tss

Slapdragon wrote: Facing the MG34/42 was the DP, which was not much of a GPMG and was more in the BAR class even though it was deployed as a GPMG. Soviets did have two types of MGs in use from the start. The Degtyarev LMG and Maxim-based MMGs. Maxims had usually Sokolov wheeled mounts that were quite handy when walking on a road but terrible in just about every other terrain. The Soviet Maxims were WWI design and they didn't have "accelerators". I don't know what the correct English term would be to that gadget but it was something that was added to Finnish Maxims in 20's to increase the cyclic ROF by almost 50%. The Degtyarev was actually a pretty good LMG. My biggest gripe against ASL was that they gave so poor malfunction number for the gun. In reality, it could take severe punishment and continue functioning. For that reason Finnish LMG gunners would exchange their Lahti-Saloranta m.26 LMGs to them as soon as possible. (Lahti-Saloranta acquired a nickname of "Combined Malfunctions m.26" by its users). Degtyarev's main shortage was that its drum clip was a pain to load. - Tommi

Gregory Deych wrote: I've read anecdotal reports of atrocities attributed to a battalion of Finnish ski troops attached to 5th SS Division. Take it for what it's worth. I've not heard of those but it is possible. As I mentioned, there were cases where Finns shot surrendered Russians. The worst that I'm aware of happened in 1941 during battle of Mantsi Island. One 2nd Lt. executed ~10 POWs after one nearly-captured Soviet soldier killed a finnish Staff-Sergeant with a hand grenade. I'm not aware of any atrocities committed against civilians by Finnish troops. Some civilians were definitely killed during combat. Especially raids against Soviet rear-area supply centers caused civilian casualties because they were usually situated in some village and the civilians were not evacuated. Do you have any details on those atrocities that you cite? - Tommi

Germanboy wrote: Tommi, is it okay if we put it on our site? Sure. Yesterday I schetced the outline of a map of Linnakangas and Eastern part of Terenttilä sectors of Taipale (the area where the battle of the Niittykasematti bunker happened in the movie Winter War). I have now the rivers, roads, and villages in place but I ran into trouble because I couldn't find a printed source that would detail the strongholds of Linnakangas area. There are lots and lots of books that have maps of Kirvesmäki and Terenttilä areas but none for Linnakangas. And according to the two bunkers were in the West end of Linnakangas, according to the book "Talvisota". (Though, I suspect that they may have really been in the East end of Terenttilä sector, as one of the maps shows two bunkers there, but that map doesn't mention their names so I can't be certain.). If some of the other resident Finns know of any published book that gives a map of the area, please tell. However, I fear that I have to go to Military Archieves to find them and I don't have time to do that for some weeks. - Tommi

Bruno Weiss wrote: However, I do not believe that the Finnish role was a major contributor in the early demise of the Soviet Army, or the later defeat of the German Army. That is pretty much true. Finland was a sideshow during the Continuation War. However, there were some quite big battles. For example, the battles in Karelian Isthmus June-July 1944 were as big as the second El Alamein in terms of men and material used. I have also read and heard many accounts of German soldiers who feared greatly falling into the hands of the Partisans. I do not remember (following the initial Soviet/Finnish conflict), either the Soviets or the Germans contributing anything which demonstrates an equal fear of the Finns. Well, that may have something to do with the fact that as a rule Finns treated POWs well (though there were few isolated cases of shooting surrendered Russians), while the best thing that a German soldier could hope if captured by partisans was a quick death. Certainly, the Romanians, the Hungarians, the Italians, the Spanish, and just about ever one including the French, Dutch, Norwegians, Danish, Bulgarians and Papa John's Pizza, took part in the German/Soviet War. Well, Bulgarians didn't join the Operation Barbarossa (but that didn't save them from Soviet occupation later). The French, Dutch, Norwegians, and Danish fought in Waffen-SS and they didn't have national troops. - Tommi

Chupacabra wrote: I'll leave it up to one of the Crazy Finnish Grogs to elaborate I guess that means me. But I'm not crazy, I just get those headaches. Finns fought three wars during WWII: - Winter War 30.11.1939-13.3.1940, - Continuation War 25.6.1941 - 4.9.1944 (though Soviets continued the war for one extra day), and - Lappland War 15.9.1944 - April 1945, against Germans. Today I visited the local old books store and found one gem. Y.A.Järvinen's "Jatkosodan taistelut", printed in 1950. According to its preface, it is an analysis and comparison of Finnish and Soviet tactics during the Continuation War. Though, with a cursory glance it seems to be mainly on regimental level but at least there are some company level descriptions. Another find was "Summan savut" by K.A.Järventaus, printed in 1940, that contains an eyewitness account of the first phase of Summa breakthrough battle in February 1940. - Tommi - Tommi

This weekend I fired the CM scenario for the first time (not counting few quick tests). I created the map of Eastern part of Kirvesmäki sector of Taipale front. As the battle of Taipale is quite out of scope until CM 2, and even then it probably isn't a good subject for a balanced scenario, this is more of historical interest. (I marked the Finnish front line to it and wrote a short text introducing the major combats that happened on the map.) If someone wants to put it on some CM web page, feel free. Meanwhile, it can be found at http://www.tcs.hut.fi/~tssyrjan/kirvesmaki.zip . Note that the movie Winter War happened on the Terenttilä sector of Taipale that lies North East to the map I created. I may do it also when I have time. - Tommi

As Jadayne's surviving troops decide to raise the white flag, the A group finishes its first round. I just calculated the tally of my three games, and it looks like this: My forces: caused 139 casualties captured 86 men destroyed 11 vehicles I lost: 127 casualties 0 captured 8 vehicles Most importantly (to me), 280 of my men survived the battles while my opponents had only 81 surviving men left. Only three of my vehicles (1 Tiger, 1 Wespe, and 1 M-20) survived. Of enemy vehicles, 4 survived (1 M4A3, 1 Churchill, 1 Centaur, and 1 Daimler, I forgot to check the exact types of Gaff's British vehicles). The total score was 185 to 105. - Tommi

Elijah Meeks wrote: Tommi, I'm no expert on the Ostfront but in the American Civil War, 25% of white southern men of military age died in the war and the ACW was not nearly as total a war as the Ostfront. Interesting. I knew that ACW was a bloody affair but I didn't know that it was that bad. In any case, that 30% figure referred to all men and it would mean that about 60% of men of military age. The main reason why I find those percentages very suspicious is that a country in war has to leave a significant amount of population to work in non-military duties. Growing food, manufacturing equipment and ammo and the like. When the Continuation War started, Finland conscripted 650000 men to army out of total population of 3.5 million (~20%). Most of the 18-40 year old men were taken in the army. The result was serious troubles with economy and a severe shortage of food. As a result, Finnish government had to release almost 300000 men back to oridinary work in early '42 and import large amounts of food from Germany. Now, supposing that Solokov's figure for Soviet population is correct (which I doubt), Soviets lost 12% of their population as military KIAs. I can't see how their wartime infrastructure could survive those losses. In the ACW case the South had one advantage that USSR didn't have during the war: a large portion of their work force was not used as soldiers: the slaves. - Tommi

PzKpfw 1 wrote: Sokolov B.V. "The Cost of War: Human Losses for the USSR and Germany, 1939 - 1945: Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol 9, No. 1 March 1996. Thanks. I hope that the library of the Finnish Military Academy has a copy of that. Now I only need some time to visit the place. It is just about the only major library near Helsinki that doesn't have Internet interface (or any digital index at all). Yes, & Sokolov makes a case that the 1941 USSR census pupulation total of 200.1 mililion cited by V.S. Kozhurin (based on the Jan 1 1941 census), is incorect & that the actual population was 209.3 miliion etc Huh. I thought that the usual consensus is that the 1941 census _overestimated_ the USSR population by a relatively large margin. BTW. About that Soviet division that I wrote about in the earlier message. The veteran was Grigori Garashenko and he served in the 95th Division. That division participated first in fights in the leftmost tip of the frontline, then it attacked at Summa sector and finally attacked to Viipuri in the final days of the war. Garashenko was a MG gunner and the assistant of the batallion politruk. According to his memoirs the division received four times 4000-5000 men reinforcements during the war, over 18000 men (this figure was given to him by one of the officers of the staff of the division). The initial strength was not 13000 as I remembered but 15000 and it had less than 5000 men left after the war. The total number of casualties was thus 28000 men. That's about 190% casualties in less than three months, if the figure is correct. Soviets used a total of 40 divisions against Finns. The 7th Army had a total of 12 divisions, but I don't know whether all of them were committed to battle. The breakthrough battles of February were fought mostly by 95th, 100th, and 123th division. If we suppose that all divisions had similar casualties, that would give a total of 84000 men lost for these three divisions only. However, this is so large figure that I find it difficult to believe. I think I have to delve a little deeper into different casualty estimates before I dare to say anything definitive on the subject. - Tommi

PzKpfw 1 wrote: Tommi who mentioned WIA? as being included in the irreversible numbers I posted? I could have sworn that I your post had a line (KIA, MIA, and WIA), but reading again it is clearly (KIA, MIA, and POW). Well, one piece of evidence more that I should get new glasses. lets just say that their is no concrecte number on Soviet losses, Ie Krivosheev's numbers have been challenged & rebuffed by other Russian historian's like Sokolov,who has also looked into Mueller & Hillerbrand data etc. Yes, that can be said. I haven't had a chance to read Sokolov's work but it is also a subject of controversy. There was a post on soc.history.world-war-ii (by one of the resident Russians) that presented some of its problems but I didn't save it then and I can't find it from deja.com. He claimed that Sokolov exaggerated the casualties for shock value. I don't know the truth in this subject. The Sokolov's work seems to be pretty difficult to access. I just spent about 15 minutes trying to find the book or even reference to it from the internet without success. Also the common database of all Finnish university libraries didn't have it. If you have access to the book, could you post its ISBN number to help the search? Krivosheev's descriptions of battles are certainly way off in many cases and his decriptions of reasons for Winter War parrots the official Soviet propaganda. Hmm. I just came upon one way roughly check the accuracy of the Winter War numbers. One Soviet veteran of the 7th Army tells in his memoirs that his division lost 23000 men during the 80 days that it participated in the war (initially it had 13000 men, there were 5000 left when the war ended and the division received 15000 men as replacements during the war). Krivosheev gives 7th Army's total lossess as 99919. If the veteran knew his unit's losses correctly, that would mean that one single division that wasn't present in December's bloody failures lost 1/4 of the casualties of the whole army. I don't have Soviet OOB available right now so I can't say how conceivable this is. I'll have to check this when I get home. However, I have severe doubts on the figure of 26 million combat deaths. The population of Soviet Union before the war was (probably) between 150-180 millions. The male population of this would be 75-90 million, including children. I don't know how the Soviet age distribution looked, but losing 30% of all males as casualties of war sounds improbable to my ears. - Tommi

Colin wrote: uhh...Barbed Wire was cleared effectivly by artillery in WW1. That depends on how "effective" is defined. It can be done but it is a pretty slow process, taking many hours in most cases. Definitely too long to include it in CM. - Tommi

GriffinCheng+ wrote: Well, Tiger, I don't seem to find this in the weapon encyclopedia of WW2...Any futher details? There aren't too many details available for those sleds. Against Finns they were used mainly for patrolling lakes during winter. Once the Soviets planned to use 100 of them to attack Poventsa over Lake Onega. (Poventsa is the town in the northmost tip of the lake, I can't remember how its Russian name is spelled). However, that attack was cancelled for some reason soon after the sleds had started their journey. There were few firefights between those things and Finnish ski patrols. - Tommi

PzKpfw 1 wrote: We can also examine German ground force irreversible losses (KIA, MIA, POW) on the Eastren Front. Satalite countries totals, are not included, nor are it Luftwaffe & Kriegsmarine totals. Total ground force losses on all 1942 - 519,000 (538,000) 1943 - 668,000 (793,000) 1944 - 1,129,000 (1,629,000) 1945 - 550,000 (1,250,000)* Usually only KIA and MIA are counted as irreversible losses. I have a hard time believing that the wounded are counted in those figures. As a rule of thumb, one casualty in 5 is KIA or MIA. Those figures sum to about 3 million. That would mean that the number of German KIA and MIA would be only around 600 thousand. The casualties of Bagration and the Rumanian offensive in 1944 by themselves amounted to 620000 KIA and MIA. That 27 million figure for Soviet losses includes either wounded in addition to KIA and MIA or civilian deaths. Counting the number of wounded is pretty difficult, since some of them would remain unfit to enter the later duty and many were wounded more than once. Krivosheev compiled the loss reports that the individual fronts sent to Stavka and reached the figure of 8668400 dead (including those who died in captivity) and 22326905 wounded. How reliable these figures are is another question, since in 1941 casualty reports were not very accurate and even later some commanders falsified them after excessively heavy losses (there's a difference of 30% between various reports of Tali-Ihantala battle June-July 1944). However, I believe that the relative error in these figures is not greater than the relative error of Winter War casualty reports. According to the casualty reports, Soviets lost 95348 KIA and MIA. However, after the war a roll of casualties was compiled and it has 126875 names for men who didn't return to their homes. The relative error is almost exactly 1/3. Using this figure, the number of Soviet military deaths would be at most 11.5 millions. I believe that the true figure lies somewhere between these two extremes. Note that the ratio of KIA+MIA / WIA is particularly high for the Winter War since Soviets lost about 207000 WIA and frostbite cases, giving a proportion 126000/207000 = 1:1.6. The reason for this is that most of the wounded froze to death before they could be recovered. - Tommi

tero wrote: Under ice mines were used to blow up lenghty holes on the ice to prevent the enemy from attacking. I guess I should elaborate a little on the subject of ice mines. They were made by filling a bottle (for example, an empty vodka bottle) with explosive and sealing it watertight. The minefields were constructed by making two lines of holes in the ice at about 3-4 meter distance between two adjacent holes. A wooden board was put on top of each hole and two mines that were tied together with a piece of string were put dangling from each board. The usual method of blowing up an ice minefield was with electric ignition with wires going only in one bottle. The shockwave of the first explosion would then cause the other mines to explode. The other method was to use a tripwire but I don't remember the details how it was made to work. An exploding minefield would create a 10 meter wide and 100-200 meter long inpassable space of open water. - Tommi

Germanboy wrote: Boy - what a hot date, taking a Gripen for a night in the town... You only have to be careful with the beak and claws. But you certainly get a lot of room in movie theaters, that's sure. And there aren't many muggers who want to attack a 500 kg mythical beast. Had a look at the nicely restored (at least it looks that way) T-26 yet? Actually, no. Have you posted the link somewhere? That remainds me that I should finally get developed the photos that I took at Parola Armor Museum this summer. The museum has a pretty good collection of early-war Soviet armor. Most of the vehicles shown were subsequently used by the Finnish army so they have Finnish markings. There are few T-26s with original markings, namely those that were in too bad condition to be repaired. And in case someone has missed this before, here's a link to Andreas Lärka's page: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6139/ containing a staggering amount of photos of Finnish tanks. - Tommi

Geier wrote: And I thought tss and Tommi were the same person. But clearly tss is the one with the account and Tommi just signs the messages. Actually, there are three persons here: me, myself and I. (And also Billie Holiday but she's only in the CD player). I would be interested in if he is going to buy Europa-Universalis (and let Finland fulfill their destiny and invade Moscow. He would have to play as Sweden though.) Oh, that wouldn't be a problem since 1/3 of Swedish army was composed of Finns in any case (while Finnish population was only 1/6 of the total population of Sweden-Finland). Except for those wars that were fought in Finland when the ratio was something like 2-3 Finns to each Swede in arms. In fact, if Gustav IV had sent in some Riksvenska regiments to Finland in 1808, we might still be subjects of the Three Crowns. Of course, the Commander-in-Chief, General Klingspor should have been thrown away for that to happen. His grand strategy was to withdraw when there was no need and attack when there was no chance of success anymore. And as for purchasing the game. I haven't decided it yet. As a general rule, I don't like compressed-time games much and my modem is not fast enough to allow comfortable multiplayer setup. or just continue to make up JAS Gripen jokes. Hey, I don't have to make up them. - Tommi

Private Pike wrote: Just like WWI only started in 1917. I would count fighting in Europe, Africa, and Asia involving troops from all continents (including Australia and North-America) as a world war. No matter whether USA was involved or not. - Tommi

Joshik wrote: ROO-key VERKH! - Hands up! which is then followed with (I don't have any idea of correct translitterations, this is the traditional Finnish way of spelling these): "idi suda" - come here "vintovka suda" - give your rifle Also, don't forget "Na Berlin!" for the end-war scenarios. - Tommi

aka_tom_w wrote: How about an infantry state that means immobile due to COLD. Well, there's already a CM state for that. It's called "dead". When men are so cold that they can't (or rather 'want to') move they are already hovering on the death's door and they can't do anything even remotely useful in the battle. I think that the effects of cold could be better simulated by having the affected troops have enormous amount of fatigue from the start and prevent them from recovering it. I'm not sure how this might work on equipment, as it would not likely freeze up during battle, No, but it would freeze up before the battle. It was very common (even in Finnish army) that when a green unit fought its first winter battle they found out that their automatic weapons (MGs, LMGs, and SMGs) fired only single shots because the lubricating oil had frozen stiff. The survivors then quickly learned to clean their weapons really well. - Tommi

Aacooper wrote: Haaka paille Suomi! Close, but not correct. The battle cry is spelled: Hakkaa päälle! That's one of the oldest Finnish battle cries. It is usually translated to English as "cut'em down" but that is not a completely accurate translation. Come to think it, it doesn't have a completely accurate translation at all. Another possibility would be "charge 'em". This cry was definitely used during the 30-year war when Finnish light cavalry got the nickname "hakkapeliitta" from it. (The word "päälle" is quite difficult to pronounce correctly if you are not a Finn. So is also "hakkaa" since most European languages don't have a short and a long vowel in a same word in that way.) - Tommi

The Soviets also experimented with recoilless guns early. My sources are once again unavailable right now, but I think that the first prototype of 76mm recoilless gun was designed in 1934. It was a relatively compact weapon (one captured specimen (probably to only one still existing) is in the Finnish War Museum in Helsinki), comparing to a conventional 76 mm gun. However, it certainly wasn't a man-portable weapon as it weighs something like 200 kg. Its shells were a little less effective than conventional artillery shells and the maximum range was about 3.5 km. The Soviets had also some truly monstorous recoilless designs, including a 152 mm recoilless howitzer. I wouldn't want to be near that thing when it got fired. However, the most insane idea was a recoilless heavy AA-gun. I don't know why anybody thought that it would be a good idea to fire a recoilless gun with a good-sized backblast upwards. - Tommi

Private Pike wrote: Did they remove the sirens from the Stukas on the Eastern front as they did in the Western front? At least some Stukas had it until Autumn 1944. I don't know whether all had. I think it was in M.O. Matilainen's memoirs (could be somewhere else, though) where I read that his unit was divebombed once during Lappland War and the Stukas had sirens. Wazron wrote: Throwing thallium in wells to poison the Russian invaders was also used. Those wells remain toxic to this day. Interesting. Can you give some specific reference for this information? I would be very interested to read it since I've never heard of a single actual case of well poisoning. The only "poisoning" case that I've heard of happened when Soviets found some lye in the house of one Finnish border guard who was captured in the second day of the war and the Soviets accused him of "preparations for poisoning wells". (Lye was commonly used as "heavy-duty" soap for cleaning things). Generally Finnish attitude when the Winter War started that was that Soviets would be thrown back and that the border would remain in place. In that situation it would have been quite stupid to do non-repairable damage. (Burning houses and blowing bridges was a standard procedure but they are relatively easy to repair after peace). - Tommi

Big Time Software wrote: example of Soviet operational success, check out the battle for Yelnia. This battle lasted almost 2 months IIRC, and the Germans certainly lost it. Although they largely held their ground (er... and they were on the attack!), the Germans lost about the equivalent of a Corps' worth of troops. The Soviets lost much more than that According to Krivosheev, the Yelnya offensive lasted from 30.08. - 08.09.41., only 9 days. However, he sometimes has pretty strange categorizations for battle lenghts and this may be one of those. (right now I can't remember anything than name of that battle). Krivosheev gives Soviet casualty figures as 10701 KIA + MIA and 21152 wounded, totalling about 30% of 103200 troops committed. Adding a factor of 1.3 to represent unreported casualties, the total figure rises to 41500 casualties. - Tommi

virtualfreak wrote: 1914 had some Huge battles for example, the Russian campaign into east prussia had the potintial to be successfull but they were poorly lead. Hmm. To say that the Russian advance to Prussia was "poorly led" is quite similar to saying that Titanic encountered "some troubles" during its maiden voyage. I think that a more correct term would be "criminal incompetence combined with magnificent stupidity". One good book (documentary novel) describing that campaign would be Solzenytsin's "August 1914". - Tommi

Renaud wrote: This may be why the Soviet's had 152mm rather than 150mm and 122mm rather than 120mm ammo. I believe that the 152 vs 150 mm comes from inch-based vs metric-based measurement. However, numerous similar-caliber guns could and did cause supply problems and it may be one reason for distinct caliberes. On the other hand, I don't think that it completely explains the 122 vs 120 mm issue. That is because first Russian 122 mm guns were issued in 1909 (and 1910, Imperial Russian Army had two different 122 mm howitzer models that used interchangable ammo), long before first modern mortars were designed. But then again, these guns were based on the German 120 mm model 1901 howitzer, so it may be the case that Russians wanted a calibere different from that. Hmm. I just remembered that I have Paulaharju's "Old Guns" in my bookshelf. Count Shuvalov introduced in the 18th century a standardized pound-based gun family with the following guns: 3 lbr -- 76 mm 6 lbr -- 96 mm 12 lbr -- 122 mm 18 lbr -- 138 mm 24 lbr -- 152 mm 36 lbr -- 174 mm 48 lbr -- 192 mm So those "strange" caliberes had a long history in Russian use. The 87 mm / 107 mm system that I mentioned above was introduced in mid-late 19th century, but since they were not pure black-powder weapons, Paulaharju don't give their details. BTW, speaking of mortars, I read a funny anecdote about Soviet 50 mm mini-mortar ("Naku", as it was called in Finland). One Finnish 2nd Lieutenant (who wrote of this event in his memoirs) was going on leave by train during the Winter War. He was sleeping but he woke up when he heard an argument. He noticed that the train police had examined the bag of a soldier and found one of those 50 mm mortars and a couple shells there. The patrol then (understandably) asked him why the hell was he carrying the thing. The answer was: "My neighbour was somehow found to be unfit for military duty and I wanted to wake him up one morning with sounds of war. And that thing is not really dangerous, even its maximum range falls 50 meters short of his bedroom". At this point the 2nd Lieutenant decided that he didn't want to take a part of that conversation and pretended to continue sleeping. The patrolmen didn't know what to do about the situation and in the end they only confiscated the mortar and shells and let the man continue his voyage. - Tommi