The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939�1940. It began with the Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939 (three months after the outbreak of World War II), and ended with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from the League on 14 December 1939.
The Soviet Union sought principally to claim parts of Finnish territory, demanding�amongst other concessions�that Finland cede substantial border territories in exchange for land elsewhere, claiming security reasons, primarily the protection of Leningrad, which was only 30 km (19 mi) from the Finnish border. Finland refused and the USSR invaded the country. Some sources assert that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland, and use the establishment of the Finnish Communist puppet government in Terijoki as proof of this. Other sources argue that there is no documentary evidence to support this and that there are arguments against the idea of a full Soviet conquest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
It was pretty amazing to see a small country like Finland give Russia such a headache in the early stages of the Winter War.
What do you guys think was the main reason why they did?
Inept soviet Command.
The main reason is ….terrain…that favor the defenders.
Finland is all lakes, swamps and marshes in the summer, and arctic cold, snow and ice in the winter, and it is a challenge to make any kind of military offensive operations in this environment, and to establish a supply line is almost impossible. But to defend is very easy, since the aggressor is forced to attack through narrow bottlenecks, with the lakes as natural flank protection. All the campaigns from 1500 to today have been done in the winter, since the marshes are impassable during summer, and they say Finland would have won the war if it had last one more week, because the rain season would have saved them. I live in Norway, and it is the opposite here, during winter the mountains are impassable, so you have to attack us during summer. But you must attack through a narrow pass, that is heavily defended, so you need a million men, and we defend with 100 000 and still win.
In the poll you can choose between poor attackers or poor defenders. I say none of them were poor nor great. They were just regular soldiers. The Fins had two weeks of military training, the Russians a lot more. But the decisive difference was, that the Nordic people like Fins, Norwegians and Swedes are born with ski on our feet. We learn skiing before we learn walking, and we are used to cold and long winter, we love the snow and out door camping. Most of the Russian attackers come from big cities or Ukraine, they were not familiar with snow and skiing, so they had a biig disadvantage even before the battle started.
To prove that it is the terrain that favor the defenders, just look at the attacks that went the other way. Two weeks after Barbarossa had started, a big German army tried to attack Russia from the North. The two week initial delay happened because it was difficult for the Germans to track a supply line through the mountains of Norway and marshes of Finland. 70 years ago during WWII we were badlands and wilderness and did not got the roads and railways we have today, so the supply had to arrive the front on horse back. Now this supply issue should be a warning to the Germans, but they did not get the point so they attacked Russia anyway. The great Lappland Army would never reach Murmansk nor Leningrad, as it was stopped at the river Litza just a few miles in at the Russian territory. Like the million men strong Red ARmy with heavy tanks like the KV1 had been stopped by 200 000 Finnish soldiers with rifles in 1939, exactly the same happened to the million men strong and heavy armed crack German SS and mountain troops, as they too were stopped by two light Russian divisions. It turned out that Murmansk and Leningrad were surrounded by marshes too. And even if the elite SS and gebirgsjeger managed to struggle their way through the marshes, the supply didn’t follow, so the attack halted.
edit, oh and I forgot to tell about the ambush. Finland was forest too, and when the heavy Russian army with tanks and trucks come, they were pretty much stuck on the few narrow roads. So they got ambushed by Fins on ski. The long Russian columns got stopped in front by dug in Fins at bottlenecks, and then other Fins ambushed the rear, and cut the columns into a lot of small pockets, cut off from supply, starving, freezing and after days or weeks, attacked by Finnish snipers.
Everybody knos thta Finn Vodka is better than Russian Vodka…. :-D
The main reason is ….terrain…that favor the defenders.
Finland is all lakes, swamps and marshes in the summer, and arctic cold, snow and ice in the winter, and it is a challenge to make any kind of military offensive operations in this environment, and to establish a supply line is almost impossible. But to defend is very easy, since the aggressor is forced to attack through narrow bottlenecks, with the lakes as natural flank protection.
Very true. I once heard Finland described as “a country consisting almost entirely of obstacles to military operations,” which is a good characterization of its challenging topography. On top of that, the Finns knews their local terrain very well, and knew how to make skillful use of it. Their expertise on skis, as Narvik mentions, allowed them to move swiftly and silently, something which was very helpful to them in dealing with a numerically superior enemy, and they also benefited from the simple but effective measure of wearing white camouflage smocks, which helped them to blend into the landscape.
I enjoyed your post, Narvik.
Thank you Wittman, and yes CWO, Finland is a country of obstacles, see the pic
The main reason is ….terrain…that favor the defenders.
Finland is all lakes, swamps and marshes in the summer, and arctic cold, snow and ice in the winter, and it is a challenge to make any kind of military offensive operations in this environment, and to establish a supply line is almost impossible. But to defend is very easy, since the aggressor is forced to attack through narrow bottlenecks, with the lakes as natural flank protection. All the campaigns from 1500 to today have been done in the winter, since the marshes are impassable during summer, and they say Finland would have won the war if it had last one more week, because the rain season would have saved them. I live in Norway, and it is the opposite here, during winter the mountains are impassable, so you have to attack us during summer. But you must attack through a narrow pass, that is heavily defended, so you need a million men, and we defend with 100 000 and still win.
In the poll you can choose between poor attackers or poor defenders. I say none of them were poor nor great. They were just regular soldiers. The Fins had two weeks of military training, the Russians a lot more. But the decisive difference was, that the Nordic people like Fins, Norwegians and Swedes are born with ski on our feet. We learn skiing before we learn walking, and we are used to cold and long winter, we love the snow and out door camping. Most of the Russian attackers come from big cities or Ukraine, they were not familiar with snow and skiing, so they had a biig disadvantage even before the battle started.
To prove that it is the terrain that favor the defenders, just look at the attacks that went the other way. Two weeks after Barbarossa had started, a big German army tried to attack Russia from the North. The two week initial delay happened because it was difficult for the Germans to track a supply line through the mountains of Norway and marshes of Finland. 70 years ago during WWII we were badlands and wilderness and did not got the roads and railways we have today, so the supply had to arrive the front on horse back. Now this supply issue should be a warning to the Germans, but they did not get the point so they attacked Russia anyway. The great Lappland Army would never reach Murmansk nor Leningrad, as it was stopped at the river Litza just a few miles in at the Russian territory. Like the million men strong Red ARmy with heavy tanks like the KV1 had been stopped by 200 000 Finnish soldiers with rifles in 1939, exactly the same happened to the million men strong and heavy armed crack German SS and mountain troops, as they too were stopped by two light Russian divisions. It turned out that Murmansk and Leningrad were surrounded by marshes too. And even if the elite SS and gebirgsjeger managed to struggle their way through the marshes, the supply didn’t follow, so the attack halted.
edit, oh and I forgot to tell about the ambush. Finland was forest too, and when the heavy Russian army with tanks and trucks come, they were pretty much stuck on the few narrow roads. So they got ambushed by Fins on ski. The long Russian columns got stopped in front by dug in Fins at bottlenecks, and then other Fins ambushed the rear, and cut the columns into a lot of small pockets, cut off from supply, starving, freezing and after days or weeks, attacked by Finnish snipers.
Very good post.
Just to add to what you’ve written: Stalin had concluded the Red Army had fought poorly during the Winter War. (Nor was he alone in that opinion.) To correct the situation, it was decided to change the Red Army to a new doctrine. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Red Army was in the midst of transitioning from its old to its new doctrine. That confusion may have been one of the reasons the Germans were able to achieve a 10:1 exchange ratio during Operation Barbarossa.
By 1943, German soldiers were only 3 - 4 times as combat-effective as their Soviet counterparts. (There were also times–such as the Battle of Stalingrad–when the Soviets were able to come very close to achieving a 1:1 exchange ratio.) Given that the Germans were more combat-effective than the Soviets, it’s very possible the Finns were more combat-effective as well.
The great Lappland Army would never reach Murmansk nor Leningrad,
Von Manstein expressed frustration with Germany’s failure to take Leningrad. He felt the opportunity to take the city was there, and that it had been wasted. The opportunity had been fleeting, because the Red Army was soon able to bring large numbers of reinforcements to the area.
Like the million men strong Red Army with heavy tanks like the KV1 had been
stopped by 200 000 Finnish soldiers with rifles in 1939
There’s an interesting story about that. Soviet foreign minister Molotov had cynically denied that the Soviet Union was invading Finland at all. Instead, he claimed that Soviet forces were merely present to deliver humanitarian aid to the Finns.
The Finnish response to this was, “Molotov, if that’s your idea of ‘humanitarian aid,’ we’ll return the favor.” The crude anti-tank weapons hastily concocted by poorly armed Finnish forces were dubbed “cocktails for Molotov.”
In 1939 the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, claimed Russia was not dropping bombs on Finland, but merely airlifting food to starving Finns. The Finns, who were not starving, soon dubbed the RRAB-3 cluster bomb “Molotov’s bread basket” ironically, and named the improvised incendiary device that they used to counter Soviet tanks the “Molotov cocktail”, as “a drink to go with the food”.
That confusion may have been one of the reasons the Germans were able to achieve a 10:1 exchange ratio during Operation Barbarossa.
By 1943, German soldiers were only 3 - 4 times as combat-effective as their Soviet counterparts. (There were also times–such as the Battle of Stalingrad–when the Soviets were able to come very close to achieving a 1:1 exchange ratio.) Given that the Germans were more combat-effective than the Soviets, it’s very possible the Finns were more combat-effective as well.
I think that is a very intriguing question. You do know the Dupuy Institute have made TDI reports about combat effectiveness in ground battles, and the big pictures looks like Germans at 100 %, then US is 20 % less effective, Poles and UK 30 % less effective, Russia 7:1 as you mentioned, Italians even poorer if possible. And all this is true. It is several reasons for this. Skilled leadership and morale, which effect your willingness to fight to the last stand, or surrender pretty fast. Weapons and training is important, a German infantry had more firepower than a Russian one. Terrain is important, as we have seen, mountains, swamps, forest and cold winter favor the defender. Surprise is a big deal, the shockwave of a Panzer Division, Battleships fleet from behind the horizon, or Bombers coming out of the sky. Then you have the supply line, 100 elite soldiers with no food is 100 dead elite soldiers. We could go on and on.
edit, oh and of course we have the combat fatigue. There seems to be a pattern here. An inexperienced Rookie has a low combat value. But after his baptism of fire he get battle hardened and gain experience. After two or three more battles he get brutalized and become an effective killer. But this won’t last, and it looks like after 400 hours of combat some kind of fatigue will make the soldier tired of fighting. The effect will be the same if the soldier are exposed to 400 hours of fighting in a short time span, or it is divided in several battles over many years. Currently I read about the US Civil War, and it have some cases that prove my point. The Vet companies that fight well during the first year, it looks like after 3 years of fighting, the steam go, and they start to preform poorly. Same with the UK Desert Rats of the 8 th Army that was fighting hard against Rommel in the desert, when they got ashore in Normandy they had a very low combat effectiveness.
I think that is a very intriguing question. You do know the Dupuy Institute have made TDI reports about combat effectiveness in ground battles, and the big pictures looks like Germans at 100 %, then US is 20 % less effective, Poles and UK 30 % less effective, Russia 7:1 as you mentioned, Italians even poorer if possible. And all this is true. It is several reasons for this. Skilled leadership and morale, which effect your willingness to fight to the last stand, or surrender pretty fast. Weapons and training is important, a German infantry had more firepower than a Russian one. Terrain is important, as we have seen, mountains, swamps, forest and cold winter favor the defender. Surprise is a big deal, the shockwave of a Panzer Division, Battleships fleet from behind the horizon, or Bombers coming out of the sky. Then you have the supply line, 100 elite soldiers with no food is 100 dead elite soldiers. We could go on and on.
edit, oh and of course we have the combat fatigue. There seems to be a pattern here. An inexperienced Rookie has a low combat value. But after his baptism of fire he get battle hardened and gain experience. After two or three more battles he get brutalized and become an effective killer. But this won’t last, and it looks like after 400 hours of combat some kind of fatigue will make the soldier tired of fighting. The effect will be the same if the soldier are exposed to 400 hours of fighting in a short time span, or it is divided in several battles over many years. Currently I read about the US Civil War, and it have some cases that prove my point. The Vet companies that fight well during the first year, it looks like after 3 years of fighting, the steam go, and they start to preform poorly. Same with the UK Desert Rats of the 8 th Army that was fighting hard against Rommel in the desert, when they got ashore in Normandy they had a very low combat effectiveness.
You do know the Dupuy Institute have made TDI reports about combat effectiveness in ground battles
I’ve read some of those reports. As you mentioned, one of them rated American soldiers 80% as combat-effective as Germans. Another report indicated this may have been an overestimate, and hinted that Americans may have been no more combat-effective than the British. (50% as combat-effective as the Germans.) I’d be very curious to see where Finns rated on their scale.
But this won’t last, and it looks like after 400 hours of combat some kind of fatigue will make the soldier tired of fighting.
I hadn’t previously known this. I’m glad you pointed it out!
Narvik is correct in his remarks, “The main reason is ….terrain…that favor the defenders.”
The Soviet attack was complicated by unseasoned troops, in the face of well trained and crafty Finns.
Murmansk was stone throw away from the German lines in 1941 and proved to be unobtainable by the German and Finnish forces by the harsh terrain.
A German general, who’s name has left my mind, remarked about the terrain of Finland and Northern Russia in 1941 as being unchanged since the Creation of the World. Unsuited for modern warfare.
@ABWorsham:
Narvik is correct in his remarks, “The main reason is ….terrain…that favor the defenders.”
The Soviet attack was complicated by unseasoned troops, in the face of well trained and crafty Finns.
Murmansk was stone throw away from the German lines in 1941 and proved to be unobtainable by the German and Finnish forces by the harsh terrain.
A German general, who’s name has left my mind, remarked about the terrain of Finland and Northern Russia in 1941 as being unchanged since the Creation of the World. Unsuited for modern warfare.
I’m certainly not going to disagree with you or Narvik about the importance of terrain! However, my impression is that Finland’s success isn’t attributable only to terrain. The highest-scoring non-German ace of all time is Ilmari Juutilainen of Finland. Juutilainen had 94 victories. Another Finnish Ace–Hans Wind–had 75 victories. The highest-scoring Allied pilot of WWII was Ivan Kozhedub of the U.S.S.R., with 62 victories.
The highest scoring American ace of all time was Richard Bong, with 40 victories. A total of five Finnish aces had more than that, including the two listed above, Urho Lehtovaara, Oiva Tuominen, and Olli Puhakka.
Finnish pilots’ achievements are made more impressive by the fact their aircraft weren’t always the latest and greatest. For example, about 1/3 of Juutilainen’s victories were achieved while flying an obsolete Brewster Buffalo. In 1941, an American pilot made the following observation: “As for the F2A-3, [Brewster Buffalo] it should be in Miami as a training plane, rather than used as a first line fighter.”
All of the above
