Russian monument in Kuuterselkä

[Topspeed]

Thanks Juha,

It must have been a tough battle and I wouldn't be surprised if my relative died there too. Did they get any air support that day ? So outa 30 Stugs finns lost 5 ?

As stupid as this may sound; Soviets were tresspassing and the fallen liutenant was among many who paid the ultimate prize for their actions. What towns are close to Kuuterselkä..that was in the Karelia that was part of Finland before Winter War isn't that right ?

Hujanen 600 men loss in a battallion is more than half right ? jr. 61:s battallion lost also 44% on one day.

rgds,

Juke

[JTV]

Jaeger Brigade(-5.Jaeger Battallion) and Assault Gun Battalion attacked against Soviet 72.Rifle Division,185.Tank Regiment,351.Assault Gun Regiment,46.AT-Brigade and 119.Independ AT-Battalion.

The attack went first well but was stopped by murderrous Soviet fire.SU lost 20-40 tanks,27 guns and many men.Finnish casualties were also severe.5 assault gun's and over 600 men.It has been said that Finnish Jaeger Brigade lost its best men in that battle and it never really recovered of these casualties.

Cheers/Juha

The exact number I have seen in some sources was 624 men - and its just the number of KIA (killed in action), the wounded are not included.

IMHO: When it comes to Jaeger Brigade loosing its best men it wasn't only Kuuterselka counter-attack. The later counter-attacks in Portinhoikka were equally heavy loss missions for the Brigade. What I remember reading some rifle companies had less then Platoon strenght of men left after those. Third large battle counter-attack battle for the Brigade would have been in Vuosalmi, but by that time the Brigade no longer was as hard as it had been just few months back (before losing most its men and getting the losses replaced with new recruits). So in Vuosalmi the counter-attack stopped almost to its starting point.

[JTV]

Thanks Juha,

It must have been a tough battle and I wouldn't be surprised if my relative died there too. Did they get any air support that day ? So outa 30 Stugs finns lost 5 ?

As stupid as this may sound; Soviets were tresspassing and the fallen liutenant was among many who paid the ultimate prize for their actions. What towns are close to Kuuterselkä..that was in the Karelia that was part of Finland before Winter War isn't that right ?

Hujanen 600 men loss in a battallion is more than half right ? jr. 61:s battallion lost also 44% on one day.

rgds,

Juke

It was three battalions (2nd, 3rd and 4th Jaeger Battalions) of Jaeger Brigade (5th Jaeger Battalion was elsewhere). But that number was only those killed in action, the number of wounded was probably much larger.

Finnish troops didn't have any air support in that battle. Plan of bombing the area of attack just before the attack with some JU-88 bombers existed, but the bombing was cancelled. The artillery support wasn't too great either. Finnish troops simply didn't have enought artillery to support the counter-attack effectively. Heavy Artillery Battalion 14 was the best of supporting artillery units and it basically run out of ammunition during the counter-attack.

The location of Kuuterselkä in Karelian Isthmus:

http://sodatkuvina.cjb.net/images/Jatko ... -20.6.html

Anyway, the counter-attack of Kuuterselkä wasn't maybe totally useless. It stopped the Soviet advance for a while and the Finns managed to buy some time with it. Considering that later the Finnish units transferred from north side of Lake Ladoga arrived to Ihantala just hours before Soviet attack reached it every hour of delay proved priceless to Finnish military.

[Topspeed]

That is reasonable thinking and according to Talvela memoirs also true. They did have to get the troops from Eastern Karelia quickly back to the Isthmus.

Kuuterselkä is just under the lowest VT-ASEMA text..r is missing partially. Kuuterselkä seems to be behind VT-asema so the soviets broke through there ?!

rgds,

Juke

[Juha Hujanen]

Battle Group Puroma lost 14-15.6 in Kuuterselkä:

79 KIA
466 WIA
82 MIA

Jaeger Battalion 2 lost 236,Jaeger Battalion 4 178 and Jaeger Battalion 2 154 men.Assault Gun Battalion lost 24 men.Jaeger Battalion 3 was partically hard hit.It lost all company commanders and 10 platoon leaders.

There was bombing run on last hours of 14.6.44.Some 33 bombers took part to it.11 Ju-88 of Flying Squadron 44,11 Blenheims of Flying Squadron 42 and bombers of Flying Squadron 46 took part to it.A cancel order was send to planes but bombers were already on target area and radio operators/gunners had already switched their radios off and were on their mg's ready for enemy fighters.So cancell order went unnotised and bembers of Flying Regiment 4 bombed Kuuterselkä.

Cheers/Juha

[Topspeed]

Do we know did they hit objectives and what was the result of it ? Why were they cancelled in the first place if so many of finns on the ground were dying ?

rgds,

Juke

[Bair]

The attack went first well but was stopped by murderrous Soviet fire.SU lost 20-40 tanks,27 guns and many men.Finnish casualties were also severe.5 assault gun's and over 600 men.It has been said that Finnish Jaeger Brigade lost its best men in that battle and it never really recovered of these casualties.

The most recent research on that battle in Central Archives of Russian Ministry of Defence indicates that Finns were very lucky with choosing the moment for beginning the assault - Soviet tank crews were asleep in their tanks or even outside them, this is why StuGs knocked out so many of them so easily.

However, if I understood correctly from article by Markku Palokangas in the last journal of Finnish Military Historical Society, the Finnish counterattack came too late and a large column of Soviet armour had already passed through the gap and headed north, north-west and west and finally overran HQ of Cavalry Brigade.

with best regards,

Bair

[Uninen]

I once saw pictures of those STUGs lost in this counter-attack.. on some book.. caption said something about them pictures been got via Japan? (to the book / to Finland...) or something.. anyways, does anybody happen to have that book / pictures of those KO'd Finnish STUG's?

[Juha Hujanen]

Bair,yes the counterattack came too late.Almost 13 hours after the Soviet breakthru.The Finnish assault guns were too scattered among infantry.It was first time when Finnish Stug's were in action and for many men it was their babtism of fire.
If Soviet tankers were indeed in sleep (the attack took place c.23.00) it would explain the observation in Käkelä's book Laguksen Rynnäkkötykit book.The Finnish tankers wondered why Soviet tankers were so slow in their response.Were they badly trained,tired or too used to win?.

Juha,at least one pic of KO Finnish Stug's can be found in Suomi Sodassa book (Valitut Palat).

Cheers/Juha

Ps. 3 Juha's on forum already

[Bair]

2Juha:

I will try to find the document in St Petersburg (some fellow researchers of mine have a copy of the report about why so many Soviet tanks were so easily knocked out by the Finns) and publish it here or on my webpage.

with best regards,

Bair

[Juha Tompuri]

Juha,at least one pic of KO Finnish Stug's can be found in Suomi Sodassa book (Valitut Palat).

Yep, Ps531-17, I think

Ps. 3 Juha's on forum already

Hujanen#1
Tompuri#2
Uninen#3
???

Regards #2

[Uninen]

Thank you for the pic "#2"..

As far as i can recall this vehicle was somehow "disabled" by the soviet fire and the crew destroyed the vehicle so it would be of no use for the soviets.. caption in this book ive red stated that internal explosion caused by the crews measured made the upper chasis armorplate to blew of.. as you can see also in the pic..

also in the in the same book (which's name i cant remember, but im starting to recall that maybe it was "Marskin panssarintuhoojat".. which btw is a helluva good book if you want to learn about the at-weapons/men/ops of the finnish armed forces in ww2..) there was a pic of different sturmi that was disabled / destroyed besides captured (in this attack?) long barrel soviet 45mm at-gun which the finns had tryed to take with the with a komsomolets fully tracked tracktor but the both the at-gun and the tracktor had been KO'd by soviets while trying to get away.. and so they were both lost.. along with this another STUG..

Regards
#3

[Harri]

I too would like to see that report.

----

- "What is your number?"
- "You are number six"...
- "I'm not a number, I'm a free man!"

Hopefully this will not come true...

[Uninen]

I too would like to see that report.

Actually, the fact that the Finns caught the soviets pants down (sleeping.. and aslo that it was during the first contacts with the soviets too dark to actually target and hit anything..) is recorded in this book "Marskin panssarintuhoojat" (if it was it..) and also it mentions how the infranty "destroyed" (with panzerfausts and panzerschrecks..) many abbandoned (and intact..) and already destroyed (by STUG's) soviet tanks (T-34's) and claimed them as their own "kills"..

If my memory serves me right..