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Winter War

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#41
Poerisija said:
Not really no. Only success was when the border was lightly defended because soviets concentrated troops against the germans. There was no "winter war miracle" in continuation war because you know, it wasn't -30 degrees out there.
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As your being Finnish Poerisija, it's hard for me to disagree with you. It is your country. On the other hand, I will have to disagree a bit about why the Finns where so successful against the Russians

I have visited Finland 5 times, lived there for two five month periods and love the country. Of course like you, all my friends served in the military. My exchange student was in artillery and his brother was a sniper. Their father shared a bunk when he was serving with your current minister of defense. I have been told more than once by my Finnish friends that my knowledge of Finnish history is as good as many Finns. I have traveled all over your country including the far eastern front to the fields to see where battles took place and have stood in trenches and blockhouses that are still there today.

On to the topic. It was much more than the weather (-30) the wreaked havoc on the Russians. Even though the Reds attacked with over 200,000 men and tank divisions. The Finns could muster about 125,000 at their highest point with outdated weapons, no tanks and only 67 Bofors guns along the whole front.

It was poor (horrible) Russian leadership. Russians were literally taken off the streets of Leningrad put on trucks taken to the front and given weapons and uniforms with no training and told to fight. No time to go home to even tell their families what happened to them.

Since Finland is one huge forest, the dumb Russians drove straight down the roads, so the Finns would knock out the first few vehicles causing huge backups then just start harassing the Russians non-stop.

So you have a demoralized attacker against a one of a kind defender. Most people don't know about the Finnish "sisu" basically translated as guts, determination or intestinal fortitude. The Finn of World War 2 was a tough bastard and if they would have helped the germs attack Leningrad, who knows what would have happened. It plays a huge roll in the makeup of the Finnish person. Many countries simply do not have the Finnish makeup. They are a different breed ( i mean this in a good way)

THEN the weather set in. The attack began on November 30. The weather really didn't start to turn bad until later December and the first days of January. Now the Russians guns wouldn't work, they kept their tanks running non-stop so fuel became an issue and they ran low on supplies. Same issues that happened to the Germans when they attacked Russia. The Russians learned a lot from their failures in the Winter war and used them against the Germans.

I also firmly believe that the Finns did much better in the Continuation War then you are giving them credit for. They murdered the Russians again. Russia actually called off the assault due to such high casualty figures and to concentrate on Berlin. The Finns knew that the tide was turning and sued for peace. Obviously they were out of equipment and men also, but they held the Russians back almost as well in the Continuation War. While the Finns took a large amount of territory back from Russia that they lost in the Winter war, At the end of the Continuation war the Russians took it back, but then they fell into a stalemate which led to the Moscow Armistice in September of 1944 (i believe).

So in reality, they did kick Russian *** twice. Just ran out of manpower.

Give your country a little more props Poerisija, your grandfathers did something that most countries could not have even come close to :D

Besides, manpower won't be an issue next time. If the dirty Reds even consider another attack on Finland, people like me would hop the next plane to Stockholm march to Finland and join the Finnish free battalions.

I live in the states and we have a ton of Russian women moving here now. I won't even consider dating one of them :p. Latvians, Estonia, Lith's sure, but not a Russian. I couldn't do it to my friends. They don't like the Russians much.

Sorry for the long read, if you even did read it. Ya, I like Finnish history, can you tell? I could go on forever about this war as you can tell. Would move to Finland tomorrow if I could get a job. Incredible country.


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#42
Poerisija said:
There was no "winter war miracle" in continuation war because you know, it wasn't -30 degrees out there.
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Too bad it was rather unusually warm in early December '39, as average temperature was around -7 IIRC and several times it went up to positive degrees, such as +2 and +4. It was not until post Christmas the weather went down really cold, and putting it in odd statistical perspective the worse the weather was, the beter the overall soviet performance was as most of the uncoordinated, understrenght assaults were put to a halt.

Part of the so-called miracle is purely the sheer amount of retardation on the other side and ingenuinity to exploit it on the other side.
 
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#43
Hifk1897 said:
The Finns could muster about 125,000 at their highest point
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Way over 300 000 actually.

Hifk1897 said:
It was poor (horrible) Russian leadership.
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One of the major reasons. Much more than the winter itself. The "freezing coldness" on December and January made the life hard for the Finns too. Not just for the Soviets.


Hifk1897 said:
Russians were literally taken off the streets of Leningrad put on trucks taken to the front and given weapons and uniforms with no training and told to fight. No time to go home to even tell their families what happened to them.
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BS. Sure, a lot of troops were not well trained. But that
 
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#47
RedGuardist said:
Pretty hard to do it othervise with semi-motorized army in the winter, actually.
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AFAIK most of the russian units involved were mostly regular infantry, only relatively small amount of them was motorized in real sense of the word of using them as being organic part of the division. Supply trucks and such doesn't really count as being motorized.

Hifk1897 said:
It was poor (horrible) Russian leadership.
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Planning is one thing, but since purges left most of even the basic officer reguirements in divisions, units, staff and such to nonexistant level even with a masterplan, good eguipment (just as an example) and most suitable weather an army that over half of its units have insufficient amount of officers will perform very, very badly. It could be the germans, the americans, the british, the italians and it wouldn't make a diffrence. I'd love to see how some division would fight off a war with only 25-50% of officers there of the theoretical paper value.

Part of the issue aswell is the relative understrenght the initial attack was done. Ignoring the southern areas between Leningrad and Viipuri the relative numerical diffrence between attackers and defenders was highly favorable for finns as occasionally we're talking severe understrenght. Yes, they had more men in theory but what happens when there's less attackers in certain areas than there's defenders and their overall firepower projection is rather nonexistant? If you take into account how much Soviets did advance in the 20-30 days of war relative to their earlier progress there's quite major diffrence. Uncoordinated, understrenght and unsupported assaults were put to a halt eventually and proper manpower and material superiority was established.

So yes, finns did sort of offer soviets their arses so hard they were wearing their buttocks as a hat, but the overall combination of things (internal issues and practical retardation of few things on Soviet side, finns taking advatange of the situation in small scale etc) would more and more lean on the fact most of the finnish success in the whole war is due russians themselves. Similiarly some people say allies' best general was Hitler. It's not discrediting one party directly, merely pointing out how much odd things themselves can effect the situation.
 
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#48
Oldih said:
AFAIK most of the russian units involved were mostly regular infantry, only relatively small amount of them was motorized in real sense of the word of using them as being organic part of the division. Supply trucks and such doesn't really count as being motorized.
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Well, what I meant was trucks etc. since as you know, the Red Army was not even closely fully motorized even in the end of the WWII.

I consider them being semi-motorized because of supply etc. being mostly motorized. If you compare the motorization of the Red Army with the Finnish army, who had mostly rely on horses, attacking Red Army was indeed semi-motorized.

And much because of that, their supply etc. was bound to the poor and narrow roads, which were much worse in Northern Finland than in Isthmus. And even on Istmush the roads were not even closely good enough to a big advancing army. Not even in summer time, like seen in summer 1944.
 
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#49
"
RedGuardist said:
Way over 300 000 actually."

Yes, you are completely correct here. It was 125,000 Finns on the Ithmus alone. I reread it wrong and wrote it down wrong here.



"One of the major reasons. Much more than the winter itself. The "freezing coldness" on December and January made the life hard for the Finns too. Not just for the Soviets."

It's well known that while it was cold for both sides. The Finns regularly switched watches so the coldest could get back, get fresh clothes and use the sauna. This was a great relief to the Finns and is also well documented. By the way, when the Germans attacked Russia, the Russians learned from this and attempted to do the same for their troops later on.



"BS. Sure, a lot of troops were not well trained. But that
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#50
Hifk1897 said:
"
Maybe you need to do a little more digging into your own people. Maybe you should sit down with you old folks and talk to them. It's a hobby of mine. Was minor in military history at the University. I love talking to the old Finns and listening to their stories about WW2. I had to have someone do the dialogue for me. But the feeling was the same. Russians are hated. Even my large group of Finnish friends all in the mid 30's and above, well traveled and educated. They work for Finnair. BCS, your sugar company, guys currently in the military, etc. Good jobs, smart people. When I have that many people telling me including the old folks. I will take their word for it. They are not narrowminded in the least. Some of them lived through some rough times. I don't questions their feelings. Yet you do. I often don't questions people's feelings about a subject that I was not around for. Yet, you do.
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Well, my major in the university was Finnish history, so let
 
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#52
<animal>INSTINCT said:
This thread is now about Finland and its inhabitants:rolleyes:

In a desperate attempt to be in the 'Finland Circle' I will say my buddy's fiance is from Helsinki, and she is the only woman to ever match me in the Olympic game of alcohaul
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Pff, non-finnish people trying to brag with their ability to drink alcohol. Only the irish have ever stood up to finnish ability to consume alcohol!
 
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#56
mo0nbuggy1 said:
I didn't want to start a new thread so I'll ask my question in a semi-related topic.

Q: Will RO:HOS have large rural maps similar to those in RO:Ostfront? Arad, Basovka, Berezina, Kurland Kessell etc......
All the screen shots that have been released so far show only urban maps and I'm getting worried:(.

Thanks:)
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The Battle of Stalingrad was not only confined IN the ruins of the city.
Huge battles to conquer the city took also place in the surrounding wheat fields, summer/winter especially with the great russian push around the city to cut reinforcements of the german army caught in the city and its ruins. Tank battles and large infantry assault on enemy trenches are to expect i think ;) IF TWI wanna be historicaly accurate and i think they'll do !
 
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#57
Miro! said:
The Battle of Stalingrad was not only confined IN the ruins of the city.
Huge battles to conquer the city took also place in the surrounding wheat fields, summer/winter especially with the great russian push around the city to cut reinforcements of the german army caught in the city and its ruins. Tank battles and large infantry assault on enemy trenches are to expect i think ;) IF TWI wanna be historicaly accurate and i think they'll do !
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Depends on what areas they want to cover in the game...
They can be historically correct without huge tank battles without any probs.
 
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#58
Winter was was just a Russian test, of course a lot of things went very wrong for them. But they gained a lot of experience take t-34 and KV for example they recieved the compressed air canisters to start engines even when it was ice in fuel system, or special wooden sleds for tanks not to freeze to the ground overnight etc.
This one for Hifk1897 . You are one fine Nazi my friend. I can only excuse this because of your age. 23 is a bit to young for the most people to understand that live is not that simple. Dividing people to bad lads and good ones is very primitive. Just wait a bit, study, grow older and you will get wise enough to realize that people are layered cakes.
 
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