Hot weather uniform

The Finnish Defence Forces has since the second world war in addition to its task of defending Finland also had a clear commitment to peacekeeping missions all over the world. Both the m/62 and m/91 uniform system is designed to fit the northern european enviroment and thus, not surprisingly, is not the most comfortable uniform to wear in a hot desert. The solution has been to adopt a hot weather uniform similar to those already used in other countries. Initially "Hellepuku K2004" where the K stands for "test" has been deployed with Finnish UN-troops in Eritrea/Ethiopia. The desert pattern used is influenced (as the uniform itself) by the German and Danish desert patterns. Most likely the hot weather uniform will also be produced in the m/05 pattern, for use with the Finnish troops in Balkans, and other places.


Both pictures © Martti Tikka. Note that these two pictures shows two rather early test versions of the desert pattern, later
test versions differs to some extenth mainly in the colours while the uniforms themselves remain largely the same.


Picture © Martti Tikka. Late test version showing the colours and pattern that is in use
today on the Finnish hot weather desert unifoms.