Best/worst Finnish general

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Northwind
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#16

Post by Northwind » 23 Feb 2014, 17:52

JTV wrote:
Northwind wrote: The foreign press called him as "The finnish Rommel". He had training to tank warfare from the legendary Heinz Guderian himself. He was the commander of the only finnish panzer-division that included motorised cavalry and elite jäger-brigade besides the 3 tank-brigades, assaultgun-battalion and detached tank-batallion.
If you don't mind, a minor (but important) correction:
Motorised cavalry would be a poor description of Armour Division. As Art already pointed out the largest unit of this division was Jaeger Brigade (Jääkäriprikaati) containing four battalions of bicycle infantry trained to closely co-operate with armour. The other most significant parts of the package were Tank Brigade (Panssariprikaati) containing two tank battalions mostly equipped with light tanks and starting 1943 Assault Gun Battalion. In addition to these the division also contained considerable anti-tank capability in form of Anti-Tank Gun Battalion, Heavy (Field) Artillery Battalion 14 as the division's own fire support asset, Engineer Battalion 3, Signal Battalion 6 and numerous other units.

IMO calling Lagus "The Finnish Rommel" may have been a generalisation, but back in those days there was not exactly a crowd of generals with internationally known for operating with armour and infantry - especially so in terrain conditions typical to Finland are required. Hence the nickname may have been result of trying to find a lowest common nominator, for which the press sometimes shows certain tendency, but this does not change the fact that such nickname was used, overstatement or not.

Anyway, I would not pick Lagus as the best Finnish general - his poor diplomatic skills showed in some occasions and not in a positive way. I would consider Laatikainen probably the worst, while Pajari and Siilasvuo were certainly among the very best.

I am bit surprised that no one has mentioned Airo this far. What is known suggests he did have more than his own share of success and failure - of truly massive scale.

Jarkko
I didnt descripe the whole division as M-cavalry but it being a part of the divisions development. Wiki: "Perustettiin 6. panssarikomppania käyttäen runkona hajotettua Ratsuväkiprikaatin Moottoroitua osastoa."

Lagus had an difficult task and he did more than hes best. And your right that he wasnt much of a diplomat, but you have to remember how hes troops where thrown in the middle of the most desperate situations. If you look at hes achievements and leader skills you have to consider him as one of the best. Advancing to Aunus and Syväri, and hes actions in the battles of Tali, Vuosalmi, Polviselkä and Kuuterselkä and the war in Lapland. He also received the german 1th and 2nd class Iron-crosses. And talking about the Jägerbrigade we should mention Colonel Albert Puroma

Like JTV mentioned Operative leader A.F Airo is not a bad choice. Hes been called as "the brains" of the Mannerheims HQ. The surprise of the soviet offensive is something to argue in hes case.
Art wrote:
Northwind wrote: The foreign press called him as "The finnish Rommel".
That is certainly an overstatement. The Finnish armored division despite the name was mostly a bicycle infantry unit, the role of armored elements was fairly limited. That was a very different type of warfare compared with the North-African campaign and analogies are not quite adequate.
Well thats a nickname given to him by the press rather than an analytic statement. "Ulkomaiselta lehdistöltä Lagus sai lempinimen Suomen Rommel saksalaisupseerin mukaan." And i disagree; the tank and assaultgun battalions where key units in the quick offensive of 41. Also they where in significant role in destroying soviet tanks during the soviets offensive. And they would have been inefective without leader like Lagus.

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John Hilly
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#17

Post by John Hilly » 23 Feb 2014, 19:07

Northwind wrote:And i disagree; the tank and assaultgun battalions where key units in the quick offensive of 41. Also they where in significant role in destroying soviet tanks during the soviets offensive. And they would have been inefective without leader like Lagus.
Well there wasn't any Assault Gun Battalion in 1941, only Panssaripataljoona.
Lagus was General Talvela's favourite. They were both extremely offencive officers and that was truly an important reason, why Finnish attack from Tuulos to Syväri was executed in a "Blitzkrieg" style.
During the trench-war Lagus trained his troops hard and contineusly, which he deserves credit.
Still he's not my favourite General.
How about Heindrichs? He did well commanding the Karelian Army in 1941-42.
As COS he was sidelined because Mannerheim's style "to be his own COS", but Mannerheim trusted in him especially in political-diplomatic affairs.
"Die Blechtrommel trommelt noch!"


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JTV
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#18

Post by JTV » 23 Feb 2014, 19:55

Northwind wrote: I didnt descripe the whole division as M-cavalry but it being a part of the divisions development. Wiki: "Perustettiin 6. panssarikomppania käyttäen runkona hajotettua Ratsuväkiprikaatin Moottoroitua osastoa."
No offense intended, but I am sorry to say using that as bases for claim such as "finnish panzer-division that included motorised cavalry" would be about as accurate as claiming that some infantry division included naval infantry, because it had dozen men who had earlier served in Navy. Motorised Unit of Cavalry Brigade (Ratsuväkiprikaatin Moottoroitu Osasto) was Winter War era unit of less than platoon (joukkue) size - it was an armoured car unit, whose complete vehicle inventory was one Landsverk 182 armoured car, two trucks and one motorcycle. By the time Finnish main tank unit became Armour Division, its Tank Brigade had 6 tank companies (panssarikomppania).
Like JTV mentioned Operative leader A.F Airo is not a bad choice. Hes been called as "the brains" of the Mannerheims HQ. The surprise of the soviet offensive is something to argue in hes case.
But according what is known he was likely also he barrier that stopped the reports about poor state of defensive positions in Karelian Isthmus reaching Mannerheim before the Soviet offensive of summer 1944.

Jarkko

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Northwind
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#19

Post by Northwind » 23 Feb 2014, 20:41

John Hilly wrote: Well there wasn't any Assault Gun Battalion in 1941, only Panssaripataljoona.
Sentences got mixed up. I meant the tanks in 41 and stugs in 44. My bad.
JTV wrote: No offense intended, but I am sorry to say using that as bases for claim such as "finnish panzer-division that included motorised cavalry" would be about as accurate as claiming that some infantry division included naval infantry, because it had dozen men who had earlier served in Navy. Motorised Unit of Cavalry Brigade (Ratsuväkiprikaatin Moottoroitu Osasto) was Winter War era unit of less than platoon (joukkue) size - it was an armoured car unit, whose complete vehicle inventory was one Landsverk 182 armoured car, two trucks and one motorcycle. By the time Finnish main tank unit became Armour Division, its Tank Brigade had 6 tank companies (panssarikomppania).
Maybe it wasnt the most accurate message, but i was trying to give a quick hint of the development. In finnish scale everything was small. And that motorised unit was part of the pre-formations. But yeah it wasnt part of the actual division. I like to use "panzer" to resemble for the finnish word "panssari" when talking about ww2 despite it being a german word rather than "armor".
But according what is known he was likely also he barrier that stopped the reports about poor state of defensive positions in Karelian Isthmus reaching Mannerheim before the Soviet offensive of summer 1944.

Jarkko
http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/v ... edia=37685 I dont know have you seen this. Rare interview with Airo himself. He gives hes thoughts, which are very interesting considering he never wrote any memoir.

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JTV
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#20

Post by JTV » 23 Feb 2014, 21:48

Northwind wrote:
JTV wrote: Motorised Unit of Cavalry Brigade (Ratsuväkiprikaatin Moottoroitu Osasto) was Winter War era unit of less than platoon (joukkue) size - it was an armoured car unit, whose complete vehicle inventory was one Landsverk 182 armoured car, two trucks and one motorcycle...
Maybe it wasnt the most accurate message, but i was trying to give a quick hint of the development. In finnish scale everything was small. And that motorised unit was part of the pre-formations. But yeah it wasnt part of the actual division. I like to use "panzer" to resemble for the finnish word "panssari" when talking about ww2 despite it being a german word rather than "armor".
IMO when it comes to evolution of military organisations, Ratsuväkiprikaatin Moottoroitu Osasto was the final dead-end, which had its origins in Finnish pre-war plans of following suit international development of old cavalry units trading in their horses for armoured cars. The armoured car platoons mobilised for Continuation War were obviously the closest continuum for this unit, but for all practical purposes they had no contact to cavalry. During Continuation War Finnish cavalry headed totally other way developing towards bicycle infantry with its horses getting replaced with bicycles.

When it comes to particular terms I personally prefer to use terms of the language I am using at that time - and if possible give also original Finnish term to make things easy for possible readers. Besides - having both terms armour/armor and tank is very handy when explaining military organisations - for example the difference in between Continuation War era Tank Brigade and cold-war Armour Brigade is pretty obvious, even if both translate as Panssariprikaati in Finnish.

This discussion is now obviously off-topic, but hopefully forum staff will do their thing and separate it under a suitable topic etc.

Thanks for the link to Airo's interview, it was new to me and I will most definetely watch it soon.

Jarkko

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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#21

Post by Art » 24 Feb 2014, 22:29

Northwind wrote: And i disagree; the tank and assaultgun battalions where key units in the quick offensive of 41. Also they where in significant role in destroying soviet tanks during the soviets offensive.
Let's say that way: armored vehicles were employed in fairly limited numbers.

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Panssari Salama
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#22

Post by Panssari Salama » 20 Mar 2014, 14:13

Northwind wrote:
John Hilly wrote:
http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/v ... edia=37685 I dont know have you seen this. Rare interview with Airo himself. He gives hes thoughts, which are very interesting considering he never wrote any memoir.
A bit off topic but worth writing down:

Thank you for an interesting link. I watched the recording, and then ordered his "Puolustustaisteluni v. 1947" book re-published in 1979 to read about his "memoir" of his time in prison when accused of illegal mobilization and of the weapons cache ordeal.

Interestingly, the 1979 book was blatantly censored in a most crude manner, with black boxes printed over a section of his text. There must have been a dozen or so black boxes. I then found out there's another reprint, "Liikekannallepano, salaliitto" from 1984. I ordered that book from library as well to check the paragraps in question.

There were two clear messages of his that were censored: first of those occassions where he claims Internal minister Yrjö Leino lied to House of representatives, and those paragraphs where he claims he was effectively tortured while in prison, for an example how they questioned him especially during the time he had pneumonia and had been refused a doctor.

Does anyone know about details of the censorship in the 1979 edition of his memoir, or rather a defensive speech of the crimes he was accused?

Of course, he was not accused of anything, he was not officially detained, so the books (both of them) provide for some interesting reading!
Panssari Salama - Paying homage to Avalon Hill PanzerBlitz and Panzer Leader board games from those fab '70s.

Mikko H.
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#23

Post by Mikko H. » 20 Mar 2014, 19:14

On 22 April 1948 Airo was condemned by Tampere District Court of defamation of the government and public officials in his book Liikekannallesalaliitto and fined for 9000mk. The fines were reduced to 6000mk by Turku Court of Appeal on 16 January 1950 and further reduced to 4500mk by the Supreme Court on 11 September 1950.

It is my understanding that the censorship in the 1979 reprint is due to this old verdict. The publisher played it safe by removing the parts that had been deemed offending 30 years before.

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Panssari Salama
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#24

Post by Panssari Salama » 20 Mar 2014, 20:11

Thank you Mikko, yes, this would explain it.
Panssari Salama - Paying homage to Avalon Hill PanzerBlitz and Panzer Leader board games from those fab '70s.

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Juha Tompuri
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#25

Post by Juha Tompuri » 28 Mar 2014, 18:56

The discussion about "Finnish Rommel" moved to a thread of it's own:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9&t=206871

/Juha

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Gamle Lode
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Re: Best/worst Finnish general

#26

Post by Gamle Lode » 09 Apr 2014, 12:57

According to Hearts of Iron 3 game (lol) the best Finnish General is Hjalmar Siilasvuo. The next best is Mannerheim, and the ones with a low starting value but with the greatest maximum skills are Lagus and Pajari, and to a bit of my amusement Paul Martin Wetzer and Hannes Ignatius are also great. Fairly good ones too are Talvela, Martola, Autti, Blick, Laatikainen and Heinrichs. The rest (including Airo and Oesch) are fairly average and generally less competent than for example most Romanian Generals. The worst Finnish General in the game is Wallenius.

Well, it is a game but at least it points out the prominent ones. Wallenius was not that bad in my opinion, since he specialized in the Lappland theatre and was successful in his special field.

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