Finland. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[BongLaden]

http://chickencrap.com/c.php?c=1472

[[F7F7]KiNG_KaDaFFHi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

Har har har har......=)

[lancelot]

400.000 missing :O


what is with the finnish tanks? did they survive?

[[F7F7]Buzz_Lighter]

Russian government cirles (both military and civil) attitude towards its own human resources is exactly what bothers me the most. Speaking of WWII - i think we won it just because our leaders were ready to throw into the meatgrinder as many ppl as needed to reach the goal. And prolly the most important thing is that we, population of Russia, simply take this kind of attitude for granted... Sad, but true.

[[F7F7]CautionToTheWind]

Even if the russians brought their tanks one by one to be slaughtered, i doubt the finnish stocked enough ammo to kill so many tanks. And 30 tank main gun barrels would never last so many shots.

My guess is that they malfunctioned a lot on their own. And like the 400.000 lost soldiers, after 10 minutes they were covered in snow and forgotten.

Yes the Russians have a way of fixing their military faults by throwing more ppl at the problem. It is rough, but it DID stop the nazis.

[BongLaden]

King can explain how many tanks got wasted... he's the expert on the matter. I'm sure he's writing a post very soon.

[[F7F7]KiNG_KaDaFFHi]

The attack on Finland was mostly done by the "leftovers" of the russian army, they needed most of their top forces to keep the nazis away and chase them back to Berlin....the equipment used by Russia was the same as in all other battles...but the command and the training of the troops was very poor.

The Fins had very good tactics and an insane ammount of motivation....they would use molotvs....sometimes just pices of wood to actually bend the tracks of the tanks....they had perfected the art of winter warfare and made ambushes that wiped out hundred of tanks...this has alot to do with the terrain in the area of the battles....they would simply let russian troops go very far into their lines....knock out the first tank....then the last tank of the convoy and simply pick them one by one....the "roads" wasn´t big enough for veichles to turn around and they knocked tanks and troops out very easy.

Also the very nature of Russian warfare as Buzz said....helped the Fins alot...Russia expected to simply overwhelm the Finnish army by sheer numbers and just kept moving into traps and ambushes over and over again.

The Fins also had their now legendary ski-squads that were much better equipped then the Russians and was used very effective in small fireteams that would operate far behind the Russian lines and therefore they had a very good idea of were the next attack would be and could prepare very good for the battles. They had their own radiosystem that was soo simple it mostly worked like Morse-code and had a far better intel then the Russians....never underestimate the advantage and benefits you have by knowing your enemy and the terrain...theese patrols operated very far behind the Russian lines and did blow the Murmansk railway many times during the war.

Also...IF Russia would have broken through the Finnish lines completely wich would have forced the Finnish troops to draw back they had mined an area where there are loads and loads of lakes and mountains....I beleive my father said somewhere around 200km of total mining....that would have released hundreds of lakes from the mountains down on the Russians advancing towards Helsinki.....

But Hugo has a point here aswell...many tanks and other equipment simply broke down from the harsh conditions of the weather and terrain....but trust me....the Fins had an incredible KD ratio and they did knock out almost all of thoose numbers themselves...

Not to forget....they had MANY MANY voluntaries from Sweden that was in the command and also in the fighting forces ....wich I beleive....still too this day....is the biggest volountary force in history.

The Finnish tanks and airplanes did not have a big effect on the battles at all since the number was no way near enough to encounter the Russian number....but....they did salvage everything they could from the Russian equipment and veichles and used it against them.

The Finnish ppl are made of steel....but....Russia would still have won the war if the command had been better and if they didn´t have to fight of the Nazis, time and conditions simply was in the favor of the Fins...thats two of the reasons why Finland could stand up to a Superpower and still have their freedom.

I would like to call this war a draw....with Russia ending up with getting 9-10% of Finland (eastern part) after signing the documents that ended the battles.

[[F7F7]Buzz_Lighter]

interesting post indeed.
Was totally new for me about the mining of the lake area. Nice surfing could have been for russian troops