I want to dedicate this page to all the men and women who served Finland during WWII.
Thank You for keeping Finland independent and free!

This page used to be "The IPMS Fi-1877 Page!" over at GeoCities. I started out in 1997 and in late 2002 I thought that it was time for a new name for my site and a domain of my own.

I have gathered pictures of vehicles and equipment used by the Finnish Army during WWII. I hope that they can serve as reference-material for scale-modellers or people otherwise interested in Finland or the Finnish fighting forces during the war.

Please note that none of the swastikas or swastika-like signs on these pages have anything to do with any fascist- or nazi-movements. The Finnish Air-Force started to use the swastika as national-markings in the year of 1918. And the Finnish Armoured Forces used the swastika on and off already in 1920. That is long before there were any nazis in Germany or elsewhere.

There is an excellent article about the Finnish swastika called "The Honourable Finnish Swastika" over on the Virtual Pilots' homepage. A recommended reading for everyone. (Suomenkielinen versio löytyy tästä.)

About the copyright issue

All material on these pages, unless otherwise mentioned, are copyrighted © 1997 - 2025 by Andreas Lärka. All rights reserved. The documents may be used solely for personal, noncommercial, and informational purposes.

You may not reproduce, copy, or redistribute the design or layout of the www.andreaslarka.net -web site or individual elements of the web site design without the express written permission of Andreas Lärka.

I only use my own material, or material I have asked permission to use, on these pages.

There are many webmasters on the World Wide Web that uses material and pictures that they have no right to use. Especially the pictures are many, many times used without permission. The mysterious "public domain" is often refered to if the webmasters even bother to think about the copyright issue at all. Sentences like "I will remove the picture if asked to" are supposed to keep the page and the use of any pictures legal...

Such explanations are rubbish! Every existing photograph have at some time been taken by a real photographer. There are always someone out there that has the copyright to the photograph you happend to look at for the moment. Yes, there is "public domain", but it is up to the publisher to know what he or she is publishing!

Old photograps and war-photos make no difference compared to new photograps. Here in Finland every official WWII-photograph were taken by the Finnish Army's official photographers, the "TK-kuvaajat". This means that probably all, or the most of all old Finnish war-photos around are marked "SA-kuva" and property of the Finnish Army. Unless, of course, the photographer is an ordinary soldier taking a private photo. Then the copyright belongs to that ordinary soldier or his relatives.

This is why I only use my own material, or material I have asked permission to use, on these pages. Of course it would be nice to be able to scan a tank-picture out of a book and publish it on my webpage. But that is wrong, not to mention illegal! You can scan, download, copy, print, wallpaper your room or do whatever you want with any picture, but you can not publish it without permission! And putting a picture on your webpage is publishing! Like it or not!

So what can you do when you find the picture and you just must have it and you just must put it on your webpage? If the picture is in a book, call or write the publisher. They have the info about who has the copyright to the picture. Find out who that one is and simply ask this person. The worst thing that can happend is that he/she says "Nope"... You might have to pay for the right to publish the picture, but "if you want to play - you've gotta pay". By asking you might even get a better original photo than the one you originally thought you would use!

The same rule goes for pictures and material in any other format. Be sure about having permission to publish the material before putting the stuff on your page. By keeping your page legal you yourself feel better! For the moment you might not be able to publish all the material you would like to but you can be proud of having a "clean" an legal page! At least I am!

Sources

The sources are listed in order of importance. Sometimes pictures are more important than the printed word, therefore a Polish book - that I don't understand a word of - can be more important than a book in English.

Various non-printed sources including SA-Kuva -photographs and information obtained from the following persons (in alphabetical order): Kai Mehtomaa, Esa Muikku, Jukka Purhonen and Kari Tapio.