M91/01

Thanks to Pekka, I was able to finally find a set in this fantastic pattern.   Took lots of time and patience, but as Pekka says, " never give up ".

This is a  lightweight version (01) used in Kosovo.   Notice use of  buttons, and absence of  frontal zipper.



Still looking for standard  M91s, and related headwear, but this will hold me for a minute...                                                                        

                                                                           

A very happy rip....

Very nice!! Definitely not an easy one to land.

Steve

Congrats Sal! Nice set.  

Thanks guys,

This set is great.  The colors are amazing, and vibrant.    Finn quality is in effect.


Steve,    I like to have your opinion on the following.

I  certainly am no expert  on Finnish patterns,  but I  am  going to open a small can of worms with my opinion that this uniform, and others like it , are legit Finn issue uniforms despite the absence of a castle logo.

This, of course, does not mean that I think all M91s without  castle logos  are legit issue.   I am certain there are fakes, and commercial pseudo M91s in the mix.

The above M91/01 has visible ghosting of 1 patch on each shoulder.   It looks like the removed patches were a Finn flag on left upper sleeve, and a KFOR shield patch on the right.
Correct patching for these uniforms as used in Kosovo.    So far, I have seen 3 of these lightweight uniforms, and none have had   a castle logo in their tags.
Two of them have a Rapid Deployment arc on the upper left sleeve.    I believe them all to be issue uniforms.

My  M04 ( Finn Desert ) Shirt, and shorts, are, to the best of my knowledge,  legit.     Both garments  lack the castle logo in the tag; there is no evidence of a separate tag ever being  there.

Of course, this is only the opinion of an amateur, and  only an opinion, but I would certainly  love to hear other's thoughts on this subject.  

This subject has been discussed before, but there seems to be no solid conclusions as to the castle question.

Perhaps some of our Finnish members could help with this all important question.....

Thank you all,

rip....

Finland is one of those countries that has a bit of a mix of genuine and private purchase items. This is because Finland has a sizable number of reservists. However, it's not a free-for-all. As I understand it the private purchase items basically have to conform to standard designs and quality. There are only a few suppliers that made items which were approved for wear while in service. Vaate Oy is apparently one of them, IIRC.

I'd say your set was worn by a soldier of the Finnish military. Was he issued this uniform or did he buy it privately? My guess is he bought it privately or it was a unit purchase.

Steve

That set is definitively 100% issued kit, no matter if the "Tower" is there or not. The 01 type of uniform was never made by any of these civilian brands, at least I have never ever heard about or seen such a thing. All 01's are genuine military issue.

It appears that peacekeeping uniforms were often made without the usual FDF labels, there probably is some bureucratic explanation to it.

The whole commercial M91 (and now I mean M91, not M01 or any other variants) business is a complicated one, some are 1:1 exact copies (excl. labels) of the issue M91's whilst others have minor details (different fabric, different zippers) that are clearly different from the real deal. All commercial M91's are (were) made for civilian (hunting etc.) or "pseudo-military" (  ) reservist use.

I doubt any "real" soldier ever decided to purchase his own M91 to wear on duty since the issued thing is exactly the same and most importantly free! A commercial, private purchase M91 would simply not offer any benefits whatsoever over the issued one, so it really makes no sense. In the old M62-days this was a different matter, since the military M62 suit has a bit of a silly cut pocketwise I've heard of officers buying civilian made suits for field use, as these had superior pocket placement etc.

Thanks for the information!

That is basically how I understood m62 and m91 uniforms. There is the official type (with castle) and then there is type that reservists purchase (without castles, sometimes 100% same sometimes minor differences). And of course there are the civilian types which have a lot more differences from the issued stuff.

You are saying that this is not true for the m01 uniforms? That makes sense to me because I believe the same thing is true for m05, yes?

Why the m01 uniforms don't have labels... in the US sometimes this is because there is an immediate need for something and it is too slow to go through "normal channels". This is also true if the item is not a standard item which is normally not available in the military supply system. Therefore, the unit (or a HQ) purchases them directly from the manufacturer or supplier without official markings. I often see this behavior with items that were used exclusively for peace keeping missions. Small numbers of items specialized for that mission... easier to go around the system instead of deal with it!

Steve

CollectinSteve wrote:There is the official type (with castle) and then there is type that reservists purchase (without castles, sometimes 100% same sometimes minor differences).  And of course there are the civilian types which have a lot more differences from the issued stuff.

Now here is a little misunderstanding!
There actually is simply two different kinds: the official military stuff and then civilian production, there really is no "in between" and I will try to explain why. For voluntary reservist exercises the official line has always been that you either wear what is issued by the military for the particular exercise or then you can wear your own camo, as long as it is either M62, M91 or M05 (depending on what the issued stuff for the exercise in question is). In this use it makes no difference if the zippers are of a different brand or you don't have a sleeve pocket etc. Both the 1:1 copies and not-exactly-1:1 suits are perfectly OK.

It is from this phenomenon that the whole civilian production of M91's and M62's emerged (and of course some stuff was made directly for hunting use, shotgun vests etc., but that's a totally different matter). The whole "1:1 copies" and "slightly-different" variations is simply due to the fact that some manufactures of civilian suits also made them for the military, thus they had the exact same fabric, zippers etc. at hand, unlike others who's designs wary slightly due to different hardware etc.


And yes, the same thing applies to M05, but simply due to the fact that the pattern is copyrighted/patented/restricted/whatever and if you try to sell anything M05 in Finland you get a slap from the government. This thing should be over by 2016 though, as the "patent" expires!


And indeed, going around the official channels is most probably one explanation for the absence of FDF tags. Another may be the bureaucratic fact that when these are fielded they are not worn in the capacity of the Finnish Defence Forces, but instead under the UN or whatever flag and therefore it would be "politically incorrect" to have labels saying you are "fighting for Finland" or something. This whole thing goes hand in hand with the fact that no peacekeeping suits are ever returned to Finnish stocks, but instead disposed off in-country, either simply destroyed or brought home by the wearer, effectively making it so that they "never were" FDF property, or something.

We have some silly politics here, and I wouldn't even twitch if I learned this theory was spot on correct!

Glad to see that this topic is generating good info and discussion ..

Thanks to all for the interesting input...


rip....

Either way, a very cool camo pattern. I'd love to have a set of M91....

Kind of ironic I found the "rarer" M05 before... And have yet to grab some M91!

Stepi wrote:Now here is a little misunderstanding!
There actually is simply two different kinds: the official military stuff and then civilian production, there really is no "in between" and I will try to explain why. For voluntary reservist exercises the official line has always been that you either wear what is issued by the military for the particular exercise or then you can wear your own camo, as long as it is either M62, M91 or M05 (depending on what the issued stuff for the exercise in question is). In this use it makes no difference if the zippers are of a different brand or you don't have a sleeve pocket etc. Both the 1:1 copies and not-exactly-1:1 suits are perfectly OK.

That is the most clear explanation I have ever seen I think the confusion is that in the past people have said "that's not official, but it's used by reservists". This implies more legitimacy than the stuff that has a lot of differences from the official items.

The whole "1:1 copies" and "slightly-different" variations is simply due to the fact that some manufactures of civilian suits also made them for the military, thus they had the exact same fabric, zippers etc. at hand, unlike others who's designs wary slightly due to different hardware etc.

In the US we have several manufacturers that produce items that are identical to official issue items except that they are assembled outside of the US (cheap labor). Without the labels it is impossible to tell if the item is official or commercial.

And yes, the same thing applies to M05, but simply due to the fact that the pattern is copyrighted/patented/restricted/whatever and if you try to sell anything M05 in Finland you get a slap from the government. This thing should be over by 2016 though, as the "patent" expires!

Funny that the theory says you can wear M05 copies, but in reality you can get arrested for a patent violation Good to know that in 2016 we are going to see a ton of commercial stuff coming onto the market.

And indeed, going around the official channels is most probably one explanation for the absence of FDF tags. Another may be the bureaucratic fact that when these are fielded they are not worn in the capacity of the Finnish Defence Forces, but instead under the UN or whatever flag and therefore it would be "politically incorrect" to have labels saying you are "fighting for Finland" or something. This whole thing goes hand in hand with the fact that no peacekeeping suits are ever returned to Finnish stocks, but instead disposed off in-country, either simply destroyed or brought home by the wearer, effectively making it so that they "never were" FDF property, or something.

We have some silly politics here, and I wouldn't even twitch if I learned this theory was spot on correct!

There is a similar story about the SWORKER Swiss TAZ90 uniforms. They are almost the same as the standard military uniforms, good quality, and I think the same cloth. But they are commercially made. Some people say that the uniform was manufactured outside of Switzerland for an observation mission in the Balkans. This was to get around some laws that complicated or prevented using Swiss manufactured items. I don't know if it is true, but it doesn't sound all that crazy!

Steve

CollectinSteve wrote:
That is the most clear explanation I have ever seen  I think the confusion is that in the past people have said "that's not official, but it's used by reservists".  This implies more legitimacy than the stuff that has a lot of differences from the official items.

Exactly! Since the whole "defence culture" here is different than perhaps anywhere else it's no wonder the wires have gotten crossed. The thing is that every Finnish citizen who's served is a reservist which, when added to the fact that we still have conscription and all that, makes just about every male over 20 a reservist (if not professional soldier)!

I guess most foreigners unfamiliar to our system may think that we have 1) A standing army, or those actively serving 2) a "paramilitary volunteer reservist force" and 3) the normal civilians who have nothing to do with the military. But truth is 2) and 3) are actually a perfect blend of one another.

In the US we have several manufacturers that produce items that are identical to official issue items except that they are assembled outside of the US (cheap labor).  Without the labels it is impossible to tell if the item is official or commercial.

Indeed! This was one thing I thought about adding to my previous post, but as it read like a Bible already I decided to leave it for later! But here it goes:

In Finland the silly thing is, that although the military is very, very strongly embedded into society (so strongly in fact that it is a perfectly normal, daily thing and half of the population is trained for warfare) we have never had that whole thing of commercial "better than the issue stuff" production of gear and clothing, and neither have we ever had cheap knockoffs of uniforms etc.

I guess this is due to the very strict restrictions on what you can and cannot wear in the service (and the same often applies to these voluntary reservist exercises). This leads to the cold fact that there really has been no business opportunity for manufacturers to produce "optional" backpacks, webbing, clothing etc. (unlike in the US where the high-end commercial market of kit flourishes!).

I'm glad to say that the wheel is turning though, and private purchase footwear, hydration bladders (yes, even in 21st century Finland some officers still think hydration bladders don't belong in the military) gloves, some MOLLE pouches and other accessories are often considered OK by CO's these days. If you're lucky, you might even get permission to use your own gear such as chestrigs and the like (a few buddies of mine used SADF Pattern 83 and British NI chestrigs).

This is already grossly off-topic, but I hope things are clearer now!

It really depends when and on what contract the uniforms were made. The only exception is that the commercial ones have noticeably different tagging/labeling. As Stepi said M01 were never commercialized and are not made for general public in any form. The uniforms are brought back and mostly given as present to friends and relatives if the soldier decides not to keep it. And there are ones that are destroyed after the rotation ends.

Regarding Rapid Deployment Patch. For example my M01 still has the RDF patch and it is 100% sure fact that it has been worn on duty instead of M91 in the summer. The only thing was that the UN/Mission related patches were removed.

Bit off topic but the desert K04 (predecessor of M04) was used in Eritrea and most likely do not have labeling/tagging of any kind. Even rank velcros had to be sewn on after getting the uniform. Self or theater made job, depends. M04 was modified based on the feedback of K04. And most of them should have labeling/tagging in place. M04 is also more rigid compared to K04 which was easily torn and destroyed. Also the buttons break quite easily on K04.

I think this has been said several times but I wouldnt be expecting huge load of M05s in coming years and the ones that are floating now are mostly from contract that Seyntex had with FDF. The uniforms were never in Finland and were never really property of FDF even though they were made on their contract.

Finally also got one piece of this uniform, very cool stuff:

Nice one Alex !!


One of my top favorite Euro patterns...and a great addition ..



S

I missed this. Nice jacket Alex. Sal, I am with you, it is a very nice European pattern. I am also still looking for a m91 Set.

Alex

Hey Alex,

That M01 is very sweet.  Took me awhile to get some but it was sure worth the wait.  

They do occasionally pop up now and then.

Still looking for a 4 pocket winter coat in this pattern..

It is without doubt, one of the nicest Scandinavian/Euro  patterns.

S