We said in the last issue that the soviet commander Voroshilov paid a wave of tuition fees to the Soviet Union with the blood of more than 30,000 people. He was also captured by Finland with twice as much weapons and equipment as before the war, and Stalin was so angry that he scolded him. Stalin, too, was so distraught that he immediately activated Timoshenko, who was preparing for the Nazis in Germany on the western front, to command the second wave of the battle.
This time, in order to shame the snow, Timoshenko gathered 600,000 troops, more than 3,000 cannons, of which 1/3 were heavy artillery, tanks were as many as 2,000, and 1,000 bombers, more than 500 fighters, and a total of 2,000 other support aircraft. If the first phase of the Soviet attack on Finland is a kind of killing chicken with a cattle knife. Then the second stage can be said to be to replace the ox knife with a gun, aiming at a point in Finland, which is a sharp stab!
The Soviet Union was a frenzied bombardment from the beginning, and in the positions on the Isthmus of Karelia, in one day, 300,000 shells fell, followed by sappers clearing the anti-tank obstacles, followed by heavy tanks and spitfire tanks with infantry, and the entire battle Soviet army used man-sea tactics, completely disregarding casualties and losses, and concentrated on the penetration from one point of the defensive line to the depth. Anyone who has played the tower defense game knows it, even if you have top-level defense, you can't stand the massive number of soldiers and equipment that keeps charging forward. Not only that, but for bunkers and positions that could not be approached by tanks and infantry, the Soviets bombarded with heavy artillery, and the Soviet Union bombarded with bombers where the heavy artillery could not reach, and the Soviet Union bombarded a total of 3,000 cannons, 2,700 of which were bombarding the Mannerheim Line. During this period, the Air Force dispatched a total of 4,000 bombers and 3,500 low-altitude strafing fighters.
This time, the Soviet Union achieved a strategic breakthrough in 2 days, and then they quickly expanded their achievements, not daring to be half tired. Finland also wanted to retake the position, but how could it be, the whole Soviet position was like a balloon filled with water, as long as one point was broken, the water inside would immediately gush out. Faced with the crushing superiority of the Soviet Union in manpower and equipment, the Finnish army eventually gave up resistance. 2 days later, the Soviet Union used a rapid mobile force of 100 tanks to penetrate deep into Finland, 100 tanks seemed to be not much, but in fact, in the face of the superiority of troops far less than their own Finland, in fact, it was enough to fight, coupled with the command of Timoshenko, and the leadership of the really powerful middle-level command, and perfect equipment combination and efficient logistics. The Soviet Union finally exerted its rightful strength. After more than 10 days of fighting, the Soviets regrouped after fully breaking through the first two lines of defense in Mannerheim. Launch an onslaught on the last layer of this front.
At the same time, another Soviet unit launched a surprise attack from the west flank towards the Finnish rear, and 20 days later the Mannerheim Line was completely breached. The Soviets occupied most of southern Finland, and the entire Karelian Isthmus was completely taken by the Soviets. This time, the big Finnish apple was finally bitten off by Timoshenko after being peeled off by Voroshilov, but at the cost of the Soviets who chewed the apple not only had bleeding gums, but even their teeth were loose, and a month after the start of the second phase of the offensive, the Finnish government finally asked Sweden to mediate between them, and the Soviet Union did not have the indifference that began with all talks. I happily agreed to sweden's request. Eventually, the two sides negotiated a halt to military operations.
In fact, from this point of view, the second phase of the Soviet offensive is actually not very clever, if it were not for the Soviet Union's ability to crush Finland, I think Finland may really rewrite history. Through the data research later declassified, it is true that the two phases of the Soviet Union's battles were actually problematic, but the first time they were exposed more seriously, and even the second stage of the battle after Timoshenko took charge had many flaws. The problems exposed before and after are actually looked at by the warring parties in Europe. It can be said that although Finland lost this battle, it succeeded in stripping the Soviet Union in front of the world.
First, the Soviet Union, with its own formidable hardware, despised Finland strategically and did not take Finland tactically seriously. Soviet leaders had always regarded Finland as a small country like Lithuania and Estonia, feeling that they were bound to submit to the might of the Soviet Union. Few of the main battle officers knew even the topographical geography of Finland. Even many of the books on the wartime records and lessons learned from the Tsarist period on the invasion of Finland were not studied. The consequence, then, was the Soviet Union's utter light enemy. In the face of the cold of -30 degrees Celsius in Finland, the Soviet army, who thought that it would fight quickly, did not even have enough warm clothing. There were many Soviet soldiers from Ukraine, even wearing dark green uniforms and fighting in the white snow. They were frozen as stiff as targets in the snow. Give those Finnish soldiers who are good at skiing a chance to snipe. These Finnish soldiers are natives, grew up in the snow, not only skiing skills, but also have accurate marksmanship and skillful camouflage skills because of hunting experience, and these hunting skills are used by Finland in the face of the attack of the Soviet army.
According to the declassified information, Soviet officers inspected the front line and walked around a known Finnish camouflage attack point for 2 hours, and the Soviet officers were stunned to find it. In the face of these Finnish ski soldiers who were comparable to special forces, even one-third of these young Soviet Red Army had never touched a gun, and the overall combat strength was equivalent to the second-line troops of the Soviet Army. So when they faced these well-trained Finnish ski troops, these Soviet second-rate troops and second-line commanders had nothing to do. Not to mention them, facing these experienced ski troops, even the red army veterans with high combat literacy may have a headache for a while. This is why, shortly after the first phase began, two Soviet divisions were wrapped in dumplings by Finland using the wood stacking tactic.
In addition to the difficult forest ski troops, the defeat of the Soviet Union also had geographical reasons, first of all, heavy equipment in the area covered with forests and swamps to maneuver hard, and the Finnish army, which often played guerrillas, always sneaked up on the Soviet army in black and night, making it difficult for the Soviet army to survive in the wild. Coupled with the fact that the Finns are good at using mine warfare, they also make the Soviet army cautious with every step forward, from the door to the dead pig, to the watch wallet, and everywhere you think of, the Finns can install mines and booby traps for you, and even under the hard ice there are mines waiting for you to step on, making the Soviets collapse. It turned out that the Finns would put the mine in a tin can and let it float on the surface of the water when the lake was about to freeze, so that when the lake was frozen, the mine would be embedded in the ice. As long as the tank is pressed, the track breaks, and the heavy sinks directly into the water. Speaking of tanks, as we said earlier, Finland is particularly short of anti-tank equipment, but in the face of the Soviet Union's tidal tank army, the Finns have also summed up a set of experience, in addition to mines, they will also dig trenches and traps, or use boulders to block the road, and then use explosives and grenades to bundle together to stuff into the windows of Soviet tanks or stuff them into the tank's load wheels to blow up the tracks. No, two days ago, when Ukraine faced the Russian offensive, did not teach the local residents to make their own "Molotov cocktail"? This Molotov cocktail is actually a common name for a homemade incendiary bomb. At that time, the Finns also organized Molotov cocktail squads to deal with tanks. If they didn't have any weapons at hand, the Finns would hold large wooden bars and pestle between the tank's tracks and wheels. So don't stop the tank. Then you may have asked, is this not a joke, big wooden sticks don't tanks. You don't have to say that this trick really worked, first of all, the tank size and horsepower were very small at that time, and the Finnish inland was full of sheep gut trails and swamps. Soviet tanks had difficulty playing their cluster advantage inland. Coupled with the lack of combat experience of the Soviet army, the tanks ran forward desperately, regardless of whether the infantry behind them could keep up. In many cases, it was the tanks that were wiped out, and the Soviet infantry who fought together followed with a whimper, and as a result, before they could gain a foothold, they were ambushed by the Finnish army.
In addition, the Finnish army also invented a sausage tactic, which is not the tactic of dividing and encircling the cut sausage mentioned earlier, it is really setting up a stove in the snow to roast the sausage to attract the Soviet army. Sounds like a wild hunt, right? Just now we said, the Soviet army is always no black and white by the Finnish army sneak attack, coupled with the Finnish army to implement the tactics of the wall clearing, resulting in the Soviet army even if it captures the village, can only get a piece of ruins, you know, when the weather is good, the temperature is more than 10 degrees below zero, when the weather is bad, it can be dropped to minus 3-40 degrees. In such a cold and unshake-free Finnish land, the Soviet army could only endure the hard battle of starvation and freezing. So when they see these roasted sausages on the outside and tender on the inside, they will completely let down their guard and run over to eat like they have lost their hearts, and at this time, the Finnish cold gunners hiding in the safe zone will not hesitate to kill them one by one.
People were crazy, the equipment was also unbearable, and soviet trucks and tanks almost dared not turn off. As soon as the fire is turned off, the water tank may be frozen. The rifle in the soldier's hand, in order to lubricate, added a lot of grease, but in the low temperature of minus 3-40 degrees, this grease can even make the rifle shell.
In short, after the end of the first phase of the battle, the Soviet Union summed up a lot of combat experience, and Timoshenko took over. In response to the problems encountered before, we said that they had imitated the Finnish Mannerheim Line in the rear, and retrained the infantry and tank coordination and formation attack to prevent the threat posed by Finnish individual soldiers to the tanks. In the face of the Finnish mine warfare, the Soviet army organized a large number of engineers to clear the way for the troops, and dug trenches in front of the Finnish defense line, using the trenches to preserve the strength of the Soviet army. When facing the Finnish ski troops, the Soviets also hired a lot of ski instructors to train the troops. However, the actual results did not meet expectations and still caused a lot of casualties. This is because the Soviet Union rushed the ducks to the shelves, whether it was ski equipment or camouflage suits or weapons and equipment, it was not fully considered on the battlefield. Therefore, the Soviet ski troops, who had high hopes for Timoshenko, still caused a lot of casualties in the second phase of the battle.
In fact, the entire second phase of the attack still used a similar composition of troops as the first, but from the first all-out attack, it was changed to a concentrated firepower to break through a point. But in fact, this offensive method of Timoshenko is also a risky act, because their large-depth tactics have only been used on paper before, and this is the first time that this new strategic method of large-depth operations of land-air coordination, multi-service coordination, front motorized breakthrough and rear airborne troops coordinated with large-depth operations has been used for actual combat for the first time. It can be said that Timoshenko is indeed a very good general. Not only has the courage, but also has a strong sensitivity to the battlefield situation, and has extremely high requirements for military equipment. When the war found that the weapons in the hands of the Finns were more advanced than those of the Soviet Union, then the Soviet Union immediately stepped up the development of better ones, and when it found that Finland had more mines, it developed better mine detectors and strengthened the training of engineers. Seeing that the bunkers of the Mannerheim Line are too thick, then develop a more powerful KV1 tank, KV1 may not be familiar to everyone, but his follow-up model KV2 may be familiar with more military fans, this kind of tank called the giant by the German army, once with a single-handed posture, with its own strength to block a Division of the German Army for 48 hours, and finally the German army used 6 tanks as meat shields to confuse this KV2, and then used the 88 guns hidden in the woods to continuously attack the weakest place of this KV2, only to penetrate its armor. The Germans then sent their men to stuff grenades into the bullet holes to kill the tank's driver and force the tank to stop. Of course, there are many, many experiences in this war that I will not list here.
In short, the Soviet-Finnish War accelerated the renewal of Soviet military equipment, promoted the Soviet Union's military reform and military modernization, and cultivated a new generation of military talents after the Great Purge. Of course, after talking about the Soviet Union's Timoshenko, we have to mention that The Mannerheim of Finland, precisely because of his strong patriotic enthusiasm, excellent leadership ability and highly infectious personal charm, allowed Finland to calmly line up in the face of the Soviet Union, and united the people at home to resist the Soviet Union together. In addition, he actively contacted foreign aid, allowing France and Britain to provide them with a large amount of weapons and equipment. You know, when the Soviet-Finnish War broke out, Mannaheim was 70 years old, it was he who laid the basic national policy of modern Finland, and after the Soviet-Finnish War, he launched the Battle of Lapland to expel the Nazi German army in northern Finland. Arguably, without Mannerheim, it is unknown whether Finland would still exist as an independent country.
The Soviet-Finnish War has not been taken seriously by many people in the context of War 2, the background of this war is actually similar to the background of the recent war between Russia and Ukraine, it is to prevent the Military Forces of Europe from touching the interests of the Russians, before it was the Soviet Union, now it is Russia, no different, but the war 80 years ago made the Soviet Union learn a lot, although they won a large amount of land from the Finns, but they understood that when he and the Germans divided Poland, it was not called a war. It can only be called a war game. They understood that their usual disciplined training could not adapt to the rapidly changing battlefield. They understood that if they wanted to save the lives of soldiers, they needed to put in more bombs and bullets and exchange artillery for the lives of soldiers on the battlefield. They understood that defense alone could not defend the country, and only by making the troops good at attacking and maintaining a firm offensive spirit could they truly defend the country, and at the same time they also learned many modern military skills such as snow combat, mine warfare, fortification construction, street warfare fighting in house-by-house battles, and so on.
So in response to the old Chinese saying, if the Soviet Union did not learn these modern tactics in the Soviet-Finnish War, then when they faced the powerful German army, they might fight harder and pay more costs.
Although Germany quickly attacked the Soviet Union after seeing the weak side of the Soviet Union in the Soviet-Finnish War, what Germany did not expect was the speed of learning of the Soviet Union, which not only quickly digested and absorbed combat experience, but also rapidly developed its own military technology. Germany quickly fell into the trap of war. It has to be said that Germany misjudged the military strength of the Soviet Union.
Finland, on the other hand, lost the war and lost its territory, but it was respected by the whole world. However, after the Soviet-Finnish war, Finland no longer adhered to a neutral policy, but fell to the Axis countries with hatred for the Soviet Union. This situation also reflects the enormous impact of this soviet military expansion on the prestige of the Red Camp. It also proves that war is not the right way to solve problems.
Through the understanding of the Soviet-Finnish war, looking at the current situation between Russia and Ukraine, will Ukraine be "Finnishized" by Russia? I think history is always strikingly similar. After listening to my story, you probably have your own judgment in your heart.