Legend has it if you play it fast enough, it plays Säkkijärven polkka.

This is like just one step above shouting "bangbangbangbangbang" like in the playground lol

This is how I envision the Finnish making a music box

I hope that KZfaq wont kick this video off cause its in a full auto mode of fire.

Certainly beats the "laukaus laukaus" and "sarrrrrrja" we had to shout while running thru the woods in mid 90's..

This reminded me of the Futurama episode where Fry and Bender are drafted to go to war against bouncing balls and their guns are wound up before each shot!

I grew up in the late USSR. We had homemade wooden toy "avtomats" vaguely resembling PPSh-41 or PPS-43 submachine guns with a crank handle on the side to imitate the sound, the sound was made by a wood plank tripped by a gear wheel... Although toys, they were sort of official designs recommended by the Pioneer organization for Zarnitsa games and such.

Meanwhile in training: Soldier 1: Nooo, you can't crank that fast Soldier 2: Haha, fire rate go *brrrrrr*

I was in army cadets as a teenager. When we did field training, guys with rifles fired blank rounds but the two-man Bren section had one kid carrying the gun and the other swinging an old style, rotating, wooden football/soccer rattle to represent the support fire.

There was a blank firing system for the Suomi. Worn out barrels were squeezed almost sealed in the middle and painted yellow to indicate they are training devices. When installed, such a barrel reduces gas flow enough that the pressure of 9 mm blanks is enough to cycle the bolt. I was in the SA in 1979-80 and we certainly fired crimped blanks with Suomis.

This has the same energy as putting a "vroom" handle on your bicycle as a 6 year old...

I love the Finns and their ingenuity and practicality. Really looking forward to visiting Suomi one day.

I turn 69 this year and when I was doing my military service 1977-78, we had a chance to shoot with Suomi SMG. I don't recall ever seen this funny training aid. Iain, you managed once again to tell me something about our history.

Unlimited "ammo", at least. I always thought it was humorous how we often trained with blanks (2000s/2010s US Army). A basic combat load (which we rarely carried, usually it would be plussed up substantially in theater, I carried 1200 rounds for my M249 into Baghdad almost 21 years ago) was 210 rounds for the M16/M4 and 600 rounds for the M249. Depending on the type of training, we might get 100 blanks apiece for five 20 round mags, and the M249 Gunner might get one or two 200-round belts of blank ammo. Especially during a multi-day force-on-force exercise, by Day 2 you'd often hear the machine gunners (both M249 and M240B) shouting "Buhbuhbuhbuhbuhbudgetcuts!"

When I hear "military grade," this kind of stuff is basically what I envision...

Peeler/Gas/Football rattles were used to simulate MG fire by the British and there was a fitting to attach one to a Lewis Gun. Although running around shouting Bang was still in vogue post 2000.

"Captain Mainwaring Sir I'd like to volunteer to Crank the handle on little wooden box Sir."

Same mechanism was used (and still is) in rabbit hunting in Finland, when you don't have a dog. So the idea was familiar to the officers.

It’s also fully transferable.

Reminds me of a joke my grandfather told me. Since the Finnish army couldn't afford to give blanks for training exercises, the soldiers needed to shout "Laukaus" or "Shot" each time they pretended to fire (and "Sarja" as in "Burst" for rapid fire). During one of the excercises a private would be doing just this: "Shot... (pause) Shot... (pause) Shot..." The instructor would then come and say: "Private! You're firing too slow, shoot faster!" The private would then continue and shout: "Two shots!"

During basic training (as a a recruit myself and later as an instructor, in the late eighties) in the German Bundeswehr there were two types of recruits regarding blank firing exercise, trigger happy and cleaning conscious ones, the latter happily handing over their blanks to the former.

Finnish army: We need a way to help troops simulate firing their weapons. Some random private: plays with a new-years noise maker in the distance Finnish army: OK now hear me out...

"We have purposely trained him wrong, as a joke." 🤣

Shades of Dad's Army firing practice from Jonesy's van, "Out two three, bang two three, load two three, in two three" 😆

From the depths of my memory.. i recall seeing something similar associated with the British army. Also some sort of cranked clacker to simulate machine gun fire. Can't remember where I came across it, but I am sure it was on KZfaq. The mechanism used here is similar to the British football rattle, which you would swing around in circles over your head. Never seen one in real life but they were often depicted in British comic books in the 1970s.

Having had a toy gun with a similar mechanism as a kid, I'm having visions of NCOs intervening in arguments between opposing troops on maneuvers..."I got you"..."Nuh-uh, did not!".

I’m sure I’ve seen toy guns with exactly that style of rattle. It’s amusing to think of soldiers training by playing soldiers in almost exactly the same way they would have grown up doing.

That is one of the neatest items I've seen on this channel. Thank you Ian.

About 2 years ago in an effort to get something i dont even remember what, i bought a box in an online auction. The box had som unique items init dating back to the 1830's. It had a very worn wooden box a little like this one but not quite as complex. I assumed it to be a party noise maker. Then i got into research on it and the deeper i went the more amazing it became. It was finally decided upon to be a naval battle rattle used as an all hands call early in the american civil war. How this thing found its way into the mountain corner of ga, nc, and sc i will never know. I gave it to my step dad who is a navy man and a lifelong collector and study of things dealing with the civil war.

Even if that crank handle isn't much better than yelling "bangbangbangbangbang!", it could still serve a purpose to train troops on basic handling of the weapon without officers having to worry about a recruit having an oopsie with live rounds.

Royal armories showed a similar piece for a Lewis gun (I think,l it was a Lewis, been a while), it was still in decent shape and gave a respectable pop sound. You can definitely see how it would be cheap and better than yelling bang.

A soccer rattle fitted to a machine gun - Finns keeping up the image of thinking around things…

They started making blank firing barrels in the fifties by just flattening old barrels with a hammer. By jamming bullets or other stuff in to clog the blank barrels, you could make the gun cycle more reliably - but all the pressure came out of the ejection port!

They had noise makers. We just had to scream pew pew.

Saves ammo and hearing of troops. . .sounds like a party favor.

This training device is one step above pointing the gun and shouting "BANG BANG BANG!"

I was on maybe one of the last Suomi-smg using conscript batches in late 1970's. We did not have these noice makers. I do not remember any blanks for the Suomi-smg. For light mg "Lahti-Saloranta" there was a special blank barrel. For assault gun (AK-type) there was a special devise fastened to to muzzle of the gun to take more rocoil power from blanks .When in troop training if blank ammo was not issued or if we had run out of it, we were supposed to shout (Finnish words): "laukaus" (single shot) or "sarja" (burst). 😃

It's a safe bet every company had at least one lunkhead private who asked, "Sarge, we're only issued one mag for the entire exercise? What do I do if I run out of ammo?" 😀

We didn't have blank firing attachments for our AG-3(HK G3) rifles in the early 90s. They existed but were not issued since they were deemed unsafe. They were screwed on the barrel in place of the muzzle device, and apparently, the blank rounds had ripped the attachments off the threads earlier. There existed a more secure system with the MILES laser simulator attachments, but we never used those. When we were later issued MP-5s as sidearms, we had blank firing attachments since it used the better 3-lug system to secure the muzzle device. Unfortunately, the supply of 9mm blanks was limited😔

Every video Ian descends further into the subbasements of Royal armories

There was also a wooden mock-up version of the LS-26 LMG with similar mechanism inside the magazine well. It was used for training at least during the interwar period when funding was truly at rock bottom.

Very cool. Thanks Ian for your nerdy love of firearms.

The point of firing blanks is to let the "enemy " know he is under fire, so if, when new, the device made enough noise to be heard from 100m in the woods, it should have accomplished the mission.

When I was in the (UK) cadets 40 years ago we had a deactivated Bren Gun. The No2 on the gun was issued with a gas rattle to make the appropriate noises!

Many years ago I use a similar system with the Bren gun. It used a 303 magazine body, with follower and spring removed and a handle which operated a cam to push a piece of spring steel away from the side of the magazine, then release it to slam into the magazine body. I think it was just a cost saving, although it was with cadets, so maybe they did not trust us with bulleted blanks.

Why does it look like Ian's finally found his happy bunker?

It’s the equivalent of making pew pew noises with your mouth when dry fire training.

In the Marines we didn't even get fun stuff like this, we literally just yelled "bang bang"

Reminds me of film from the late 1930’s showing a British army Bren gun team where the No2 on the team was spinning a football rattle to simulate the firing of the gun.

Oh, excellent, I saw one at the Suomenlinna museum on a Suomi and had no idea what it was. Thanks.

To be fair mate, I was still going “BANG, BANG, BANG” in the British Army in 2013 after 24 years of doing so!😂

The rattling sound reminds me of the old plastic "Tommy Gun" toy gun with the ratcheting noise maker. But it was springloaded, not handcranked. 😅

I was issued an old fashioned wooden football rattle in combination with a GPMG when doing basic training in the ‘80’s and blank ammo was in short supply. God forbid you had an ND with it. 50 pressups for each clack.

What a peculiar device, it goes to show us the ingenuity of the Finnish when the blank firing was not available. Thank you for providing us with this information Ian.

what a great very interesting video and the battlefield implement Mr GJ.have a good one.

Every day is New Years Day when you have a Suomi Noisemaker Training Magazine!

My dad made the same thing for me when I was a child. He made it in the shape of an AK-47 with the spinning mechanism in the middle of the gun. The toy was made of wood and rubber band with the spinning handle being a very thick metal wire.

Reminds me of being in NROTC in college and running through the woods yelling BUTTER BUTTER JAM every time we wanted to “fire” our rubber M-16A4s.

Neat! Even has a safety built in to keep the sounds of rounds down Range!

Oh no he's in the gun basement again!

A thing with similar way of noisemaking, but with a short pole as handle, called Ratsche/ Rätsche was in Germany used to scare away birds from wineyards.

Greater than 0% chance that KZfaq still demonetizes this. Lmfao.

Yelling "budget cuts" for firing when training is much easier and cheaper.

It's the gun version of playing cards rapping against bicycle wheel spokes.

Similar concept of noisemaker is used at Easter around Central Europe except it's kinda like a wheel barrow.

There was also a wooden mock-up suomi-kp for training. I have an old picture from 1930s where my grandfather has one.

That is the coolest, funniest little tidbit of history I've seen in a while. 😹

A really neat looking set today

Actually there were blank firing 'devices', i.e. you just changed the barrel to a blank firing barrel version. They made those from used up old barrels with worn rifling. The barrel was usually squeezed from one or two places to give enough backpreasure to fire blanks. There were also end caps made to some blank firing barrels that was screwed to the muzzle end of the barrel (threadths were made at the end of the barrel for it) which had small hole in the middle to vent gasses off. Actually I've seen a barrel without any squeezing too, just the screwed on endcap with a hole in the endcap. Local armouries made these barrels, hence there were variations of the designs too. Blank firing barrels were painted yellow.

Well as far as I know Finns did make "blank firing" system for Suomi. Those smg's had changeable barrels and special blank firing barrel was developed. Wholly other thing is how common they were.

I'm pretty sure the owner of that bunker does not know that Ian is still there.

An old school British football rattle :-)

The British Army were still using gas rattles in the early 80's to simulate MG fire, at least in my Engineer Regiment.

I feel like this should become a legally required part of Finnish folk music in the same way the washboard is a part of American folk/country music. 😂 I sure hope a cache of these is discovered so we can buy some!

Looking forward to tomorrow's video of Ian with this out at the range

What he didnt show is 15 finns running through the door after hearing it... SCREAMING "Ice Cream Truck! ICE CREAM TRUCK!

Same mechanism as a football fan’s rattle from UK, and I believe before that, was used by police and night watchmen. the UK version has a handle and as you swing it, rattles really loudly.

I think the 1930s US Army, often using broomsticks in lieu of rifles and wooden mock howitzers, would've been envious.

BRB ordering one of these for my Lage MAC Suomi upper. I'm sure that training setup is 100% Elbonia approved!

I really envy Ian's new gun room.

In the words of Maxmoefoe: "It's a piece of wood that we got!"

Sometimes Finnish conscripts have ammoless training. You yell: "SHOT! SHOT!" and then officer yell's "WHISTLING! S**T'S FLYING!" and then you take cover and repeat. Blanks cost money and require cleaning afterwards (by crawling through forests).

Almost as charming as that cranked loader that you clamp around a tree and reload box magazines with

The British did a similar thing with the Lewis gun. Jonathan did a video on one a little while back.

I see why Ian was chuckling but I actually thought at first he was chuckling because there was a rather humorous ad from Uber which I actually watched…yes I actually watched a KZfaq Ad, crazy world we live in !

Happy new year device 🎉

The first 'battle training' I did, we had to shout bang, so that gizmo is better!

Simple but ingenious💂🏻‍♀️🤝💂🏻‍♀️

Reminds me of attaching cardboard to my bicycle as a kid and it made noise clattering on the bicycle spokes mimicking an engine.... memories..

Smart when you think about it, holding the gun in hand with thah trainig mag in and cranking it would simulate recoil somewhat

In Mexico, stationery and crafts stores (papelerías) sell child-sized wooden rifles with this sort of ratchet mechanism for when kids have to reenact some historical battle at school or dress as a revolutionary during the independence month

@IronHorse1854 Yes it was, my mom's favourite was "luck of the Fryish" where Fry discovers a statue of a his brother with his "lucky clover" and at the end, it shows the seasons change and Seymour and Mr Panucci getting older. Fry's dog waits for him to finish his shift, but Fry is of course in the year 3000❤😢

It turns the Suomi from a SMG into one of those old school crank toy cap guns from about the same era

whrn I was a child early 1960s I had a toy sub gun moulded plastic looked vaguely like a Thompson but with a Lewis style top mag, that "mag' contained a wheel which sparked on a metal piece when you cranked the side handle it spun making showers of sparks as pseudo gunfire (you had to be young)

stuff like this is my favorite

Haha, the same exact thing is used to this day in the Czech Republic as part of our Easter folklore. Kids go around the village and make some noise!

Ian's pronounciation of Suomi is spot on!

So, that "M-16" my mom bought me from Rose's Department Store in the 1970s was a true blue "training aid." Who knew? 😏

During the Cosntitutionalist Revolution in Brazil (1932) the pauilista soldiers would carry shuch devices to sound like they had machineguns.

Imagine being in your first firefight and you grab your magazine and try to crank a nonexistent handle on the side. RIP HOSS GOT CAUGT CRAMKIN HIS HAWG