Yeah, I got that white walkers thing, one of my favourite series ever :)

With AK (Valmet version and others), they run dry to the end of days, all they really need is ammo. Sometimes when the temp goes below -30°C we replace the film of gun oil with paraffin/kerosene. Or just run them dry. Water is the enemy of a weapon at extreme cold, so in the field we have to store our weapons guarded outside to keep them cold if we are, depending on the mission, able to use heated tents. That would be during exercises only. Ice formed from condensed water inside the barrel or trigger mechanism might ruin ones day.

Happened to me once during my basic training: executing an attack drill (uphill, naturally) I shot lots three mags of blanks, then with my weapon empty I jumped a guard and the exhausted yours truly was thrown into a pile of snow like I was a wee woolen mitten What happened was, I landed in the fluffy snow my Valmet at the leading edge of the ballistic projectile called me, by the force of the landing the bolt carrier was pulled back and...enter the snow inside the action. Like a fistful of snow. The snow melted and naturally almost simultaneously froze inside my still hot weapon rendering it utterly useless in a fraction of a second. Took me a while to clear action this frozen

With more delicate weapon systems like the AR, we use high quality lubricants like Slip 2000 EWL which keeps its viscosity at temperatures as low as -40°C. Low temperatures are not an excuse to not to operate here in Finland, it's an opportunity to do our worst when the other guy is just concentrating at being miserable.

An article of US troops training in Finland last year: http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/us...apland/8600292

Someone made an inspirational video of their training:



I know, it's not nice to laugh at people failing, even we have to learn to ski before we master the craft :)