What was the chief reason the soviets got blown the fuck out on such a monumental scale when they attacked Finland in...

What was the chief reason the soviets got blown the fuck out on such a monumental scale when they attacked Finland in 1939?

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Poor leadership

Snipers and guerilla warfare against a convencional army.

forgot:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Häyhä

Winter did half the work. Finns didn't even always bother attacking the troops but shot the field kitchens instead.

But they won.

>poor logistic
>strict Party guidance
>lack of preparedness
>winter
>FINNISH WINTER
>finnish fortification
>forests, frozen lakes, frozen streams - very hard terrain to advance
Its hard to believe that Soviets advance at all.

Also soviets actually win the war.
They broke the fortification line and Fins ask for peace as they have no chance to continue war.

The soviets very unwisely decided to launch a massive invasion in the middle of the worst winter in like 50 years, after just purging a significant portion of their officer corps. Those and a number of other factors stymied their initial efforts. Once they got their act together though they broke through Finnish lines and accepted Finlands peace offer without out invading the whole country and turning them into a Soviet satellite. The war was a Finnish tactical victory but a strategic defeat.

A bunch of soft southerners marched against a bunch of cold-hardened white eskimos. In winter.

At the very core it shows what happens when ideology or politics seep into a particular area and overrides its practical realities. Or not necessarily just ideology, just other unrelated and ultimately harmful concerns.

inb4 zizek, sjws etc.

The Soviet leadership at all levels was largely blinded, stunned, hindered or otherwise influenced by the political realities, which were however incompatible with waging a war.

Such an occurence is not particularly rare - only perhaps the extent is - you could see the exact same issue affecting German performance in WW2, but also to an extent conflicts like Vietnam or even today, albeit slightly, in the ME.

Common sense would tell you that a field commander would react to tangible, military factors. Troop dispositions, weather, tactical and strategic situation, orders from above, intelligence, the usual.

However, suddenly into that realistic enough mix, you throw a spanner which overrides some of those factors. The commander feels pressured (or, worse, genuinely believes so) to for example attack because failure to do so would result in consequences beyond military matters, such as facing a tribunal, being accused of not adhering to the political will at the time.

You could of course trace the poor performance in the Winter War further back, as the commander in question might have quite likely found himself in his position based once again on these political factors, not genuine military matters. Thus further reinforcing the ideological circle, even though it is not related and even harmful to the military effort.

Simos accomplishments are blown way out of proportion

But we could say they had a bunch of them

You know they won that war right?

Always bet on general winter. He stalled long enough for Brits and Frogs to start getting involved and Stalin freaked out accepting Finnish peace offerings.

It was more Germany pressure that saved Fingolian than Allies.
As Fingolian have mines with rare metal(forget which) that supply Germans and Hitler was afraid that if whole Fingolia fall under Soviets Germany would be cut from it(in case of war).

Hitler sold out Finland to Stalin to begin with.

Bad weather isn't an excuse you retard, a competent leader will be aware of environmental challenges like that and prepare for them properly.

I guess, they didn't annex finland so I'd say it's more a finn victory
t. not finn shill

Bad tactics, non-existent leadership, bad equipment

Soviets blew finns the fuck out in 1944 when they just got better tanks and close quarter weapons

Stalin had literally purged loads of Generals, I think a few were ones who also were what you might consider 'modern' generals, in that they considered mechanized warfare, modern aircraft etc

the generals that survived were 'yes men', and were poor leaders who thought that Human Wave tactics would still work after WW1

This right here is why I love this website, loads and loads of shit posts and bullshit, and peppered with people who are really passionate and we'll versed in subjects. It may just be the cocaine talking but I'm glad I've sunk so much time around here, it made me fucked up and jaded, but super interesting to people who didn't grow up in such a fuckin weird community. I apreciate the knowledge senpai

Finnish army was a conventional army.

He was one tough dude, killed over 500 Russians in a little over 100days. In winter in Finland you only have maybe 4-5 hours of daylight a day. Do the math

Is this bait?

Forgot his pic. He was shot on the left side of his face. Imagine the total number of dead if he wasn't shot by a Russian sniper

They sucked ass.

But luckily they managed to unfuck themselves (for the most part) before the Nazis invaded.

It was just 10 days before the war ended so hardly that much of a difference. I sort of doubt they'd have even let him take part in continuation war with a healthy jaw.

>convectional army

The annexed a big chunk of Finland

>Be conscript.
>Hail from Balkhash, hot as fuck yo
>Go to Finland
>cold as fuck, yo
>our winter uniforms suck donkey dick
>our leaders were purged
But hey, this user 80 years from now says winter isn't an excuse, so I guess I'll just knock the frostbitten remnants of my toes off and tramp off into the woods.

>hey do you want to rethink this mechanized assault through heavily wooded terrain with fuck all for good roads
>nah man they're just finns
>motti operations ensue

i'm fairly sure finns ask for peace the whole time, it's not like finns were very confident in their success.

>a competent leader will be aware of environmental challenges like that and prepare for them properly

reading comprehension: 10/10

a bit of an oversimplification though.

If I remember correctly, Shaposhnikov made a realistic plan, with intentions to wage war for at least 3 months, but of course that couldn't fly with Stalin, how is puny finland supposed to hold out that long against the might of the soviet apparatus.
After Shaposhnikov was thrown out and replace with Meretskov et al, the army was given like 2-3 weeks of supplies and autumn equipment, also going for a whole front offensive instead of focused blitzkrieg around Ladoga.

And we all know what happened then....

I should write this into a copy pasta because this is like the 3rd time im writing this:
As people have mentioned incompetent leadership was partly the reason for the initial poor performance. Stalin wanted Finland to be conquered in 2 weeks so he kept replacing commanders until he got someone who agreed with his plans. He also insisted on doing an all out attack on multiple fronts because he wanted to show off his buddy Hitler he can do blitzkrieg with soviet might too. The original plan from his competent commanders was to just push through from one spot but this meant itd take longer than 2 weeks to invade and it wouldnt look as impressive so Stalin didnt go for this plan.
Now the 2 weeks plan is really bad in this case since the war starts pretty close to winter. The soldiers pack up for 2 weeks of food and supplies and then the war goes over 2 weeks and shit starts hitting the fan.
The attack on multiple fronts lead to finns being able to much easier to hit and run the onslaughts. The Finns even almost completely ignored the most northern soviet attack because there was literally nothing there worth defending.
By the end of the war Stalin got tired of the really poor performance and brought in an actually competent commander who switched strategy to just going through from one spot which lead to ending the war.
Poor intel on the Finns also caused problems for the soviets. Their intel was almost 10 years old, they thought the red vs whites was still a hot topic in Finland so they assumed that once they attack the communists in Finland would rise up and join the fight. Of course 3 years before the war the Finnish goverment had already allowed communists to form a party so Finnish communists didnt really feel they needed much saving from the bourgeois. When the initial propaganda started from the soviets they proclaimed they were coming as saviors of the communists which just made the finnish communists angry since they didnt need saving.

One reason is the Purges in the 1930s got rid of all the competent and battle-hardened military leaders and replaced them with younger and more zealous - but reckless - types who thought they could overcome with determination.

Because Spurdo was watching over Finland.

Also, while the Soviets ended up winning the war and annexing territory, it was embarrassing in that their performance was abysmal. After all, the Finns conceded Karelia not so much because they were defeated, but because they wanted to end the war before it escalated further.

All in all, for being such a small barren piece of land, Finland did bretty gud.

Assuming all those kills are confirmed, maybe the men from his unit 'donated' their kills to him? It's just a thought, I just feel like that number's been inflated somehow.

>It may just be the cocaine talking but I'm glad I've sunk so much time around here, it made me fucked up and jaded, but super interesting to people who didn't grow up in such a fuckin weird community. I apreciate the knowledge senpai

No one cares about your personal circumstances and reasons for touring this board, fuck off.

> accepted Finlands peace offer without out invading the whole country and turning them into a Soviet satellite

Sounds like a strategic success for Finland honestly.

>instead of being raped and murdered only got raped
gg

if there's two factors to high killcounts, it would be motivation and bad tactics by the enemy. he just had a really good set-up.

I sort of doubt his kill count is a lie or inflated because already during the war soviets figured someone in that particular section of the front line kept popping their guys like mad. They sent fucking artillery strikes where they thought Häyhä was hiding dammit.

nice sourced history there spurdo

It's what happens when you underestimate your enemy, especially on his home turf.

ruskies didn'ts hab benis :DDDDDDDDD