JariL

Hi JonS, Thanks for the comment! Should perhaps have formulated it in an other way. What I tried to avoid was "who's father is strongest" kind of discussion. Regards, Jari

Hi, I noticed that there had been a vivid and lengthy discussion on Finnish artillery on this site. After reading the posts I think that the technicalities of how the calculations were performed etc. were pretty well covered. However, what I did not see in the discussion was why the Finnish artillery was such a key factor in summer 1944. When Finland became independent many of the high ranking officers of the new Finnish army had served in the Imperial Russian army. Russian army had put a lot of emphasis in artillery since Peter the Great and it was perhaps the most advanced part of the Imperial army. In WWI Russian artillery, like that of so many other nations, had huge problems in getting enough ammunition to the front. The envisioned firestorm thus never materialised. Soviet Union resolved this problem by developping ammunition production and building huge ammounts of artillery pieces. Despite of certain problems in the artillery method, Soviet artillery was the weapon that punched a hole for tanks and infantry into the enemy lines in almost all succesfull Soviet operations during WWII. Finnish officers wanted to do the same what the Soviets did. There was only one big problem: the resources were not there and they never would. So the question was: can you get the same effect with the resources at hand? After lengthy discussions and testing the answer was yes -given that you concentrate fire to a very small area. The first thing needed was the calculation methods that have already been decribed earlier. The other part of the equation was concentrating the fire. What was discovered was that the most effective form of fire was a strike where all available artillery pieces shot the same target at maximum speed of fire. This was possible only if the communications network was functioning properly. In the winter war and during the first years of the Continuation war Finnish artillery had woefully few radios and those that were available were usually clumsy and unreliable. The result was that hardly ever could troops expect support from anything else than their own divisional artillery. But the fire was concentrated and accurate and the effect was good. Situation improved from 1943 onwards thanks to domestic radio production and purchases from abroad. In the spring 1944 there was a sufficient number of radios. But there was something more important going on. Forward observers were not anymore tied to certain artillery units. Instead, all artillery units in a certain area were under the command of one artillery commander. All FO's and batteries were connected into one mutual radio network. Now when the FO's asked for fire, they relayed the request into the radio network where the artillery commander then decided who gets support, when and which batteries are going to shoot. When everything was ready the artillery commander released command to the FO in question for the duration of the strike. This centralised system of controlling artillery was the desisive factor in the summer 1944. It brough a stalemate into the battlefield because any big concentration of forces offered excellent targets to concentrated artillery fire. For example in Ihantala Russian total losses rose to 18.000 men dead (5.000) and wounded at the culmination of the battle in the first couple of days of July. Most of the losses were due to artillery fire. An explanation to this number was that the Soviet troops were concentrated on a area that was less than 2*2 square kilometers in size and that it was encirceled from three sides by Finns. Maximum time for opening fire to unprepared targets was 5 minutes. For prepared targets 2 minutes was the maximum. Here take into account that cannons had to be turned in some cases to point to the right direction even if the target was prepared. Density of fire could reach up to 10.000kg of shells/hectar/minute in Ihantala, if the whole artillery force was concentrated into one 100x300 m target. In many other sectors it could go up to 4.500 kg/hectar/minute. Ammunition was for once not a problem because Germans promised to replace every shell used on 1:1 basis, which they also did. Here it should be noted that Soviet artillery doctrine called 2.000/kg/hectar/minute "total destruction". This sort of density they used during the last minute of artillery preparation to key targets. Before anyone jumps into conclusions or starts making comparisons to artilleries of other nations I would like to point out that I don't really believe in this kind of comparisons. Espeacially the big powers prepared for a totally different kind of war than Finns. They usually envisioned to fight the war on the enemies soil and thus everything had to be fitted to that. On the other hand Finns prepared to fight on their own soil and thus it was possible to base everything on maps and design an accurate map based calculation method. And in many cases also train the crews in the likely positions that would be used in case of war -even if live ammunition could not be used of course;) Last a comment about the Soviet artillery. If Finns made life difficult for the Soviet soldiers in summer 1944 the reverse was also true. In Valkesaari Soviet artillery pulverised the Finnish positions. Later in Tali, Ihantala and Vuosalmi it was practically impossible to move anything bigger than a company without calling for heavy artillery fire. Absolutely the biggest portion of Finnish losses was caused by artillery and there were a lot of cases of shell shock. With hindsight both Russians and Finns drew the right conclusions about the WWI experince of the Imperial army even if the solutions were very different. Regards, Jari