The Winter War: Success or Failure for the Red Army?

Discussions on the Winter War and Continuation War, the wars between Finland and the USSR.
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Mek
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Re: Russia's Winter War

#76

Post by Mek » 22 Jul 2004, 01:43

Rarog wrote:
Mark V wrote:
The issue was USSR going to attack central Europe is not the topic here.
Well, it's exactly THE ISSUE. One can not plan to conquer the entire world after being beaten by a tiny country, unless that one is a complete moron :)

Well, Stalin wasn't a moron, neither was Mr. V. Suvorov with his Ice-Breaker.
I always thought that USSR plan was to push the war, which I suppose
they thought was evident, away from their borders. Use these other
countries as buffer zones, so "no shot would be fired on Russian
territory". Eventually, this didn't seem to work out very good for USSR.
when Germany finally did attack.

I think Stalin also got a lessons in Winter War about exporting
communism. It didn't work out as well as he probably hoped for.
The Terijoki Goverment, which he hoped to install became more of an
embarrasment to Stalin. And Finnish workers did not welcome an
invading army with open arms.

Regards,
-Pete

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Tiwaz
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Re: Russia's Winter War

#77

Post by Tiwaz » 23 Jul 2004, 01:48

Rarog wrote:
Mark V wrote:
Rarog wrote: So one is forced to admit that either Stalin and Co were genuine retards for planning to invade Germany or that the Red Army wasn't ready for war and Stalin and Co weren't going to conquer Europe. :-)
Hi,

The issue was USSR going to attack central Europe is not the topic here.
Well, it's exactly THE ISSUE. One can not plan to conquer the entire world after being beaten by a tiny country, unless that one is a complete moron :)

Well, Stalin wasn't a moron, neither was Mr. V. Suvorov with his Ice-Breaker.

regards
One can plan to conquer the world before getting beaten by tiny country. And can still plan to conquer it later when everything that was proven to be totally broken in military in that war against tiny country was fixed.

After Winter War Red Army went through HUGE changes when it was evident that military was in crap condition.


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Juha Hujanen
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#78

Post by Juha Hujanen » 26 Jul 2004, 17:15

There's a list of 49 Winter War Soviet Divisions in Suomi Sodassa book and according to it,Divisions came from following military districts:

18 from Leningrad
2 from Kalinin
4 from Moscow
8 from Belorussia
8 from Kiev
1 from Odessa
1 from Kharkov
1 from Orel
2 from Volga
3 from Siberia
1 unknown

So it looks like 27 Divisions(over half of sample) came from quite similiar climate background and for others too the climate in battle areas wasn't that different that they were used to.

Cheers/Juha

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AAA
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#79

Post by AAA » 06 Aug 2004, 10:33

Regarding climate effects on military operations

1. Attacking and maneauver in extreme weather conditions is much more difficult than defending (static). Still true today.

2. Climate problems are made worse by operating in terrain with bad roads and the consequent logistics problems. Note the lack of progressin Winter war/WWII by any formation fighting in boreal forest lands N of Ladoga, or in the forests between Leningrad and Novgorod. Of course this does not apply to the Karelian isthmus...

3. The Soviets still suffered terrible frost casualties when attacking later in WWII in extreme cold conditions
Chew's "Fighting the Russians in winter : three case studies." http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources ... w/CHEW.asp

4. Living in a climate is not a complete indicator. Staying weeks in the frost is not the same as a few days or hours (and then back to warm buildings). Did the Soviets spend weeks in the poligon in the winter of 38/39?

5. We should beware the generic incorrect "Russian" tag instead of correctly calling them Soviet. For instance, the divisions destroyed N of Ladoga were the 44th Rifle (Ukrainian) and 163rd Rifle (Mongolian).

Not that climate is an excuse of course, but another contributing factor exacerbated by overall Red army incompetence at the time.

Tero
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#80

Post by Tero » 06 Aug 2004, 10:56

Oleg Grigoryev wrote:Accidentally Soviet division that made the greatest advance suffered the least casualties.
IIRC the 44th and the 163rd made the greatest advance of all. What was their casualty rate compared to the divisions in the Isthmus ?

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Topspeed
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#81

Post by Topspeed » 06 Aug 2004, 11:17

AAA wrote: Did the Soviets spend weeks in the poligon in the winter of 38/39?
Soviets in the trenches had a string tied in the trigger and hand used as a finger, since the fingers were frozen beyond use. I read this somewhere.

JT

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Tiwaz
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#82

Post by Tiwaz » 06 Aug 2004, 11:44

AAA wrote:Regarding climate effects on military operations

1. Attacking and maneauver in extreme weather conditions is much more difficult than defending (static). Still true today.

2. Climate problems are made worse by operating in terrain with bad roads and the consequent logistics problems. Note the lack of progressin Winter war/WWII by any formation fighting in boreal forest lands N of Ladoga, or in the forests between Leningrad and Novgorod. Of course this does not apply to the Karelian isthmus...

3. The Soviets still suffered terrible frost casualties when attacking later in WWII in extreme cold conditions
Chew's "Fighting the Russians in winter : three case studies." http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources ... w/CHEW.asp

4. Living in a climate is not a complete indicator. Staying weeks in the frost is not the same as a few days or hours (and then back to warm buildings). Did the Soviets spend weeks in the poligon in the winter of 38/39?

5. We should beware the generic incorrect "Russian" tag instead of correctly calling them Soviet. For instance, the divisions destroyed N of Ladoga were the 44th Rifle (Ukrainian) and 163rd Rifle (Mongolian).

Not that climate is an excuse of course, but another contributing factor exacerbated by overall Red army incompetence at the time.
1. But let us not forget that one side had huge advantage in technology, manpower, tanks, artillery, airplanes and ammunition. This should be notified to be great advantage to attacker.

3,4 If you live in cold climate you generally learn how to be outside. Or didn't Soviet people ever work full day outside? Finns didn't live in igloo either, they merely were farmets, lumberjacks and hunters who worked outside round the year.
Tent with small kamina (I am not unfortunately aware of any suitable english word for that) is hardly very incredible invention overall.

Fact that Soviet armies were unable to use all those advantages and were not equipped with winter equipment tells us how poor their military leadership was. I have little doubt that had for example German or British leaders given command of Soviet forces in Winter war there would have been definitely much different result for war.

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Hanski
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#83

Post by Hanski » 06 Aug 2004, 15:12

Tiwaz wrote: Tent with small kamina (I am not unfortunately aware of any suitable english word for that) is hardly very incredible invention overall.
The "kamina" means a furnace, in this case a metal cylinder with bottom, suspended by chains inside a tent from the roof, to burn firewood in it and radiate heat, while the smoke is led outside through a chimney pipe. The soldiers then take turns in keeping the fire burning and guarding against any fire accidents, while their mates can sleep warmly and safely.

Tero
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#84

Post by Tero » 06 Aug 2004, 21:04

Hanski wrote:
Tiwaz wrote: Tent with small kamina (I am not unfortunately aware of any suitable english word for that) is hardly very incredible invention overall.
The "kamina" means a furnace, in this case a metal cylinder with bottom, suspended by chains inside a tent from the roof, to burn firewood in it and radiate heat, while the smoke is led outside through a chimney pipe. The soldiers then take turns in keeping the fire burning and guarding against any fire accidents, while their mates can sleep warmly and safely.
One translation I have seen is stove. To me furnace means mainly an industrial fire place.

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Juha Hujanen
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#85

Post by Juha Hujanen » 06 Aug 2004, 23:06

On the other hand,due the SU air supremacy and massed artillery with unlimited ammunition supply,it was often suicidal for Finns to light their furnace/stoves during daytime.The smoke would soon give away their position and artillery barrage would soon arrive.

Usually Red Army soldiers had little worry of Finnish retaliation,when they warm around camp fires in their rear areas (because Finnish artillery had too few shells to those targets and in many places frontline was too tightly occupied for Finnish patrols to attack).

Cheers/Juha

Zygmunt
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#86

Post by Zygmunt » 07 Aug 2004, 01:25

Tero/Hanski/Tiwaz - keep up the good work guys - you're teaching me Finnish one word at a time! Sounds to my (unprofessional) ear like "Kamina" could be translated a number of ways, and in addition to what you've offered I'm going to suggest "brazier". I checked my dictionary, and technically "brazier" is a "shallow metal pan to contain burning charcoal", but I think it applies here - I know that British troops in the First World War used the word.


Zygmunt (not heading out into the snow without a tent and a kamina)

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Juha Tompuri
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#87

Post by Juha Tompuri » 07 Aug 2004, 09:15

Zyg,

a Winter War era pic of a kamina in a tent from "Viisi Sodan Vuotta" (Five Years of War) by Arvi Korhonen:
Attachments
kamina.1.JPG
kamina.1.JPG (192.3 KiB) Viewed 1294 times

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Hanski
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#88

Post by Hanski » 07 Aug 2004, 09:23

In the picture above, the stove seems quite large and heavy, it is rectangular in shape, and it is resting on the floor. This does not look like a lightweight one that can be packed on an ahkio sleigh and pulled along with skiing troops. Product development must have taken place!

Here is a modern version: http://tietokannat.mil.fi/verkkopartio/ ... .php3?id=4

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Tom Houlihan
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#89

Post by Tom Houlihan » 07 Aug 2004, 09:43

Hanski, when I was doing that cold weather stuff in the Marine Corps, we used a stove similar to what's shown in the photo above. Not real heavy, but they worked!

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Juha Tompuri
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#90

Post by Juha Tompuri » 07 Aug 2004, 09:52

Hanski,

AFAIK this type: "laatikkokamina" (kamiina?) aka sammakkokamina (to Zyg: sammakko=frog) was the most common comercial type at those days.
It could be dismantled, and it did have (not vert well visible in the pic) "feets".
Agree with the developnent :)

Regards, Juha
Attachments
kamina.5.JPG
A Finnish Lieutenant is melting snow above a kamina for his coffee in order to maximise the pleasure of pipe smoking. Same source as earlier
kamina.5.JPG (106.31 KiB) Viewed 1284 times

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