Hello! Vavva again, now with the second part of the Finnish Winter War.
The Russian forces marched into the Finnish woods. In the winter. In -40 degrees Celsius (about -100 Fahrenheit). In olive-green summer uniforms. Good idea in Central-European warfare. Not a good idea in Finland.
The Fins had skilled marksmen and snipers on skis in white, stealthy suits made to be invisible in the snow that covered everything, and had no problem in the beginning taking down the Russians. "The White Death", as the Russians called it when their soldiers just vanished to gunshots from an apparently desolate forest, claimed countless lives. As the Russians had terrible uniforms which neither gave camouflage nor protection from the bone-chilling snow, they perished in large numbers during the war. Though the Soviets have large numbers of tanks, immensely superior to their Finnish counterpart, they are quite useless in the think snow with a minimum of roads. The tanks drove in large columns through the forest, vulnerable to Finnish ski troops. They drive by, throw some explosives at the tank in the front and zoom away again, disabling the advance for hours.
The Russian divisions all over the front camped in large camps with colossal field kitchens, and the Fins go for them. They just zoom in on skis, drop some molotov cocktails or grenades on the tanks and field kitchens, shoot some Russians and then vanish out again. All in a flash. One of the Russian divisions are completely surrounded by various Finnish forces, during the battle of Suomussalmi, who divide the army into "motti" - a Finnish logger's expression of a stable of chopped wood ready to be carried away. Almost the entire division is annihilated in ambushes.
Nontheless, the Finnish knew well that they could never win the war. Their only hope was to hold the line so long that the Western countries would feel sympathy for the struggling Fins and support them. Russia could pump out a million or two in short notice. The Russians were immensely annoyed by the apparent confidence of such a small nation, and strive for finding creative excuses for the "saviour of the world", the army, banging its head in a tiny wall on the border for such a long time. They expected 12 days. It took over 4 months.
TBC
Please etc.
Vavva
