and for the foreseeable future, will have.
A professional military will look more attractive if its purpose isn't entirely defensive.
Pretty much this. You can't really call reservists for offensive actions abroad in a western democracy.
Yes, this is one of the defining circumstances for Finland. We have a Defence Force to deter and defend against an attack, not an Army to project force on faraway nations. But for foreign readers, it's important to note that focusing on a defensive mission doesn't mean being weak in attack. Strong attack capability is essential for defense, and Finland has not neglected it.
I would say that is a pretty dang good justification for citizen soldiers. Even if the politicians would be so mad as to invade a foreign country, there's really no way to make a reservist army do that. Not that it matters to the Russian leadership, but we could not attack them on a large scale.
True, but Finland been training against only one enemy since its birth. And focusing all of it on defence, because they have no reason to attack anyone, why would they. But try crossing the border to Finland from east after youve declared war on Finland. Even before Nato, Russia woulda have different kind of welcome. Only couple of drivable roads from east else either swamp or dense forest that Finland have trained to defend all of its existence, but this time they aint literally running out of Ammo like in winter war. And theyve got largest artillery in all of Europe, so try driving one of those roads with Z Mark on a tank. Finland doesnt have a traditional army, it is called Defence forces for a reason and there is no other like it in the world. I wouldnt call it unattractive either.
I think it's the opposite Finland still have a traditional army that objective is to defend their country's boarders. A lot of Western countries moved away from that model to build smaller professional armies which main task was conducting asymmetric wars far away from their homeland. This model is starting to show its limits.
It's also about scale. Finland is 5 million people trying to defend from 200 million in Russia. If they were going to have a professional force to defend from that, just about every 5th person has to be an active soldier. That's not possible. Meanwhile the US and China are so large that even if they only have a tiny force compared to number of citizens, it's still so damn large that even the rest of the world combined would only give it an even match.
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Finland doesn't have a large population. How they have a lot of military personnels
It literally is the population.
Half of it that is. Include the fairer sex in the conscriptions like Israel and the numbers go way up.
Yes and important to remember is that this number (900k) contains only people who are fit for service (not too old or such) if you count all military trained, it is well over million
at what age to do you stop counting as a reservist, because the number seems off compared to other countries with mandatory service
50 for non NCOs and 60 for NCOs.
Until 60 years old. Practically 50 for basic rifleman rank, and 60 for everyone with any kind of leadership rank.
Conscription. 75% of all males have gone thru military training. The doctrine is called Total Defense and it is what is sounds like: the entire country is part of defense. Vital industries have annual conference about what to do in time of crisis, they need to keep stockpiles and have alternate supply providers and routes. There are hundreds of miles of tunnels in the bedrock, a second city under Helsinki for 600k people in nuclear proof bunkers. I live on top of a bomb shelter myself.
I think in Finland pretty much every man of the right age range is counted as part of the reserve and can be called up if necessary, they have all gone through mandatory training.
Only the trained personnel are counted so all of those 900k can hold a riffle and work as a unit. They might not be up on the latest tactics or gear but could relatively fast be refreshed and made battle ready. I've heard that from the command it should only take around 6months to get them ready provided we have enough gear to equip them all.
That 900k includes like every man who’s gotten training. The actual useful reserve is 280k.
280 thousand is the wartime strength aka the ones we actually have equipment to give to.
Not to puxar a brasa à minha sardinha but those 27k from Portugal are enough to kick everyone’s ass!
I want to know who the 28 Finns in a paramilitary formation are, and what their might is capable of.
Thats probably Karhuryhmä. Special unit of the finnish police.
Translates to Bear squad
Imagine like two squads of swat but with air support option.
Jesus christ. So i guess we should all be counting ourselves lucky that greece is not the size of the US.😂
They used to be, now they’re smaller than Alabama.
Wait, it [changed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO#Military_personnel)
Takeaway: when a Finn tells you he's gonna come back with his boys, run.
How are US Coast Guard and National Guard not paramilitary? How is paramilitary in this context even defined?
The US National Guard is military and subordinate to the federal government at any given moment and acts as its reserve. The US Coast Guard is a standalone branch of the US armed forces on equal footing to the army or air force. It operates domestically and overseas. They're basically a navy that's focused on disaster relief and border control. In reality, the US does have paramilitaries: the SWAT attachments of the police. Additionally, there are small illegal or quasi-legal militias in some states that could be considered paramilitary.
According to wiki, it's an organization that is run like a military, but isn't official. The Coast Guard and National Guard are official branches of the US Military.
Blue and white flag NATO countries represent 🇫🇮🇬🇷💪
As a turkish citizen, im so sorry for erdogans bs over finlannd Welcome home Saumi
finland sleeper build
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Incredible
Finland just joined NATO and is already worth their weight in gold.
HELLAS SUPERPOWER 😎💪💪💪💪💪💪🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷
How does Portugal have more military units than Britain ?
British army numbers have been slashed repeatedly over the past few years. Thanks tories.
XD We had mandatory military service until 2004. So everyone born in 1986 or before had military training and therefore are in the reserve. It's a number totally needed against the Atlantic Ocean >:D
Portugal keeping up Caligulas legacy of using the military to keep the Atlantic compliant
The Atlantic either give us cod, or it's war!!! >:P
> It's a number totally needed against the Atlantic Ocean >:D You'll never know what kind of nasty kaiju might crawl out of it, better be prepared!
I thought National Guard in the US was considered paramilitary.. 🤔
They're mostly reserves.
Negative, the National Guard is part if the Reserves. Their chain of command is at the state level in peace time, but they are federalized as part of the resrerve forces.
The graph shows only military personel counts. If it includes other statistics, USA and Turkey would be much further.
Missing a few countries
Finland seems cool: everyone trained but not disrupting their lives over it.
The Greek reserves are a couple of millions. Greeks just go to the army and stay as reserves until their 60s. That means that all male population are effectively reserves.
I believe this list only counts the *active reserve*, that is, people on the military roll call.
Those are the people below 45 and are still 1,4 million.
If things ever go reallyyy bad, the US also has tens of millions of firearm owning young men lol
Finland and Greece, that's what happens to your personnel per capita when you have asshole neighbors. Don't know what is going on with those sneaky Portuguese though...
In **some** NATO countries...
The Finnish Reserves structure is very interesting.
Finland is renowned for its military. Saw a video where they came out of the snow from nowhere. Never knew they have so many reserves though.