Last January, i went to Finland with a bunch of friends one which was Finnish which was helpful. All Being in our 20s most were not interested in visiting a tank museum. But me being a massive history nerd and especially for armoured vehicles I had to visit it. So as we drove from Helsinki to my friends winter cottage in the middle of Finland I purposely diverted an hour by taking the longer road so we could visit the museum lol ! When we got there was no cars outside and as we approached the door, I got the dreadful feeling that it was closed. After knocking on a few windows and doors a pleasant woman came to greet us and told us that she would open the museum for an hour for us. As an Irish Man myself we don't have access to a lot of WW2 museums and collections so this was the first time I was getting to see German, soviet and American armour. I will never forget when she opened the door to the first exhibit room and seeing the massive king tiger that was on loan to Parola in all its glory ! Was such an enjoyable experience and my non nerdy military friends actually really enjoyed it as well. Thank you to Parola for making my trip there so enjoyable. I hope to be back soon.
Way back in 1998, I visited Parola and enjoyed it very much. At that time, I was an Erasums student from 🇮🇪 Ireland studying history at Helsinki University. I enjoyed my time in Finland I want to remember the great Finnish UN peacekeepers who served in Cyprus during the 1960s and the Irish too who were in Cyprus at the same time. Also I remember a great day and interviews at t the UN training centre in Ninnisalo. Kittos Suomi and SEASONS greetings.
The last time TheChieftain was at Parola I was there and had to tell this one story to the camera. Luckily this time I was spared, although I was there again this time as well. 😅 At around 36:00 time mark, TheChieftain asks about Finland's entry to the Continuation War, aka Operation Barbarossa, and I felt that it needs a bit more content. When Nazi-Germany launched Operation Barbarossa on the 22nd of June 1941, Finland officially declared neutrality. The truth is, that the Finnish high command was informed well in advance by the Germans about the upcomming war and deals had been struck with mutual co-operation in mind. Finns did not know when the attack would begin, but we knew it was comming. The deal was, that the Finnish and German navies would began mining operations in advance of the attack and that the German planes were allowed to land on Finnish airfields when they returned from the first bombing runs. Also, Finland allowed the German Army to situate troops to the Lapland area as this would allow Finns to send all our Army units down south to reclaime our lost territories there. Finland insisted that we would not declare any war untill the Soviets retaliate, which they did on the 24th of June when the Soviet airforces bombed Finnish cities. Finland declared war on that same day and thus the Continuation War begun, although the first major offensives did not start untill mid July. The single armoured battalion we had was consentrated to the attack against the northern area of lake Ladoga and there they advanced all the way to the old border and beyond, stopping at the Stalin channel on the 6th of December. On that same day the United Kingdom declared war on us due to political preassure from Stalin. The whole debate about wheter or not Finland was part of the Axis alliance still divides oppinions. We never signed any paper declaring us to be part of the Axis, but we did work very closely with them. The term "co-belingerent" is used quite a lot, but no official term nor mutual historical oppinnion has been reached about the whole thing. Oh, and at 44:00 they are talking about the Lapland War, there's one neat detail about the start of that conflict. We Finns made an ambhibious landing at the port of Tornio, part of this landing force was a detachement of T-26/Vickers tanks. These tanks were the only light tanks we had in service that could be unloaded by the cranes of the harbour and thus were chosen for the operation. The last known tank vs. tank engagement of the Finnish defence forces was fought during that operation, when a Finnish T-26/Vickers engaged a German Hotchkiss H39 tank. The Finnish tank won that duel. This was a battle fought in late 1944 by tanks meant for 1930s combat doctrine. 😅
I've always thought that an interesting "what if" scenario is what would have happened if the Soviets didn't launch their bombing campaign and thus didn't give the Finnish government an excuse to declaire war. Would the government still have declared war (probably in my opinion, everyone wanted the regions Soviets had robbed in the Winter War back), and if yes how would that have impacted the timetable of the Finnish attack (which happened about a month after Germans started Barbarossa anyways).
@jkausti6737 I've been thinking the exact same thing, it's an interesting scenario. We do know, that the Soviets wanted to solve "the Finnish question" in -41 and that Molotoff presented it to Hitler when they met in Berlin in early 1941. It is argued by some, that Hitler saved Finland from another Soviet invasion by rejecting the Soviet plea to allow them to act against Finland. Of course Hitler did not do it out of the kindness of his heart, he did it to have another front against the Soviets. It is ironic, the Soviets invaded Finland in 1939 with an excuse to prevent Germany or the Allies to use our territory to attack the Soviet Union. By invading us they made sure that Finnish territory was used against them in the years of 1941-44. If Finland was left alone in 1939, there would have been no reason for us to join the war in 1941.
I have wondered, what if the Russians had never retaliated those Luftwaffe bomber attacks assisted by Finland and just claimed that there were some random explosion accidents in their soil or they had kept completely silent about them, in a similar manner as they do these days? It would have been a hard time to convince Finnish politicians to join a honest attack against Soviet Union without a good excuse. It would also had given a relief for Soviet Union by keeping the Finnish front relatively peaceful for a little time longer. But anyway, probably Finland would have been forced to join the attack at some point anyway, having all that German military in the country and being largely dependent of the food supply they provided later that summer after a failed harvest.
Huge thank you to yourself and Mr Timo Teräsvalli!! I really enjoyed the insight of hearing a Finn tell us how it was for them during the Winter War and Continuation War. Very much looking forward to part 2! 🙂
I am sure somebody already wrote this but anyway: Eric von Rosen is the swedish count that delivered the first aircraft to Finland. It had a blue svastika. The blue svastika was the counts personal lucky charm symbol. This was done in 1918, so it has nothing to dop with the Austrian corporal and his "dreams". Thanks for a good video. I must go to that museum soon.
Nothing to do with him? Just the slight fact that von Rosen was a prominent national socialist in Sweden and his wife's sister was married to Hermann Göring himself?
It's more of a general national romanticist/mysticist/whatever thing where the swastika (both the normal and the stubby-hooked one) was a design favored by several late 1800s/early 1900s artists (Akseli Gallen-Kallela is a good example) who then introduced it into Finnish national symbology in the late 1910s and early 1920s, for example in the awards of the Order of the Cross of Liberty and Order of the White Rose of Finland, the emblem of the Lotta Svärd organization, and Civil Guard chapter flags. So it was a pre-existing element even apart from the air force tradition.
@@Krazehn Yes you are right, there are more then one source of the finnish svastika, just like wikipedia says. I am just confirming who the Swedish Count where that they referred to in the video. :)
43:38 German style helmets has never been manufactured in Finland. The only wartime Finnish-made helmet was licence-build Swedish m/37, Wärtsilän pipo.
The error usually comes from the fact that more were bought in the fifties and for some reason the older collectors and hobbyists etc. think they were made in Finland. Even though they too were made in Germany.
To add more context to the start of Winter War. One of the Soviet demands was to position Soviet troops and have military bases in Finland for "mutual security" Finnish politicians had already seen how that turned out in Eastern Europe, when the countries that had accepted the same terms were forced to join the Soviet Union
This seems to be very often forgotten fact but in my mind it was as important as seceding the territory’s. Like imagine if they would today make peace in Ukraine, Russia would relinquish all their territorial claims and give back occupied states but in return Russia would get military bases all over Ukraine, especially near important cities and infrastructure.
When Soviet Union collapsed 1990. The Finland only then learned about secret the agreement between Molotov and Ribbentrop. Nazis were okay letting Soviet to invade whole Finland, they were not expecting Finns to fight defense war. During that time Germany refused to send aid to Finland, while Brits, French and USA sent aid and aircraft’s. Hitler changed his mind as he decided to attack Soviets. He needed access to northern Soviet and stop aid sent trough Murmansk. His troops were not ready to fight-40° winter, and only invading 40 miles of Soviet northern land.
Visitors to Parola can also see tank movements on workdays as they're crossing the local public road Parolannummentie between the Parola garrison and the nearest open field training area. Google Maps shows several crossing points. Ilveskalliontie connects this area with another, more wooded area further to the west. All these military areas are shaded red on Openstreetmap. Trains from Helsinki and Tampere stop in Hämeenlinna, the neighbouring city. Bus 5 departs hourly from the station via city centre to Parola.
There seems to have been a small miscommunication. The early tanks were not in Suomenlinna, but on the island of Santahamina just beyond what were the eastern suburbs of Helsinki at the time. The tanks were stationed there in the case another red uprising would start in the period after our Civil War, to help the army secure the capital city that had a larger working class population. At least since the 19th century, the Finnish polical elite has been looking up to Germany for leadership. One could draw a pretty consistent through line starting from the boys reading too much Hegel while studying abroad and coming up with the idea of a Finns as nation, and ending to Finland joining the EU as quickly as possible after the collapse of the USSR gave the necessary room in the foreign policy area.
@@k.sammokko4218 Just read that Renault was never used in battle as tanks, only as fixed casemates. Only four survived the winter war and were retired. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those four were used as practice targets at shooting grounds.
Exactly this. Santahamina island had also been connected into mainland for a very time by the time Tank Regiment was stationed there in year 1919 - first with a pontoon bridge built in 1870's and later with a steel bridge built in 1910 - 1912. Hämeenlinna was also probably selected as its new location for Tank Regiment because of its location (about half-way along the railway line and road connecting cities of Helsinki and Tampere) and possibly due to Parola being earlier used as summertime training location by troops of Finnish Grand Dutchy.
A couple of the reasons for managing to defend successfully was that the Soviet troops were forced to stay on roads due to difficult terrain and abundant snow. As you could see at the beginning of the Ukraine war, colums of Soviet armor are very vulnerable. Finnish ski troops were able to make attacks on the flanks of the Soviet columns. Attacking the first and last vehicle of the column would strand the column on the road. (Finns called this "motti" tactic, the word referring to a volume unit of firewood) The Finns would keep harassing the column and prevent resuply of the ensircled troops. The terrible cold weather would freeze to death significant numbers of the Soviet soldiers, who were not used to, nor equipped for, winter and the extreme cold. The winter was unusually cold. Weather down to and beyond -40 Celsius was observed.
All armored units are vulnerable. Tanks are meant to be mobile, but their mobility has limits and speed they used to achieve impressive victories during WW2 was result of using roads. Going off-road tanks are much less fast. Especially when terrain is heavily wooded and covered in snow.
@@vksasdgaming9472 Would say that in rocky, deep snow and wooded areas its essentially impossible to travel off road, specially if you include bodies of water and swamps that were very common back then. Even specialized snow machines like sleds can have hard time travelling in the forests, forcing them into certain routes that can be exploited and this also gives height differences to hide behind hills to then pop out and create ambush. Buddy in the military in the training was ordered to recon certain area. They then saw 40 soldiers and two Leo2's coming right at them. After quick planning session one guy engaged them from long distance acting like he was panicking and started to retreat into valley, with just 7 man recon squad and 90 rounds of ammo per soldier they waited on ambush and whole 40 guys just run into valley and were slaughtered while MBT's had sense not to drive there, staying in the valleys mouth, then after fire fight recon squad looped around, just walked to two supporting enemy Leo 2's from behind, jump on the one behind acting all friendly until capturing the tank gun point and grenade in hand, ordering the crew that were now pretty shocked prisoners to open fire on the second one destroying it and then took ride back to their base in style, reporting to confused captain about their achievements 40 soldiers KIA, one enemy MBT destroyed, one enemy MBT captured with 4 prisoners, when usually in these exercises the new recruits are set to be loosing due strategic and numerical disadvantage, like command sending one squad intentionally against this amount of whoop ass. They just turned the script around and made most of what they had. For what i heard the vehicle crew got quite a talking to for allowing infantry to approach with hatches open and infantry got talking to about rushing in with tunnel vision into rather obvious ambush point, instead of spreading out.
You are summarizing the fight in Ladoga Karelia and further up north Suomnusalmi and the Raate road. In the Karelian isthmus the fight was more conventional, massed soviet artillery and infantry attacks in a comparatively narrow front and in an axis of advance pointing directly to Helsinki. This front was the decisive one for the outcome of the war.
I visited Parola Armour Museum a couple of year ago. One of the rarer exhibits they have is an actual armoured train. Apart from that flagship piece (you can see it from afar when you get there by bus), they have a number of rare or unusual vehicles on display. Best-known would be the BT-42, of Girls und Panzer fame, but they also have an early KV1 next to a T-26, which immediately brings home the paradigm shift the former represented. In addition, there is a separate exhibit of all anti-tank weapons the Finns employed during the Second World War. It is very much worth a visit.
Great museum! We have been there and they do a great job. Easy location and pretty comprehensive exhibition (we are a half Finnish and half Swiss family)...
I'm young, born in the early 90's and I've never even had the thought that Sweden might be the hostile nation. Every excercise ever was to defend from the enemy from the east and if enemy was coming from the west flank they had clever commander and they had flanked us.
Yeap. For some reason we never planned to the mining of the Tornio river valley bordering Sweden, just the Eastern border. Though one has to remember that in 1917/18 the Swedes were seriously considering invading Åland. Though in the late 90's we still had the enemy nation "Yellow", a throwback to the Cold War times when you couldn't call the enemy "Red" for obvious reasons.
Sweden was the most opportunistic and aggressive colonist state until they had robbed everyone around them. Since then, their policy has been: No more robbing, right?
Born in 1999 myself. Dual nationality - British and German. Britain has been at war with both Finland and Sweden, and everyone else. Germany, on the other hand, has always lived in peace with its neighbours 😂
@PSPaaskynen History had that conversation with my great grandfather. As a Finn, you might have participated in it. Not only on account of the Continuation War but, on the same principle, the significant Finnish contribution to the Thirty Years War.😆
I still remember visiting museum in 90s during military service in Parola. Tour guide had basically almost same comment for all WW2 CCCP tanks - "This tank had good armour, big gun etc. - but still we were able to heroically capture it."
Got extra long Christmas holiday for unrelated reasons, and I'm planning use part of it to visit this museum with my friend who's never been there. I visited there myself decades ago, and I quite liked it, but I've since got so much more understanding and appreciation of tanks and the like.
Interesting video, in 1941 the German Armored School was placed in Wünsdorf, Jüterbog was home to the Artillery School. But it would be plausible that he was send to Jüterbog, because the Artillery School was Response responsible for training of the crews and Officers for the Sturmgeschütz Units.
If you ever have time to go to the Parola armor Museum I can highly recommend their paid guided tour of the place. It needs to be booked beforehand but we got a 6 hour guided tour of the entire Museum with lots of interesting things that were not printed on the signs.
That Blitz in the background is absolutely gorgeous. There's a small museum of sorts, though it might be better served to call it communal storage they occasionally let people into, over in Germany in an old Soviet built facility that houses a whole mess of insanely rare vehicles. Some more complete than others. But someone in there has a Blitz from the late war when they started using wood cabs to save on steel that is in amazing, and very original, shape. There may be a few out there, but I'm not aware of any others. Needless to say, they didn't really last too long after the war. There's also several very oddball things that most people likely never even knew existed, like some oddball amphibs and what not. It's a little hard to get into, but if you can, there's stuff there very, very well worth seeing. But anywho, that's definitely a museum to see. I don't foresee myself being in Finland anytime soon, but I would make it a point to see that. There's some incredibly neat stuff in there.
A correction regarding Sweden's neutrality during the Winter War. Sweden were neutral during WW2, but not in regards to the Winter War specifically, where Sweden instead declared themselves as "non-belligerant", which means that Sweden officially didn't take part in the fighting, but could provide Finland with a lot of materiél- and financial aid, as well as 8,000 volunteers (in total 10,000 volunteered, but only 8,000 reached Finland before the end of the Winter War). Sweden also helped Finland by working as a transport hub for war materiél that Finland purchased abroad, e.g. assembling ~200 aircraft (which arrived in parts) before they were flown to Finland (though many, like the Brewster Buffalos, arrived too late to take part in the Winter War, there was even a risk that Sweden would confiscate a few of them when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in April 1940, a month after the end of the Winter War). Sweden remained neutral in the Continuation- and Lapland wars however.
@@MrLuhtala More like 800, and half of them went back to Sweden after Hangö was liberated, as they didn't want to participate in the invasion of the USSR. The remaining 400 fought on the Svir front. There was not the same governmental or popular support from Sweden though as there had been during the Winter war. Though it should be added that the coalition government let one german division travel through Sweden from Norway to Finland, to help the finns, though it created a crisis within the coalition government, as the social-democrats saw it as a blatant breach of neutrality and were staunchly anti-nazi.
@@p40148 No, there were 2 million single trips by germans through Sweden during WW2. It was 1 german infantry division transported from Norway to Finland, under guard by the swedish military. The rest were unarmed german soldiers who were on leave from their garrison duties in Norway. Off the top of my head I don't recall how many germans were stationed in Norway, but it was several hundred thousand, so divided over ~3 years, that's a not that many trips for each soldier stationed in Norway.
Hirveä myötähäpeä kun tämmönen paatso yrittää vääntää lontoota. Ei vissiin löytynyt ketään joka ei hengästy puhuessaan ja oikeesti osaisi edes siedettävää englantia.
It's videos like these that underline how stuff tjat is published now, was not necessarily filmed just yesterday. I saw this and went "That's NOT the weather outside."
About the helmet, Finland in fact was one of the oldest helmet manufacturing countries at the time, but those german style "stahlhelm" helmets were all bought, they were only modified for the interior here. there is a study of warhistorial encyclopedia 15/1996 on this by Stig Roudasmaa.
In case you want to visit the museum: The easiest way for you might be just to take a train to Hämeenlinna. There you can take a bus to the museum. Also, as a bonus, if your interest in military equipment is not very, very tank specific, there's another military themed museum featuring artillery, trucks, uniforms and whatnot. It about 2.5km from the railway station, next to the medieval castle (which you can also visit), can't miss it. If you happen to be there during the Finnish May Day (1st of May) pros and cons include a) a ton of people b) some tanks actually in motion. Seeing and hearing a roaring T-34 shooting blanks at me, I understood it might have been a somewhat dramatic experience encountered in anger.
Also: do NOT go check out the gate guardian T-34s of the Armoured Brigade (the active military base next to the museum). The tanks are technically inside the restricted military area, even if they are outside the fence. There was already case when a couple of Latvian tourists were suspected of espionage(!) after they posed for photos next to them, although the local police looked at the situation very briefly, realized that the Brigade had essentially set up a trap for unsuspecting tourists and let them got. I am not making this up.
Makes sense that a tanker has to be mechanically inclined. Who else is going to fix your tank if it breaks down? Nobody, that's who. At least in WW2. At least back then, a few wrenches and some screwdrivers could (and did) fix engine problems. Percussive maintenance is a thing. Ask me how i know!
As an Aussie born of Western European parents the whole 20th century WWII to and fro regarding alliances always interested me and I struck some curious anomalies when it came to the Historical facts as taught by Europe versus my British based Education. It bothered me in my youth but was explained by an elderly Finnish Neighbour by quite simply asking the question of by whom id prefer as an invading army, Soviet Russia? Or Germany....... :-) And I feel the Finnish choices matched my own.
No only that, bit you can add the fact that since the Finnish civil war, it was the Germans helping Finland, all the way from providing military training, and military equipment, and when you are as small as Finland, you take whatever help you can get when you have eastern hordes swarming your border.
@@BFVsnypEz Not to mention the reparations to Soviet Russia by Finland which surprised me and possibly explains German aid and their help in rebuilding. Im looking forward to Part II of this Video.
A lot of the helmets of finland were austro-hungarian vintage or Hungarian M35 helmets which were a licensed copy of the German M35. Unsure about actual manufacturing of helmets in finland.
75,000 german M17 and equal amount of Hungarian m38 helmets were in service during the 1918-1945, and well into the 50´s . Fins did even use Danish,polish,swedish and Italian helmets send as foreign aid, or purchased. and 1941 FIns did buy german m35-41 helmets in bulk, these were not vintage.
One thing the Finnish armed forces were very good at was borrowing without permission equipment from their enemies and making good use of said "borrowed" equipment.
The three grandparents of mine who survived until then, all fought to defend Finland, one ate a soviet bullet, one carried shrapnel in his leg until he passed in 1994. When I get the thumb out and apply for a secondary citizenship there, I will have my documented good reasons to do so, other than having parents from there.
The third war, against Germany, had to be have, if I remember correctly, because Soviet gave some kind of ultimatum with connection of peace agreement, that if the Finns won't drive the Germans out of the country, they will come and do it themselves. So sitsuation was basicly fight against to old comrades in arms and keep our independency, or to be occupied by Soviet Union. Which to prevent originally had been fought against Russia for.
What does "modernized" mean exactly? You mean hiding the real history that people might find "offensive" or what? That is the most stupid idea ever, history is old, there is no way to "modernize" it.
Finnish war has lots of interesting storys, and details, one is that German leader respected Finland a lot because winter war and when we struck a deal whit German no jews was to be harmed, if i recall correct Finland was only country to make such a deal, remember back then Finland was "bunch of Farmers" whit some hunters like Häyhä :D
I do not know if The Chieftain even remember me but this is the place I served my conscription time. Can you imagine - 194 cm short man is place in Tank Brigade. I think The Chieftain has same kind of problem with tanks.
@@TheChieftainsHatch iLMATORJUNTAPANSARIVAUNU! Remember? And we have not met sorry to say. However I followed your post long time ago since your WOT times. Especially : "omg tank is burning" tests. My problems with tanks is very same kind of. And sorry to say we have bad problems with russia - thousands of years. Ok we fight against vikings. And we fight also against Christianity. And constant tribal wars - so you now can see some trend what we fins are?
I think the question about armor equivalent of Simo Häyhä was misunderstood and rather poorly answered. Lagus was a leader, he did not really participate in the destruction of enemy armor by getting his own hands dirty. Ulf-Ola Olin is the name of a Finnish person with most destroyed armor credited to his name. He's mostly ignored since he was fighting in the German troops as a Waffen SS volunteer, and not in Finland during the continuation war. In winter war he was an infantry soldier. He and his tank crew are credited with 34 enemy armor kills.
Finns used Vickers 6 tonners in beginning of Winter War. In early Continuation War we used captured T-26. Same tank but they had better 45mm gun, and we had plenty of them to equip 1 tank division. In 1940 Soviets were worlds fastest sprinters, when Finnish motivated them
Käytiin tuolla kun oltiin aukissa 2012, saatiin kiertue Teräsvallilta jonka alussa hän kysyi: "Paljos on pojilla aamuja jäljellä?" ja joku meistä vastasi "Parisataa" johon Teräsvalli samantien näpäytti "JAA PARI TUHATTA?!" Mutta oli kyllä hieno kiertue ja hyvä opas
What i wonder, there were a couple of nations with export tanks, like the vikers 6 ton. But befor the war, germany also the the x.K.A. series of tanks (instead of x a series of different times, example M.K.A. mittlerer kampfpanzer Ausland medium tank export. Armed with a 4,5 cm KwK L/50 gun doing 750m/s with a 1,32kg AP round, so quite nice for the time. There were a bunch, with Mgs, 20mm and 45mm guns. The project was stopped when the war came, how would have those tanks compared to other export models? Would there have been potential interested customers, that would have prefered lets say the m.k.a. over a vikers 6 ton?
Not relating to this video but perhaps for your next Q&A ... What are your thoughts or comments on The Tank Museum's latest 'take' on the TOG II? As of 4 days ago, they've dialed back on the mockery and come to some new conclusions.
Sweden also needed every tank they could get their hands on in 39', like everybody else in europe. Only way to get them is to build them your self. Before that you also have to consider that Finnland was dirt poor on the level of not having uniforms for the infanty.
Just let me correct a simple fact: Sweden didn't "control Finland" during our 550+ years together. We were one and the same kingdom - there were no differences between the Western and Eastern parts of the Kingdom of Sweden at all.
This exactly. Trying to argue as if Sweden would have some how occupied or anything Finland is totally wrong. Finland was the eastern half of Sweden until 1809
I suspect that there may be a matter of perspective involved. Ireland was the Western part of the United Kingdom, with Dublin as the kingdom's second city, but there is little doubting the mindset that much of Ireland felt it was controlled by the British crown regardless.
@@TheChieftainsHatch What is true for Irish-British relations doesn't necessarly translate well to Finnish-Swedish ones. Every case has its own particular characteristics. Just as an example, in 1809 when Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire, a significant part of the deal was that we could keep our own laws from our time within the Kingdom of Sweden. You probably noticed that I called them "our own laws". They weren't imposed on us by an outsider - they had been enacted by the Estates, where we had our own representatives.
@@tapio_m6861 Teräskukko olisi parempi. Mun yläasteella oli oppilas, jonka sukunimi oli Lerssi. Ajattele minkälaisia kaksiosaisia sukunimiä siitä saisi, Rautanen-Lerssi jne
My father in law was born in Finland in the 30's their language is different, a friend of the family was Cory but in Finnish that was about 10 letters?, by the way my mother in law was from Norway, those languages aren't even close, they had 5 kids so they're able to communicate? But my grandma was from Ireland, county cork my wife's grandfather died in Russia.
Finnish is fairly easy to pronounce. Completely unintelligible, but easy to read out and parrot. At least for us who have grown up reading Finnish lists of ingredients.
In the 1920s, a lot of leading Finnish officers had come to the conclusion that while tanks might work great on the open plains of Europe (or the British colonies), the Finnish nature full of lakes, forests and swamps, combined with the relative sparsity of roads, made the new weapon impractical or even irrelevant in any future war in Finland. Why exactly there was this sentiment, it's a bit of a mystery, since those actually driving those Renaults found them quite "Finnish terrain capable" and went our demonstrating these capabilities on various garrisons. However (to simplify history a little) around 1933 the military attache from Moscow basically called "these Soviets indeed have tanks and they are clearly capable of operating in a terrain that resemble the Karelian Isthmus, do something!"
Nationalist fantasies played a part. There's a(if memory serves) decent thesis called "The development of Finnish anti-tank weapons, 1918-1939" which goes into some detail about how career military types more or less convinced themselves tanks weren't viable in Finnish terrain and thus neglected to look into anti-tank capability. Although we should probably keep in mind that Panzer I type machine gun only tanks were a thing at the time and anti-tank rifles weren't yet considered a dead end
Last January, i went to Finland with a bunch of friends one which was Finnish which was helpful. All Being in our 20s most were not interested in visiting a tank museum. But me being a massive history nerd and especially for armoured vehicles I had to visit it. So as we drove from Helsinki to my friends winter cottage in the middle of Finland I purposely diverted an hour by taking the longer road so we could visit the museum lol ! When we got there was no cars outside and as we approached the door, I got the dreadful feeling that it was closed. After knocking on a few windows and doors a pleasant woman came to greet us and told us that she would open the museum for an hour for us. As an Irish Man myself we don't have access to a lot of WW2 museums and collections so this was the first time I was getting to see German, soviet and American armour. I will never forget when she opened the door to the first exhibit room and seeing the massive king tiger that was on loan to Parola in all its glory ! Was such an enjoyable experience and my non nerdy military friends actually really enjoyed it as well. Thank you to Parola for making my trip there so enjoyable. I hope to be back soon.
I can recommend Parola tank museum. My dog can recommend it too. Though he was mighty confused when I climbed on the T-72.
You didn't tell us before that you had a dog.
Is your dog called Szarik by any chance? 😉
Some tourists might come really far away and totally different culture, so can you tell more about your dog?
@@Simon_Nonymous I hope that you know, that 'Szarik' means he is shitting, in Hungarian.
Way back in 1998, I visited Parola and enjoyed it very much. At that time, I was an Erasums student from 🇮🇪 Ireland studying history at Helsinki University. I enjoyed my time in Finland I want to remember the great Finnish UN peacekeepers who served in Cyprus during the 1960s and the Irish too who were in Cyprus at the same time. Also I remember a great day and interviews at t the UN training centre in Ninnisalo. Kittos Suomi and SEASONS greetings.
Very fitting that the Finnish guys last name literally translates to Steelwall.
Steel rampart, not wall.
Point remains though, very fitting name :)
@@ristoravela652 rampart, embankment, mound... can be wall as well :)
...and first name Timo comes from Greek Timótheos, Timó meaning respect, honor. (Theos = god)
Stonewall Jackson, meet Steelwall Tim.
@@akinmaRespect God Steel Rampart. What a badass name.
It is a rare pleasure to hear a finnish man, of your generation, speak english so well, Mr.Teräsvalli! Mainiota!
To be honest its not that rare thing, but it keeps always surprising me when old heads speaks english.
pläk raund pirelli
Да, финны в массе своей не знают английский, только молодежь. Вот шведы поголовно знают английский
@@СергейПанюков-к9дThis isn't true. Slightly over two thirds of the population speaks English at a conversational level.
Most of the WWII era tanks now in display were actually driven from the army barracks to the museum by their own engines.
Finland seems to be the end game for every military related youtuber x) glad to see you here
The last time TheChieftain was at Parola I was there and had to tell this one story to the camera. Luckily this time I was spared, although I was there again this time as well. 😅
At around 36:00 time mark, TheChieftain asks about Finland's entry to the Continuation War, aka Operation Barbarossa, and I felt that it needs a bit more content. When Nazi-Germany launched Operation Barbarossa on the 22nd of June 1941, Finland officially declared neutrality. The truth is, that the Finnish high command was informed well in advance by the Germans about the upcomming war and deals had been struck with mutual co-operation in mind. Finns did not know when the attack would begin, but we knew it was comming. The deal was, that the Finnish and German navies would began mining operations in advance of the attack and that the German planes were allowed to land on Finnish airfields when they returned from the first bombing runs. Also, Finland allowed the German Army to situate troops to the Lapland area as this would allow Finns to send all our Army units down south to reclaime our lost territories there. Finland insisted that we would not declare any war untill the Soviets retaliate, which they did on the 24th of June when the Soviet airforces bombed Finnish cities. Finland declared war on that same day and thus the Continuation War begun, although the first major offensives did not start untill mid July. The single armoured battalion we had was consentrated to the attack against the northern area of lake Ladoga and there they advanced all the way to the old border and beyond, stopping at the Stalin channel on the 6th of December. On that same day the United Kingdom declared war on us due to political preassure from Stalin.
The whole debate about wheter or not Finland was part of the Axis alliance still divides oppinions. We never signed any paper declaring us to be part of the Axis, but we did work very closely with them. The term "co-belingerent" is used quite a lot, but no official term nor mutual historical oppinnion has been reached about the whole thing.
Oh, and at 44:00 they are talking about the Lapland War, there's one neat detail about the start of that conflict. We Finns made an ambhibious landing at the port of Tornio, part of this landing force was a detachement of T-26/Vickers tanks. These tanks were the only light tanks we had in service that could be unloaded by the cranes of the harbour and thus were chosen for the operation. The last known tank vs. tank engagement of the Finnish defence forces was fought during that operation, when a Finnish T-26/Vickers engaged a German Hotchkiss H39 tank. The Finnish tank won that duel. This was a battle fought in late 1944 by tanks meant for 1930s combat doctrine. 😅
Thank you for that extra insight!
I've always thought that an interesting "what if" scenario is what would have happened if the Soviets didn't launch their bombing campaign and thus didn't give the Finnish government an excuse to declaire war. Would the government still have declared war (probably in my opinion, everyone wanted the regions Soviets had robbed in the Winter War back), and if yes how would that have impacted the timetable of the Finnish attack (which happened about a month after Germans started Barbarossa anyways).
@jkausti6737 I've been thinking the exact same thing, it's an interesting scenario. We do know, that the Soviets wanted to solve "the Finnish question" in -41 and that Molotoff presented it to Hitler when they met in Berlin in early 1941. It is argued by some, that Hitler saved Finland from another Soviet invasion by rejecting the Soviet plea to allow them to act against Finland. Of course Hitler did not do it out of the kindness of his heart, he did it to have another front against the Soviets.
It is ironic, the Soviets invaded Finland in 1939 with an excuse to prevent Germany or the Allies to use our territory to attack the Soviet Union. By invading us they made sure that Finnish territory was used against them in the years of 1941-44. If Finland was left alone in 1939, there would have been no reason for us to join the war in 1941.
I have wondered, what if the Russians had never retaliated those Luftwaffe bomber attacks assisted by Finland and just claimed that there were some random explosion accidents in their soil or they had kept completely silent about them, in a similar manner as they do these days? It would have been a hard time to convince Finnish politicians to join a honest attack against Soviet Union without a good excuse. It would also had given a relief for Soviet Union by keeping the Finnish front relatively peaceful for a little time longer. But anyway, probably Finland would have been forced to join the attack at some point anyway, having all that German military in the country and being largely dependent of the food supply they provided later that summer after a failed harvest.
15:00 more like 700 years
Huge thank you to yourself and Mr Timo Teräsvalli!! I really enjoyed the insight of hearing a Finn tell us how it was for them during the Winter War and Continuation War. Very much looking forward to part 2! 🙂
I am sure somebody already wrote this but anyway: Eric von Rosen is the swedish count that delivered the first aircraft to Finland. It had a blue svastika. The blue svastika was the counts personal lucky charm symbol. This was done in 1918, so it has nothing to dop with the Austrian corporal and his "dreams". Thanks for a good video. I must go to that museum soon.
Nothing to do with him? Just the slight fact that von Rosen was a prominent national socialist in Sweden and his wife's sister was married to Hermann Göring himself?
sadly though von rosen decided to become a big time nazi though
It's more of a general national romanticist/mysticist/whatever thing where the swastika (both the normal and the stubby-hooked one) was a design favored by several late 1800s/early 1900s artists (Akseli Gallen-Kallela is a good example) who then introduced it into Finnish national symbology in the late 1910s and early 1920s, for example in the awards of the Order of the Cross of Liberty and Order of the White Rose of Finland, the emblem of the Lotta Svärd organization, and Civil Guard chapter flags. So it was a pre-existing element even apart from the air force tradition.
@@Krazehn Yes you are right, there are more then one source of the finnish svastika, just like wikipedia says. I am just confirming who the Swedish Count where that they referred to in the video. :)
Although, von Rosen would later become brother-in-law to Hermann Göring and he was also a leading figure in the swedish notsee movement....
43:38 German style helmets has never been manufactured in Finland. The only wartime Finnish-made helmet was licence-build Swedish m/37, Wärtsilän pipo.
But was not german ww1 style helmets adopted even before the winter war? Might this be what was meant?
@borjesvensson8661 German helmets were bought from France after ww1.
The error usually comes from the fact that more were bought in the fifties and for some reason the older collectors and hobbyists etc. think they were made in Finland. Even though they too were made in Germany.
To add more context to the start of Winter War. One of the Soviet demands was to position Soviet troops and have military bases in Finland for "mutual security"
Finnish politicians had already seen how that turned out in Eastern Europe, when the countries that had accepted the same terms were forced to join the Soviet Union
This seems to be very often forgotten fact but in my mind it was as important as seceding the territory’s. Like imagine if they would today make peace in Ukraine, Russia would relinquish all their territorial claims and give back occupied states but in return Russia would get military bases all over Ukraine, especially near important cities and infrastructure.
When Soviet Union collapsed 1990. The Finland only then learned about secret the agreement between Molotov and Ribbentrop. Nazis were okay letting Soviet to invade whole Finland, they were not expecting Finns to fight defense war. During that time Germany refused to send aid to Finland, while Brits, French and USA sent aid and aircraft’s. Hitler changed his mind as he decided to attack Soviets. He needed access to northern Soviet and stop aid sent trough Murmansk. His troops were not ready to fight-40° winter, and only invading 40 miles of Soviet northern land.
Nice job everyone; I'm looking at flights and holidays from the UK to Helsinki already!
Visitors to Parola can also see tank movements on workdays as they're crossing the local public road Parolannummentie between the Parola garrison and the nearest open field training area. Google Maps shows several crossing points. Ilveskalliontie connects this area with another, more wooded area further to the west. All these military areas are shaded red on Openstreetmap.
Trains from Helsinki and Tampere stop in Hämeenlinna, the neighbouring city. Bus 5 departs hourly from the station via city centre to Parola.
All the best of the season Chieftain, to you and yours!
The Finnish accent is so lovely I just can't get over it😊😊
Ever since Ahti in Control, just can't get over it❤
There seems to have been a small miscommunication. The early tanks were not in Suomenlinna, but on the island of Santahamina just beyond what were the eastern suburbs of Helsinki at the time. The tanks were stationed there in the case another red uprising would start in the period after our Civil War, to help the army secure the capital city that had a larger working class population.
At least since the 19th century, the Finnish polical elite has been looking up to Germany for leadership. One could draw a pretty consistent through line starting from the boys reading too much Hegel while studying abroad and coming up with the idea of a Finns as nation, and ending to Finland joining the EU as quickly as possible after the collapse of the USSR gave the necessary room in the foreign policy area.
True. That does make more sense, while obviously not optimal location.
19th century means all years of 1800 and forward... towards to new year,century,of 1900,which is called 20th
and the Carden-Loyd, there was only that one test item on the show room.
@@k.sammokko4218 Just read that Renault was never used in battle as tanks, only as fixed casemates. Only four survived the winter war and were retired. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those four were used as practice targets at shooting grounds.
Exactly this. Santahamina island had also been connected into mainland for a very time by the time Tank Regiment was stationed there in year 1919 - first with a pontoon bridge built in 1870's and later with a steel bridge built in 1910 - 1912. Hämeenlinna was also probably selected as its new location for Tank Regiment because of its location (about half-way along the railway line and road connecting cities of Helsinki and Tampere) and possibly due to Parola being earlier used as summertime training location by troops of Finnish Grand Dutchy.
A couple of the reasons for managing to defend successfully was that the Soviet troops were forced to stay on roads due to difficult terrain and abundant snow. As you could see at the beginning of the Ukraine war, colums of Soviet armor are very vulnerable. Finnish ski troops were able to make attacks on the flanks of the Soviet columns.
Attacking the first and last vehicle of the column would strand the column on the road. (Finns called this "motti" tactic, the word referring to a volume unit of firewood) The Finns would keep harassing the column and prevent resuply of the ensircled troops. The terrible cold weather would freeze to death significant numbers of the Soviet soldiers, who were not used to, nor equipped for, winter and the extreme cold. The winter was unusually cold. Weather down to and beyond -40 Celsius was observed.
All armored units are vulnerable. Tanks are meant to be mobile, but their mobility has limits and speed they used to achieve impressive victories during WW2 was result of using roads. Going off-road tanks are much less fast. Especially when terrain is heavily wooded and covered in snow.
@@vksasdgaming9472 Would say that in rocky, deep snow and wooded areas its essentially impossible to travel off road, specially if you include bodies of water and swamps that were very common back then. Even specialized snow machines like sleds can have hard time travelling in the forests, forcing them into certain routes that can be exploited and this also gives height differences to hide behind hills to then pop out and create ambush.
Buddy in the military in the training was ordered to recon certain area. They then saw 40 soldiers and two Leo2's coming right at them. After quick planning session one guy engaged them from long distance acting like he was panicking and started to retreat into valley, with just 7 man recon squad and 90 rounds of ammo per soldier they waited on ambush and whole 40 guys just run into valley and were slaughtered while MBT's had sense not to drive there, staying in the valleys mouth, then after fire fight recon squad looped around, just walked to two supporting enemy Leo 2's from behind, jump on the one behind acting all friendly until capturing the tank gun point and grenade in hand, ordering the crew that were now pretty shocked prisoners to open fire on the second one destroying it and then took ride back to their base in style, reporting to confused captain about their achievements 40 soldiers KIA, one enemy MBT destroyed, one enemy MBT captured with 4 prisoners, when usually in these exercises the new recruits are set to be loosing due strategic and numerical disadvantage, like command sending one squad intentionally against this amount of whoop ass. They just turned the script around and made most of what they had. For what i heard the vehicle crew got quite a talking to for allowing infantry to approach with hatches open and infantry got talking to about rushing in with tunnel vision into rather obvious ambush point, instead of spreading out.
You are summarizing the fight in Ladoga Karelia and further up north Suomnusalmi and the Raate road. In the Karelian isthmus the fight was more conventional, massed soviet artillery and infantry attacks in a comparatively narrow front and in an axis of advance pointing directly to Helsinki. This front was the decisive one for the outcome of the war.
I visited Parola Armour Museum a couple of year ago. One of the rarer exhibits they have is an actual armoured train. Apart from that flagship piece (you can see it from afar when you get there by bus), they have a number of rare or unusual vehicles on display. Best-known would be the BT-42, of Girls und Panzer fame, but they also have an early KV1 next to a T-26, which immediately brings home the paradigm shift the former represented. In addition, there is a separate exhibit of all anti-tank weapons the Finns employed during the Second World War. It is very much worth a visit.
Great museum!
We have been there and they do a great job. Easy location and pretty comprehensive exhibition (we are a half Finnish and half Swiss family)...
Merry xmas or happy holidays Chieftain. Hope it is spent with smiles admiring your family around the home in relaxation
I'm young, born in the early 90's and I've never even had the thought that Sweden might be the hostile nation. Every excercise ever was to defend from the enemy from the east and if enemy was coming from the west flank they had clever commander and they had flanked us.
Yeap. For some reason we never planned to the mining of the Tornio river valley bordering Sweden, just the Eastern border. Though one has to remember that in 1917/18 the Swedes were seriously considering invading Åland.
Though in the late 90's we still had the enemy nation "Yellow", a throwback to the Cold War times when you couldn't call the enemy "Red" for obvious reasons.
Sweden was the most opportunistic and aggressive colonist state until they had robbed everyone around them. Since then, their policy has been: No more robbing, right?
Born in 1999 myself. Dual nationality - British and German.
Britain has been at war with both Finland and Sweden, and everyone else. Germany, on the other hand, has always lived in peace with its neighbours 😂
@ConradAinger Good that you added a smiley, or else History would have like to have a conversation. 🙂
@PSPaaskynen
History had that conversation with my great grandfather.
As a Finn, you might have participated in it. Not only on account of the Continuation War but, on the same principle, the significant Finnish contribution to the Thirty Years War.😆
I still remember visiting museum in 90s during military service in Parola. Tour guide had basically almost same comment for all WW2 CCCP tanks - "This tank had good armour, big gun etc. - but still we were able to heroically capture it."
Got extra long Christmas holiday for unrelated reasons, and I'm planning use part of it to visit this museum with my friend who's never been there. I visited there myself decades ago, and I quite liked it, but I've since got so much more understanding and appreciation of tanks and the like.
Great museum. Its been getting a lot more funding which is great.
Long have I waited.
This is amazing!
I’ve been there a lot of times. A great museum to visit
Your Finnish pronunciation is better than UA-cam's AI.
I do agree. But on some occasions that is a really low bar!
This is amazing history. I have not heard this side of this story told on a personal level from a native Historian. 👏👏👏👏 Great content.
Interesting video, in 1941 the German Armored School was placed in Wünsdorf, Jüterbog was home to the Artillery School.
But it would be plausible that he was send to Jüterbog, because the Artillery School was Response responsible for training of the crews and Officers for the Sturmgeschütz Units.
Thank you for that episode.🇫🇮
I was there earlier this year. Highly recommended.
Its good to see Chieftain let someone finnish.
I was there in 1990 in Military Police school. Nice to see you here in Finland.
If you ever have time to go to the Parola armor Museum I can highly recommend their paid guided tour of the place. It needs to be booked beforehand but we got a 6 hour guided tour of the entire Museum with lots of interesting things that were not printed on the signs.
That Blitz in the background is absolutely gorgeous. There's a small museum of sorts, though it might be better served to call it communal storage they occasionally let people into, over in Germany in an old Soviet built facility that houses a whole mess of insanely rare vehicles. Some more complete than others. But someone in there has a Blitz from the late war when they started using wood cabs to save on steel that is in amazing, and very original, shape. There may be a few out there, but I'm not aware of any others. Needless to say, they didn't really last too long after the war. There's also several very oddball things that most people likely never even knew existed, like some oddball amphibs and what not. It's a little hard to get into, but if you can, there's stuff there very, very well worth seeing.
But anywho, that's definitely a museum to see. I don't foresee myself being in Finland anytime soon, but I would make it a point to see that. There's some incredibly neat stuff in there.
I went there in 1982. The JSU-152 was astonishing. Looking forward to visiting again.
Very cool place. I visited it in the late 70's. It was much smaller then. Thanks for the memories!
A correction regarding Sweden's neutrality during the Winter War. Sweden were neutral during WW2, but not in regards to the Winter War specifically, where Sweden instead declared themselves as "non-belligerant", which means that Sweden officially didn't take part in the fighting, but could provide Finland with a lot of materiél- and financial aid, as well as 8,000 volunteers (in total 10,000 volunteered, but only 8,000 reached Finland before the end of the Winter War). Sweden also helped Finland by working as a transport hub for war materiél that Finland purchased abroad, e.g. assembling ~200 aircraft (which arrived in parts) before they were flown to Finland (though many, like the Brewster Buffalos, arrived too late to take part in the Winter War, there was even a risk that Sweden would confiscate a few of them when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in April 1940, a month after the end of the Winter War).
Sweden remained neutral in the Continuation- and Lapland wars however.
In the Continuation War 1000 Swedes served in Finland on the Hanko front as Swedish Volunteer Batallion.
@@MrLuhtala More like 800, and half of them went back to Sweden after Hangö was liberated, as they didn't want to participate in the invasion of the USSR. The remaining 400 fought on the Svir front.
There was not the same governmental or popular support from Sweden though as there had been during the Winter war. Though it should be added that the coalition government let one german division travel through Sweden from Norway to Finland, to help the finns, though it created a crisis within the coalition government, as the social-democrats saw it as a blatant breach of neutrality and were staunchly anti-nazi.
@@lavrentivs98912 million germans were transported thru Sweden during WW2.
@@p40148 No, there were 2 million single trips by germans through Sweden during WW2. It was 1 german infantry division transported from Norway to Finland, under guard by the swedish military.
The rest were unarmed german soldiers who were on leave from their garrison duties in Norway. Off the top of my head I don't recall how many germans were stationed in Norway, but it was several hundred thousand, so divided over ~3 years, that's a not that many trips for each soldier stationed in Norway.
Great timing of a video, I’m about to try to go here in just a couple of days!
Helevetti kaveri hengästyy tasaisella maalla, selkeästi panssarijääkäri. T: pioneeri
Lol, i mean you are right, but i would have never written it first. XD
Huutista t:panssarimies
@taistelusammakko5088 kävelymatka pitempi kuin ällin pituus? mennään vaunulla.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hirveä myötähäpeä kun tämmönen paatso yrittää vääntää lontoota. Ei vissiin löytynyt ketään joka ei hengästy puhuessaan ja oikeesti osaisi edes siedettävää englantia.
I live a few km from the Parola Armour Museum. It has some cool unique pieces.
Great video! Cant wait for part 2!
saw the tiger II last summer in parola.. man it is massive...
Me too, it was absolutely incredible to see in person, really makes you realize why they were such scary machines to face in battle.
Timo Teräsvalli, great guy. His last name, literally translated, is Wall of Steel.
It's videos like these that underline how stuff tjat is published now, was not necessarily filmed just yesterday.
I saw this and went "That's NOT the weather outside."
Thank you. Great learning experience.
That museum is the same age as I… that’s not OLD!
I do recomend the movie the Winter war which is very well done and shows the conditions that both sides had to fight in.
For a bit more finnish tank and assault gun combat I recommend Tali-Ihantala 1944
About the helmet, Finland in fact was one of the oldest helmet manufacturing countries at the time, but those german style "stahlhelm" helmets were all bought, they were only modified for the interior here. there is a study of warhistorial encyclopedia 15/1996 on this by Stig Roudasmaa.
Been there a couple of times! Fantastic place
In case you want to visit the museum:
The easiest way for you might be just to take a train to Hämeenlinna. There you can take a bus to the museum. Also, as a bonus, if your interest in military equipment is not very, very tank specific, there's another military themed museum featuring artillery, trucks, uniforms and whatnot. It about 2.5km from the railway station, next to the medieval castle (which you can also visit), can't miss it.
If you happen to be there during the Finnish May Day (1st of May) pros and cons include a) a ton of people b) some tanks actually in motion. Seeing and hearing a roaring T-34 shooting blanks at me, I understood it might have been a somewhat dramatic experience encountered in anger.
Also: do NOT go check out the gate guardian T-34s of the Armoured Brigade (the active military base next to the museum). The tanks are technically inside the restricted military area, even if they are outside the fence. There was already case when a couple of Latvian tourists were suspected of espionage(!) after they posed for photos next to them, although the local police looked at the situation very briefly, realized that the Brigade had essentially set up a trap for unsuspecting tourists and let them got. I am not making this up.
Allways remember, friendly fire isn't.
General Schwarzkopf said in his memoir:
"No bullet is friendly, once it leaves the barrel ."
@@viandengalacticspaceyards5135 Old Russian military adage: bullet is stupid - bayonet is smart. What is means varies from speaker to listener.
Excellent video 👍
Very intersting. Parola is on my List aswell :)
I have driven one of those when i was young soldier. Tank was T-55M.
Nice pun at the end 👌
Makes sense that a tanker has to be mechanically inclined. Who else is going to fix your tank if it breaks down? Nobody, that's who. At least in WW2. At least back then, a few wrenches and some screwdrivers could (and did) fix engine problems. Percussive maintenance is a thing. Ask me how i know!
How do you know this? 😉
@@matkahenkilo8554 My first couple of cars i had to fix by percussive maintenance.
16 seconds in and already we are witnessed to a display of immense Finnish approval: "aah, pretty good."
As an Aussie born of Western European parents the whole 20th century WWII to and fro regarding alliances always interested me and I struck some curious anomalies when it came to the Historical facts as taught by Europe versus my British based Education.
It bothered me in my youth but was explained by an elderly Finnish Neighbour by quite simply asking the question of by whom id prefer as an invading army, Soviet Russia? Or Germany....... :-)
And I feel the Finnish choices matched my own.
No only that, bit you can add the fact that since the Finnish civil war, it was the Germans helping Finland, all the way from providing military training, and military equipment, and when you are as small as Finland, you take whatever help you can get when you have eastern hordes swarming your border.
@@BFVsnypEz Not to mention the reparations to Soviet Russia by Finland which surprised me and possibly explains German aid and their help in rebuilding.
Im looking forward to Part II of this Video.
The landscape hasnt changed in Finland from 39. Its still pretty hard for tanks. no open spaces in the east.
A lot of the helmets of finland were austro-hungarian vintage or Hungarian M35 helmets which were a licensed copy of the German M35. Unsure about actual manufacturing of helmets in finland.
Wärtsilä manufactured a large number of domestic M40 helmets during the war.
75,000 german M17 and equal amount of Hungarian m38 helmets were in service during the 1918-1945, and well into the 50´s . Fins did even use Danish,polish,swedish and Italian helmets send as foreign aid, or purchased. and 1941 FIns did buy german m35-41 helmets in bulk, these were not vintage.
@@sygaosHelmet M40 is not stahlhelm, it´s a Finnish copy of the Swedish M37 helmet, which was in Finnish service.
@@apyllyon Sorry, I thought it was about helmets in general, not just stahlhelms.
@sygaos at least i read it it as such, with the Austro Hungarian stuff, no.harm done. Sorry if my comment cane out bit harsh.
Awesome museum
One thing the Finnish armed forces were very good at was borrowing without permission equipment from their enemies and making good use of said "borrowed" equipment.
Very cool
This is a bit like Stefans first few mute videos, I hope there is a lot more to come.
The three grandparents of mine who survived until then, all fought to defend Finland, one ate a soviet bullet, one carried shrapnel in his leg until he passed in 1994. When I get the thumb out and apply for a secondary citizenship there, I will have my documented good reasons to do so, other than having parents from there.
I wish I could go there on my Finland trip next year 😢
The third war, against Germany, had to be have, if I remember correctly, because Soviet gave some kind of ultimatum with connection of peace agreement, that if the Finns won't drive the Germans out of the country, they will come and do it themselves. So sitsuation was basicly fight against to old comrades in arms and keep our independency, or to be occupied by Soviet Union. Which to prevent originally had been fought against Russia for.
Interesting questions you asked and kudeo's to the him answering in a 2nd language
Extremely interesting video
Cheers to Chieftain and to mr. Teräsvalli. Good that sometimes someone finds a Finn who can english decently. Says a finn.
The Parola museum has some very interesting vehicles on display. Though, I'd love to see their exhibition modernized at least a bit.
What does "modernized" mean exactly? You mean hiding the real history that people might find "offensive" or what? That is the most stupid idea ever, history is old, there is no way to "modernize" it.
Finnish war has lots of interesting storys, and details, one is that German leader respected Finland a lot because winter war and when we struck a deal whit German no jews was to be harmed, if i recall correct Finland was only country to make such a deal, remember back then Finland was "bunch of Farmers" whit some hunters like Häyhä :D
I served my conscription 1981 and I had this German style helmet
the finns did really good
So, You INF or ♥?
I do not know if The Chieftain even remember me but this is the place I served my conscription time. Can you imagine - 194 cm short man is place in Tank Brigade. I think The Chieftain has same kind of problem with tanks.
I've met a lot of folks, I need a bit more than that too go on
@@TheChieftainsHatch iLMATORJUNTAPANSARIVAUNU! Remember? And we have not met sorry to say. However I followed your post long time ago since your WOT times. Especially : "omg tank is burning" tests. My problems with tanks is very same kind of. And sorry to say we have bad problems with russia - thousands of years. Ok we fight against vikings. And we fight also against Christianity. And constant tribal wars - so you now can see some trend what we fins are?
I think the question about armor equivalent of Simo Häyhä was misunderstood and rather poorly answered. Lagus was a leader, he did not really participate in the destruction of enemy armor by getting his own hands dirty.
Ulf-Ola Olin is the name of a Finnish person with most destroyed armor credited to his name. He's mostly ignored since he was fighting in the German troops as a Waffen SS volunteer, and not in Finland during the continuation war. In winter war he was an infantry soldier.
He and his tank crew are credited with 34 enemy armor kills.
Finns used Vickers 6 tonners in beginning of Winter War. In early Continuation War we used captured T-26. Same tank but they had better 45mm gun, and we had plenty of them to equip 1 tank division. In 1940 Soviets were worlds fastest sprinters, when Finnish motivated them
Käytiin tuolla kun oltiin aukissa 2012, saatiin kiertue Teräsvallilta jonka alussa hän kysyi: "Paljos on pojilla aamuja jäljellä?" ja joku meistä vastasi "Parisataa" johon Teräsvalli samantien näpäytti "JAA PARI TUHATTA?!"
Mutta oli kyllä hieno kiertue ja hyvä opas
What i wonder, there were a couple of nations with export tanks, like the vikers 6 ton.
But befor the war, germany also the the x.K.A. series of tanks (instead of x a series of different times, example M.K.A. mittlerer kampfpanzer Ausland medium tank export. Armed with a 4,5 cm KwK L/50 gun doing 750m/s with a 1,32kg AP round, so quite nice for the time. There were a bunch, with Mgs, 20mm and 45mm guns.
The project was stopped when the war came, how would have those tanks compared to other export models? Would there have been potential interested customers, that would have prefered lets say the m.k.a. over a vikers 6 ton?
Not relating to this video but perhaps for your next Q&A ...
What are your thoughts or comments on The Tank Museum's latest 'take' on the TOG II? As of 4 days ago, they've dialed back on the mockery and come to some new conclusions.
Oh, can we finally get a inside the hatch video of the most rare and prestigious BT-42?
You are standing near the relics of men of steel. I have read the memouars of finnish tankers in afcion, and i was scared reading them.
The m/40 and m/42 helmets were NOT produced in Finland, the helmets were delivered from Germany
At the end, "Come back next week and we'll Finnish it off." ;)
That armoured car is identical to the Ford of the Irish Army
Sweden also needed every tank they could get their hands on in 39', like everybody else in europe. Only way to get them is to build them your self. Before that you also have to consider that Finnland was dirt poor on the level of not having uniforms for the infanty.
Good job Timo, even with those brain farts not knowing the right words :D
you should bring some fold up chairs with you on these interviews
*******er my chair is on fire!!
The only word i know in Finnish is Kalsarikannit !
Just let me correct a simple fact: Sweden didn't "control Finland" during our 550+ years together. We were one and the same kingdom - there were no differences between the Western and Eastern parts of the Kingdom of Sweden at all.
This exactly. Trying to argue as if Sweden would have some how occupied or anything Finland is totally wrong. Finland was the eastern half of Sweden until 1809
I suspect that there may be a matter of perspective involved. Ireland was the Western part of the United Kingdom, with Dublin as the kingdom's second city, but there is little doubting the mindset that much of Ireland felt it was controlled by the British crown regardless.
@@TheChieftainsHatch What is true for Irish-British relations doesn't necessarly translate well to Finnish-Swedish ones. Every case has its own particular characteristics.
Just as an example, in 1809 when Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire, a significant part of the deal was that we could keep our own laws from our time within the Kingdom of Sweden. You probably noticed that I called them "our own laws". They weren't imposed on us by an outsider - they had been enacted by the Estates, where we had our own representatives.
That’s a proper name for an army man. Teräsvalli translates to Steel Encampment.
@@tapio_m6861 Teräskukko olisi parempi. Mun yläasteella oli oppilas, jonka sukunimi oli Lerssi. Ajattele minkälaisia kaksiosaisia sukunimiä siitä saisi, Rautanen-Lerssi jne
@@hhessu90 No juu mutta tää oli teemaan sopiva nimi. Vähän niinkun Patrian toimitusjohtajan nimi on Rautalinko.
Do they have tiger and panther, perhaps at another location.
They did have 3 months, borrowed from bovington tank museum.
It was just getting interresting and you cut it off.......... Cya in the next episode i guess!
My father in law was born in Finland in the 30's their language is different, a friend of the family was Cory but in Finnish that was about 10 letters?, by the way my mother in law was from Norway, those languages aren't even close, they had 5 kids so they're able to communicate? But my grandma was from Ireland, county cork my wife's grandfather died in Russia.
Finland mentioned
We know what to do
Finnish is fairly easy to pronounce. Completely unintelligible, but easy to read out and parrot. At least for us who have grown up reading Finnish lists of ingredients.
Eisa peitä.
Good interview, however, there are some inaccuracies and missing important nuances in the gentlemans answers in many occasions.
Chieftain, your my favorite youtuber. I wish i had bunkbeds and you slept in the other bed, the talks before sleep would be so awesome
In the 1920s, a lot of leading Finnish officers had come to the conclusion that while tanks might work great on the open plains of Europe (or the British colonies), the Finnish nature full of lakes, forests and swamps, combined with the relative sparsity of roads, made the new weapon impractical or even irrelevant in any future war in Finland. Why exactly there was this sentiment, it's a bit of a mystery, since those actually driving those Renaults found them quite "Finnish terrain capable" and went our demonstrating these capabilities on various garrisons. However (to simplify history a little) around 1933 the military attache from Moscow basically called "these Soviets indeed have tanks and they are clearly capable of operating in a terrain that resemble the Karelian Isthmus, do something!"
Nationalist fantasies played a part. There's a(if memory serves) decent thesis called "The development of Finnish anti-tank weapons, 1918-1939" which goes into some detail about how career military types more or less convinced themselves tanks weren't viable in Finnish terrain and thus neglected to look into anti-tank capability. Although we should probably keep in mind that Panzer I type machine gun only tanks were a thing at the time and anti-tank rifles weren't yet considered a dead end
Chieftain , like us all are showing the change in hair colour