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ott mick I did not understand that much of what you mean. Living in Sweden, which is neighboring Finland . once a part of Sweden, and I can assure you that this is dark like Hell during the winter season.
ott mick no danger. I did not perceive what he said in the same way as you. hence the confusion. As a Swedish, I can easily understand English with German pronunciation. we are very closely related languages. 😉👍
@@ottomickels5120 polarlight depends on region - do you know how many km more north Heksinki is located compared to Berlin? Not that much and big amount of finnish territory is not "polar" and therefore no polarlight. Hörensagen is no real knowledge and doesn't work that way. And a cross check isn't that complicated cause knowing what polar means and where Helsinki and finnlands biggest battles had happened is not rocket science.
Finns did have another advantage in the Winter War as well and that was the Finnish radio intelligence. The Soviet commanders during the Winter War especially in the northern part of the front were forced to use radios to communicate with their superiors when they were surrounded by the Finnish forces. They generally asked permissions to try to breakthrough at certain points and the Finnish radio intelligence routinely decoded those radio messages and informed the Finnish commanders in time.
"Sitä mennään kuunteleen minkalaisia lauluja sielä lauletaan, ja onko niillä sattumia sopas". "[...] go listen to what kinds of songs they're singing over there, and [find out] if they've got any choice morsels in their soup". Instruction [not actual orders] to Finnish [infantry] regarding objectives of reconnaissance, early 1960s. And once again, I'll shut up now. I know if I just keep my mouth shut long enough, somebody will come along and say it better than I would have, tai joku älyjätti pöllähtää paikalle jonkun neronleimauksen kans...
I've heard this to happen a lot in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It seems to be standard procedure for the IDF to destroy power lines and water tanks. They just raise the next generation of enemies so that they are bound by hatred until the end of time.
Check out this last stand it might rival the Spartans www.indiatimes.com/news/battle-of-saragarhi-where-21-sikh-soldiers-killed-600-afghans-in-the-greatest-last-stand-ever-259310.html
A gunsmith friend of mine, now deceased, told me that: after an Olympic medal presentation ceremony, the Finnish medal recipient was asked about his best score but his response puzzled the listeners. He advised that he was not talking about (Olympic) targets, he was talking about Russians! The Russian coach had to be held back.
The chilling side of that is that after Russia had won the Winter War with a near Pyrrhic victory, and conquered some land, one of their generals said it was just enough land to bury their dead.
I'm from Russia and I want show my respect to finnland people that bravely fought for their freedom against bolshevik agression but I feel realy bad for poor russian soldiers that died cause stalin's greed....
Politics is root of pretty much all evil and war. They had document made out of this winter war here in Finland and veterans who served then said that actually finns got mental issues because of the huge losses Russia took. One machinegunner said that they just came wave after wave and he just mowed them down with machine gun.. he said that he still sees nightmares on that event as he knew he was killing fellow humans... =/
I think it was one of the Russian generals who said at the end of the war that Russia gained just enough ground to bury every Russian soldier who died fighting the war. I suspect he didn't say it very loudly or publicly though given Stalin's murderous rampages.
Yes. Nazi and Bolshevik were same evil in 20s century...maybe there is one difference that Russian soldiers didn't understand why the hell they should go in offence, when germans were proud of what they are doing(really few germans were ashamed of their deeds according to diaries I red) and ofcourse Germans killed millions innocent people just in case...I support what's happened after war with germany, but Russia should get some shame too for Finland and baltic countries :)
Thank you very much for this video! Estonians and Finns are very good friends. Many Estonians fought on the Finnish side "For the freedom of Finland and the honour of Estonia" as was their moto. During the Continuation War, the hole Finnish 200. Infantry Regiment consisted of Estonians. They were called "Finnish boys" ("Soomepoisid" in Estonian) and in 1944 they also fought in Estonia under the Estonian flag.
Not very many would-be volunteers from Estonia made it into Finland in time to take part in the winter war. The Soviet Union had bases in Estonia and the authorities tried to prevent anyone from helping Finland, apparently leading people to be arrested trying to cross the borders out of the country. Some Estonians tried to get into Finland by crossing the ice of the frozen Gulf of Finland by walking over it, but I don't know if anyone of them actually ended up actually fighting in the Finnish army at that time. During the continuation war the matter was different however. That time Estonians were the largest group of foreign volunteers to Finland I believe.
one thing about the finnish troops were that they were alot of childhood friends fighting in the area that they grew up in and they knew the area and the men around them but the russians sent a ukranian division to try and invade Finland
Don't forget, Russian troops in Siberia who were high trained in skiing and forest warfare were on Soviet frontier opposite Japanese troops at the time. Many Finns from Karelia were conscripted into the Soviet Army. They defecting over at Finnish side.
The Swedish military staff estimated the Finns to be able to hold out for approx 100 days when a Soviet invasion became likely.. they managed to hold out for 105. I think looking at this, Swedes were one of few who didn't underestimate the Finns like many others did.
Nice video, but you could have mentioned how the tactics were practically used in action. For example that the finns would often destroy or disable the first and the last vehicle of a large column on the road, thus trapping the entire column. Also, while it is true that many russians fought hard, the finns still took many prisoners. And a lot of the soviet troops were not russian and these troops had poor morale, and often surrendered in droves.
Hello from Finland :) I like that somebody finally talks about a war that my country has been in, not many people even know about the Finnish Winter War (Talvisota/Vinterkriget). All videos I've found thus far have only been Documentaries, and they were good and all, but they never talked about tactics or such. So Thank you for this video, keep it up! :D
Did you know that during Winter War Germany was actually stopping aid to Finland? And about the civil war which you for whatever reason brought to Winter War discussion, the reds were not too brave, mostly they fled the battlefields or surrendered, the times when they didn't they suffered worse casualties than whites. Most reds were actually forgiven after the war, despite their treason.
Pseudo-fascist dictatorship with proper, honest and regular elections and the Social Democratic Party - red side of the Civil War - in the cabinet during the latter part of the 1930s? Sounds odd. Also, why did this pseudo-fascist dictatorship oppose and foil an attempted coup by actual fascist to turn Finland into a properly fascist dictatorship? And if Mannerheim was a dictator, why did presidents such as Kallio, Ryti, Svinhuvud, Relander and Ståhlberg have more power than him, and why was Mannerheim actually mostly on the sidelines in the 1920s? This does not sound like fascism or dictatorship, whether pseudo or not. Care to elaborate?
It's merely a collary of the recent understanding that "CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL" Get ready, because, as the German butcher once said: "the wurst is yet to come."
"When the enemy is driven back, we have failed, and when he is cut off, encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded." - Prince Aleksandr V. Suvorov, Count of Rymnik, Russian general
I personally think Germany could of conquered east Russia but they underestimated them. Didn't have the winter gear and so forth. But yeah don't mess with russia
Mörköriinitta22 5/video &lumen tossa ja they conquered a troubled Russia without a leader and tried to impose their own catholic King. not much bravery involved
Nice video as usual. I came up with few points and/or clarifications: 1. Motti is stere (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stere) in english and refers to 1 cubic meter of firewood. Nobody really knows who or why first started calling pocket of surrounded soviet forces as a motti. 2. Motti tactics were mostly used in area north from the Lake Ladoga. This was very remote area with bad road infrastructure (as mentioned in the video) and finnish military planners didn't expect soviets to attack there as it seemed obvious that soviets couldn't use their numerical superiority and technical advantage in those circumstances. This resulted in serious lack of manpower in the area at the start of hostilities and hastily deployment of troops from Karelian Isthmus sector to slow down the soviets. 3. As famous as motti battles are, they were still a sideshow to battles at Karelian Isthmus where better road network allowed russian to use their advantages in artillery and armor more efficiently. War was decided there regardless how bad the soviet losses in the north were. 4. Mannerheim's knowledge and understanding of soviet capabilities should be taken with a grain of salt. Old man was and is idolized a lot but he was old guard from WWI era cavalry and maybe not the most modern military thinker at the time. He had quite capable staff to run the show and finnish army was mostly reacting to soviet moves. But motti tactics were truly tactical level stuff that emerged on the battlefield so this is more on the sidenotes...
I think point 2. and 3. illustrates the strengths of Mannerheim though. In finnish military command there was a rift between those that had served with Russians and those that had served with Germans(the Jägers) in WW1. The entire finnish officer corps were of course exceptionally good and innovative, however it seems to me that there were strong differences between these sides. Mannerheim and his circles focused on grand strategy, having a consolidated front, conservation of limited resources and buying time. Also Mannerheim premiered political relaibility amongst his commanders during the Continuation war to avoid that Finland go too tied to Germany. The Jägers however were more focused on operational art, using the limited finnish resources as efficiently as possible to deal as much losses as possible to the enemy and to blunt enemy offensives. Neither of these focuese really worked on its own, Finland could not realistically hold USSR back by causing losses, military strategy had to be subordinated to diplomatic and political solutions. Meanwhile a consolidated front and conservation of resources is worthless if the enemy achieves and exploits a breakthrough.
Yes, it is true that the soviets eventually succeeded, but when you compare the manpower of the soviets to us finns, it is quite remarkable that we managed to hold them back for as long as we did.
Jonatan Jaakkola it wasnt easy to assault mannerheims defencive line in winter. as you know, you should have 3-5 times more soldiers for success. finns fought well, but for soviet soldiers it was harder - they were attacking foreign territory. the aim was to move borders away from leningrad.
schnitzel2121 No, the point was to turn Finland into a communist shithole like CCCP. That was like the mantra that soviet repeated constantly. They wanted a global revolution.
prospectus finland was hitlers ally. ive seen photos of soviet children in finnish concentration camps. ptzgovorit.ru/sites/default/files/original_nodes/301669_original.jpg so maybe finland was a shithole, no? red army was close to victory when finland agreed for soviet demands. global revolution? do you realise how much problems were in ussr? everybody thinked how to survive, how to industrialize country to make possible product enough tanks and planes for upcoming war, not about bullshit like global revolution. trotsky was already far away from ussr, by the way.
My grandfater was a combat engineer at battle of Suomussalmi/Road of Raate. He told me that they did not have enough guns and ammunitions. But that was only in first days, after that there were all the ammunitions and rifles you need lying all over the forrest.
Finnish strategists - if my professor is to be believed - preferred to liken these tactics to Cannae, but yes, it's almost exactly like the Teutoburg forest.
Eddycurrents Cannae is a classic example of double envelopment, which was what the Finnish strategists were referring to. I think that to the Finnish army motti tactics, at the time, were mostly conventional warfare waged in atypical circumstances. Of course, Cannae is also a much more well known and widely studied battle than the Teutoburg forest, so it might have been more fresh in minds of the Finnish leadership.
+Ville Hammar It is clear that Cannae is quite different to motti, though. Motti is dividing a group of enemies and achieving a localised superiority. Cannae is the retreat of the centre to allow for the flanks to surround and collapse in. It speaks to a completely different style of warfare.
In fact, the winner of the war was the one who fulfilled his goal. The goal of the Soviet Union was to conquer Finland. They did not succeed in that but they still had to decide on the terms of peace which made it as if they won even though the Finns showed the world that the "mighty Red Army" was really weak (it was defence victory to finns)
>In fact, the winner of the war was the one who fulfilled his goal. ROFLMAO >The goal of the Soviet Union was to conquer Finland. The goal of Soviet Union was to get Hankoniemi and to move border from Leningrad. >it was defence victory to finns ROFLMAO
@@ВячеславСкопюк How do you explain Suomussalmi then, which this entire video was about? 400km north of Helsinki... heading west, 450km north of Hankoniemi (at least you got that right)
Thank you for making a regular habit of providing information sources, that's a really good habit that people should adopt. It makes clearing up misunderstanding and tracking down information much easier.
UltimateToby 17 Well 505 Sniperkills are Impressiv.......also the Sowjets Used Anti Sniper Teams and Artillerie to Deal With him (Which Failed) and so He Bound many Man and Ressources which the Sowjets Could have Used Otherwise.Also it would be an Enourmus Penalty in Moral if you know that a Enemy Sniper has Killed over 500 of your Own Men.I know that a Person Alone Doesn't make a Big Difference in a War but I believe that Simo Häyha would be an Big Exception to this Rule.....
Finlandiamapper I don't Forget It....the Higher Ups would not Tell you that for sure but the Soldiers Would Talk about it with each other.....Maybe some People who got away from him Told the Tale about the White Death (I mean he must have had Some Recognition if he was Given a Badass Nickname like that)
Vietkong and North Vietnam were heavily backed up by industrialized nations. And 'dedicated local population' was not able to do anything to stop the advance of Soviet troops in 1940
Amazing video, thank you so much for making this, it is also a great complimentary material to the kings and generals' channel videos on the winter war.
oh yes that was intentional, but I forgot that I put it in there. I quite often forget jokes and reference I put in, especially this one, because I didn't write it during scripting, but during the design process.
Originally, the term "motti" was simply slang for "one cubic metre of firewood". Mind you, this was simply a measurement of volume, so the wood did not necessarily have to be in a nicely arranged pile; in fact, there are distinctions, such as "heittomotti" (thrown motti, wood in a loose, disorganised pile) or "pinomotti" (stacked motti, wood in a neatly stacked pile), and the latter obviously contains more wood by mass than the former. I have heard at least three explanations for the origin of the word in military use: 1) There was a Finnish military base codenamed "motti" that was actually overrun by the Soviets and the term somehow transferred to mean an isolated pocket of troops; 2) Some officers were looking at a tactical map depicting a pocket of Soviet troops, the tactical markings (lines etc.) visually reminded one of a stack of firewood, he remarked on it using the word "motti" and it spread from there; 3) There was a military telephone exchange codenamed "motti", a Soviet unit was isolated near it and that particular pocket came to be known by the name of the telephone exchange, and then it spread from there and was applied to other such pockets as well. "Motti" would be a very natural codename for the Finnish millitary, who preferred short, clear and distinct words, either first names or natural/everyday subjects. By all accounts, the term was invented fairly late, and mottis existed long before they were called that. Mind you, the term was motti tactic- or even Winter War-specific for a very short time only (if at all) and soon came to mean any isolated pocket of troops, ie. it basically has the same meaning as the german "kessel". For example, Stalingrad would be called "a gigantic motti"
Motti at Raatteentie was extraordinarily brutal. The "fire woods" as you call them, could at some places be only a couple of meters long, where a squad of Russian soldiers were holding out.
One thing to mention was that Finnish ski-troops had pretty great camouflage and could pretty much move undetected to very close positions, the Soviets were easy to spot and were often fighting enemies that they could not see.
Greetings from Finland. This was a good characterization of what happened. To add to this review: Finns faced a far superior foe in the Finnish wars. Russians had 5-10× superiority in men and equipment. The terrain in Northern Finland could be characterised as wilderness with only one narrow road passing through that. The Russian armored columns had trouble progressing in the extreme cold and Finnish ski patrols raided the columns from advantageous positions, which created havoc and panic. The winter conditions are so severe that there is a real risk of freezing to death if a man stays out without proper equipment and shelter. in this sense, the Finns won the battles for having better mobility in this terrain. Similar tactics can be followed today with proper motorised units that can take initiative and reach local superiority thanks to their speed in attack and retreat. Read the details about the cruellest motti: the Raate Road where a complete division was annihilated basically by raiding ski patrols. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raate_Road
@@Mentol_ They started the war with about 450 000 frontline troops, not including personnel of supporting Soviet airforce and red banner Baltic fleet, which were rather sizeable in terms of equipment and manpower involved in their organization, while the original Finnish covert wave of mobilization could muster 180 000 men to oppose them. The Soviets doubled their troop numbers during the war, adding about half a million more troops, focusing their reinforcements at the Karelian Isthmus. This ramped up the Soviet troop totals into well over 700 000 at one given time, despite their huge casualties. In some capacity nearly a million Soviet soldiers participated in the fighting and including the supporting and leading elements The figures may be as high as 1 100 000. Finland could muster at the second wave of mobilization during the war more reservists, raising the troop total at about 340 000 at maximum I believe. The Finnish airforce and navy were tiny in comparison to the enemy and Finland didn't really have a functioning tank arm before the war at all.
Oh nice! felt bad when i diden't find some good sources for you when i promised it some while ago. But now i don't have to feel bad. Nice videos as always! :)
I read a book a long time ago about Lauri Torni, later Larry Thorne, who described Motti Tactics. He later went on to fight for the Nazis and then immigrated to America where he was one of the founding members of US Special Forces and I believe died in Vietnam.
He did die in Vietnam and if I recall correctly had influence on USMC training ideology of "every marine is a rifleman" which has been part of Finnish military doctrine since formation of Finnish Defence Forces.
How motti tactics in winter war is understood by me= they took out the first vehicles in the column, thus stopping the force from advancing. Then, they took out the rear so that they could not move any vehicles without great trouble. Then, they just divided and waited for the enemy to be weak enough to surrender, or to be killed with low effort and casualties
I am from finland, my grandfather fought on winter war. If you want see one nice example of succeed motti tactic, Go look Battle of raate road. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raate_Road
The Soviets also expected a very short conflict...a military band with all its uniforms and instruments was sent along with the invaders in anticipation of a victory parade down the main streets of Helsinki. A comment allegedly made by the Finns at the beginning of the wear was, "So many Russians...where will we bury them all???"
Hi "Military History Visualized", your illustration and choice of visual cues/icons is amazing and really helps retain the information that you are presenting. Thank for this great lecture about this lesser known aspect of the WW II conflict which did have a significant impact on the future performance of the Soviet Armed Forces, Ciao, L (USA/CAN)
Nice presentation, i enjoy every single explanation from it. Now pls can you do the opposite climate; Japanese Jungle Guerrilla Warfare?. Im so interest to know how they utilize their defence toward US Marines offensive.
7 років тому+2
As always, a wonderful video. They always are, at MHV.
Nice timing. Released this on the day that we here in Minnesota (United States) were hit with a powerful blizzard that also happens to be the first snow of the season.
Two things: Mind making a piece about the differences between "Blitzkrieg" and "Deep Battle"? And, I really wonder how the soviet-finnish war would have turned out, if Stalin would have launched it in spring or summer - into the karelian swamps. According to my understanding, this landscape is mostly unpassable for heavy equipment, exept in winter when all is frozen. - In case this is really the fact, "winterwar" may have been the only option to attempt to swallow up Finland.
With the experience gathered in the eastern front, red army decided to start their decisive offensive against Finland on 9th of June 1944. Most combat took place in very similar terrain and in some cases in the old battlefields of winterwar. So even though Finns managed to eventually stop the offensive, Finland was effectively knocked out of the war. So summer offensive for example in 1940 could have been much more effectively than the winterwar. Especially since Finnish antitank capabilities, artillery or armored forces wouldn't have been anywhere near the numbers of summer of 1944. I cannot be but happy about this, since I'd hate to live in Russia...
+TheUtho I'll try to make it simple: Blitzkrieg basically means identifying a weak spot in the enemy's line and then concentrating most of your forces there in order to achieve a breakthrough. After it is achieved, the units go on severing the communication and supply lines of the enemies in one big encirclement. The deep battle has a few differences: It begins with heavy bombardment against the enemy line in order to create more weaker points. After these points were created, the massive numbers of troops in reserve will try to breach through all of them at once. After that is done the troops will advance creating many smaller encirclements against the enemy.
This is also one reason that, to this day, there is no major motorway from Finland to Russia along the eastern border, nor is there major railroads despite Russia being Finland's major trading partner.
The Finns also invented the "Molotov cocktail", named after the minister of foreign affairs. I would not be surprised if some historians argued that without the help of the Americans the Germans would have conquered Russia.
Contradict for sake of contradiction! It got its name and fame after Molotov one of the SOVIET smartass and another contradictor for the sake of contradiction the west was against Hitler and tried to stop The SOVIET making a deal with Germany and it didn't work the US had to help Russia fight Germany after "Barbarossa", whatever was done or attempted by the west was contradicted by Russia or the SOVIETS. Simply put Russia was envious and jealous of the US and to prove their existence they contradicted. Moujiks is what they are the only great accomplishment by Russians is in the artistic world and the greatest were before the revolution.
Excellent video. Those of us who read in depth about the Winter War will understand that, in the fighting north of Lake Ladoga, the use of fortified roadblocks by the Finns had to be supported by mobile infantry units operating off-road along the Soviet's flanks. So in terms of a static fight, the evolution of motti tactics was clearly the best way for the Finnish army to offset their numerical inferiority and prevent the Soviets from bringing up company after company to reinforce their assaults at the spearhead. The platoon-sized Finnish battlegroups which carried out the 'cutting' attacks on the Soviet columns employed some of the best shock assault tactics of the entire Second World War in my opinion. Trotter's book, by the way, is a must read.
+Riku Penttila > against 2 soviet divisions and a brigade with 45 000-55 000 soldiers. not all of them were encircled. And there were about 7000 battle casualties on the Raate road
Hey, Mr Visualised. Just a thought, how about you chuck-in some original photos into your videos? Does not have to be a lo t- maybe 2 photos per video should do. I am sure that we all appreciate your animations and tables - still a photo speaks a thousand words. Lets take your video about Japanese defensive positions - you described it, you drew stages of its construction... now think how awesome it would be if at the end of it you would superimpose the drawing over an areal photo of the site :) Yes, yes I know not all photos are easy to get but I think the additional visualisation and a certain "cool factor" is worth your effort.
I have done this a few times, but for the most part I don't have time to search for photos that can be used in commercial videos. You know copyright laws. Relevant tweet 21 minutes ago from the GreatWar twitter.com/WW1_Series/status/799616019971055620
Damn, that is what I feared :/ Well, shame, I thought that it could really help make your videos even more popular. :/ Thank you for your reply and your work.
> "SA-kuva" thx, may use them in upcoming videos. The main problem is that every country uses different terms of use for its various footage, I only know that the US is pretty cool in that regard, whereas Germany isn't.
Military History Visualized PPSh-41 has predecessors like PPD-40, PPD-34 and PPD-27 - russian submachineguns by Vasiliy Degtyarev. You can google the pictures and see similarities - drum magazine etc. Mechanically PPsh-41 has little common with KP-31.
I heard many story's from my grandfather when he was in the winter war, also I was in the finnish army. We use the land to hide and terrain to our advantage in strategic locations surrounding the enemy and picking them off
Winter... Man sieht nicht nur wenig wegen der Länge der Nacht. Gerade wenn die Sonne stark scheint, kann man schneeblind werden - auch als Pilot eines Luftfahrzeugs! Es sei denn, man hat seine Augen gewappnet...
My two cents: 1) You're exaggerating the impact of cleansing in the officer corps. Quality the officer corps has fallen significantly due to the increasing the numbers of the Red Army 2) Carl Mannerheim served in the Russian Imperial Army, not in Red Army. So he was aware of the capabilities of of the Red Army as far as the Finnish intelligence knew about them
2) I explicitly stated that he served in the Imperial Russian Army, I think you clearly underestimate how much can be changed in 21 years, when it comes to training, doctrine, etc.
about 1) check out what happens if a company fires about 5-10 % of its workforce. The purges killed a higher percentage of high-ranking officers. Most people are seriously inhibited just by thought of being fired, I can only imagine what happens if someone is faced with being killed almost constantly.
Military History Visualized check out what happens if a company experiencing explosive growth. The Red Army was experiencing problems with the quality of the middle and lower command staff. >I can only imagine what happens if someone is faced with being killed almost constantly. You (and I) are the product of 60 years of peace, has not grown in the devastated country that survived civil war. It's difficult to understand the feelings of people who lived through this
+Military History Visualized >I think you clearly underestimate how much can be changed in 21 years, when it comes to training, doctrine, etc. I think, all was changed since WWI and Mannerheim service as cavalry commander. Emerged mechanized warfare, small unit tactics and such.
+Вячеслав Скопюк finnish army was weak but smart. They used little blitzkriegs and ski troops to weaken red army advance to Turku it is a city centre of finland so if red army would capture Turku finland would fall
Motti tactics was never planned before Winter War. Finns improvised it to compensate their long list of weakness. The whole Finnish idea in warfare can be described: "we have here a huge dangerous problem, how to solve the problem". There was no "doctrine" at all. Red Army was schematic, their soldiers were extremely brave and stubborn, leaders followed their doctrine even when reality was suggesting more flexible tactic and strategy. I won't say Red Army fought poorly. Don't forget that Finns made also blunders and Motti tactics were used only north from Karelian Isthmus which was main front.
Karelian Isthmus was fortified and not all that big of an area so motti tactics weren't optimal there as it would have been too easy for Soviets to bring in other troops to help the surrounded units.
Aren't they already doing this. Russians enter a forest, few minutes later they get smoked. They can't fight them even in open fields because of general mud and range of their anti-tank guns.
Actually simo never fought in the motti battles he was at kollaa. holding back the soviets who tried to take the town using its railway. We had an armored train there.
How? The Soviets fought poorly, but they could simply funnel in more troops and win by attrition. Which they did. The Finns were fighting very defensively and lacked a proper war industry. They had basically no tanks, no anti-tank weapons, no air force and only a small population to draw forces from.
Again, the Finns used what they had. The terrain was heavily forested and they couldn't land troop planes on open snow fields, so the soviets would fly really low over the fields at just above stall - and the troops would just jump out into the snow. The Finns prepared for this by painting rock fields white. That's a pretty cheap and easy defence against a known offensive tactic. It doesn't take manpower to monitor these weak points.This made the soviets use airborne divisions, which aren't trained for long term battle, but short intense battle to soften the defenses long enough for the main infantry to arrive. A paratrooper can only jump with enough ammo and food to last a few days - they require logistic support fairly quickly. The Finns didn't need to fight these guys, isolation and the elements would do the job for them.
The Finns used whatever they had and it initially worked, however, when the war was nearing its end the Soviets were reinforcing with more and more troops. Finland sought peace because it was going to be completely annexed if the Soviets got a huge lead. Actually, the USSR got more than it initially demanded from this war.
Hey! very good video with many well explained aspects. If you want to make your videos more appealing: try to insert more illustrations such as maps of the area (in this case of Finland, I am sure you could find some old Maps where the finish officers actually wrote down these special artillery positions and such and the few roads. Also some pictures and maybe videos of the circumstances allow the viewer to imagine the nature of this kind of warfare). I think your channel is very trustworthy and objective, which is a rare thing on the internet these days. Looking forward to more videos :)
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ott mick
I did not understand that much of what you mean.
Living in Sweden, which is neighboring Finland .
once a part of Sweden, and I can assure you that this is dark like Hell during the winter season.
ott mick
no danger. I did not perceive what he said in the same way as you. hence the confusion. As a Swedish, I can easily understand English with German pronunciation. we are very closely related languages.
😉👍
Military History Visualized thanks for improving my aoe2 game man. Now I can use the huns better against fucking halbaders and archers.
hey could I get this entire video in written form please? I'm compiling a book on military theory.
@@ottomickels5120 polarlight depends on region - do you know how many km more north Heksinki is located compared to Berlin?
Not that much and big amount of finnish territory is not "polar" and therefore no polarlight.
Hörensagen is no real knowledge and doesn't work that way. And a cross check isn't that complicated cause knowing what polar means and where Helsinki and finnlands biggest battles had happened is not rocket science.
Finns did have another advantage in the Winter War as well and that was the Finnish radio intelligence. The Soviet commanders during the Winter War especially in the northern part of the front were forced to use radios to communicate with their superiors when they were surrounded by the Finnish forces. They generally asked permissions to try to breakthrough at certain points and the Finnish radio intelligence routinely decoded those radio messages and informed the Finnish commanders in time.
So nothing has changed
Fun fact: Finns attacked the kitchens in one of the top priority to literally destroy their morale, which did decrease their morale severely.
Do you have a source for this?
There's several references to this tactic in "A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940" by William Trotter.
I guess the Finns wanted to keep it humane, and did not attack the Soviet vodka supplies.
"Sitä mennään kuunteleen minkalaisia lauluja sielä lauletaan, ja onko niillä sattumia sopas". "[...] go listen to what kinds of songs they're singing over there, and [find out] if they've got any choice morsels in their soup". Instruction [not actual orders] to Finnish [infantry] regarding objectives of reconnaissance, early 1960s. And once again, I'll shut up now. I know if I just keep my mouth shut long enough, somebody will come along and say it better than I would have, tai joku älyjätti pöllähtää paikalle jonkun neronleimauksen kans...
@@trolldify you should check out sausage warfare, thats perfect example of how human life ment nothing for ussr :D
One of the practical ways used to deny shelter was shooting the soup kitchens full of holes with rifle fire.
Perkelenaattori 😂😂😂😂
jsm666 war is the remedy our enemies have chosen, and I say, let us give them all they want.
10.12.1939, Never forget the legendary "SAUSAGE WAR"
I've heard this to happen a lot in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It seems to be standard procedure for the IDF to destroy power lines and water tanks. They just raise the next generation of enemies so that they are bound by hatred until the end of time.
Shelter and food are indeed related, but not the same...
Finland best KD ratio ever.
K/D Ratio: 742.0
Get yo facts right!
That's not a ratio tho, because you can't divide by 0
Nii prkl >:)
not even close... Sparta won that
Check out this last stand it might rival the Spartans www.indiatimes.com/news/battle-of-saragarhi-where-21-sikh-soldiers-killed-600-afghans-in-the-greatest-last-stand-ever-259310.html
The Finnish soldiers had a joke that went something like this:
They are so many, and our country so small. Where will we find space to bury them all?
Holy shit that's dark
Holy shit that's dark
A gunsmith friend of mine, now deceased, told me that: after an Olympic medal presentation ceremony, the Finnish medal recipient was asked about his best score but his response puzzled the listeners. He advised that he was not talking about (Olympic) targets, he was talking about Russians! The Russian coach had to be held back.
The chilling side of that is that after Russia had won the Winter War with a near Pyrrhic victory, and conquered some land, one of their generals said it was just enough land to bury their dead.
Might as well cremate them
I'm from Russia and I want show my respect to finnland people that bravely fought for their freedom against bolshevik agression but I feel realy bad for poor russian soldiers that died cause stalin's greed....
Politics is root of pretty much all evil and war. They had document made out of this winter war here in Finland and veterans who served then said that actually finns got mental issues because of the huge losses Russia took. One machinegunner said that they just came wave after wave and he just mowed them down with machine gun.. he said that he still sees nightmares on that event as he knew he was killing fellow humans... =/
I think it was one of the Russian generals who said at the end of the war that Russia gained just enough ground to bury every Russian soldier who died fighting the war. I suspect he didn't say it very loudly or publicly though given Stalin's murderous rampages.
Yes. Nazi and Bolshevik were same evil in 20s century...maybe there is one difference that Russian soldiers didn't understand why the hell they should go in offence, when germans were proud of what they are doing(really few germans were ashamed of their deeds according to diaries I red) and ofcourse Germans killed millions innocent people just in case...I support what's happened after war with germany, but Russia should get some shame too for Finland and baltic countries :)
“Older men start wars, but younger men fight them." Einstein
It was not fun times for either side.
Thank you very much for this video! Estonians and Finns are very good friends. Many Estonians fought on the Finnish side "For the freedom of Finland and the honour of Estonia" as was their moto. During the Continuation War, the hole Finnish 200. Infantry Regiment consisted of Estonians. They were called "Finnish boys" ("Soomepoisid" in Estonian) and in 1944 they also fought in Estonia under the Estonian flag.
I have much respect for the Estonians!
Not very many would-be volunteers from Estonia made it into Finland in time to take part in the winter war. The Soviet Union had bases in Estonia and the authorities tried to prevent anyone from helping Finland, apparently leading people to be arrested trying to cross the borders out of the country.
Some Estonians tried to get into Finland by crossing the ice of the frozen Gulf of Finland by walking over it, but I don't know if anyone of them actually ended up actually fighting in the Finnish army at that time.
During the continuation war the matter was different however. That time Estonians were the largest group of foreign volunteers to Finland I believe.
Honour of Estonia? What honor? Estonia can't even defend itself alone. NATO needs Finland more than Finland needs NATO. Finland sends regards
one thing about the finnish troops were that they were alot of childhood friends fighting in the area that they grew up in and they knew the area and the men around them but the russians sent a ukranian division to try and invade Finland
Russians were afraid that if they sent people from the nearby border areas, those soldiers might be sympathetic towards the Finns and refuse to fight.
Don't forget, Russian troops in Siberia who were high trained in skiing and forest warfare were on Soviet frontier opposite Japanese troops at the time. Many Finns from Karelia were conscripted into the Soviet Army. They defecting over at Finnish side.
The most noble way to go in a war, is defending ones home.
Soviet Union sent 4 armies to fight in Finland
7th, 8th, 9th and 14th
Wich one was an "Ukrainian division"?
Gustavo Wegas in one of the armies there were a ukranian division cant remember wich army it belonged to
Finns are awesome! - Much love from your northern brothers in Canada.
:DDDD benis
The Swedish military staff estimated the Finns to be able to hold out for approx 100 days when a Soviet invasion became likely.. they managed to hold out for 105. I think looking at this, Swedes were one of few who didn't underestimate the Finns like many others did.
Nice video, but you could have mentioned how the tactics were practically used in action. For example that the finns would often destroy or disable the first and the last vehicle of a large column on the road, thus trapping the entire column. Also, while it is true that many russians fought hard, the finns still took many prisoners. And a lot of the soviet troops were not russian and these troops had poor morale, and often surrendered in droves.
planned for other videos, I spent 27 hours on the previous videos, thus I only had about 12 hours for this one.
Battle of Suomussalmi is planned.
"Disturbance in the force" I see what you did there :)
There was also "Winter is coming" in the beginning as well.
and winter is coming...
Rubashow when did he say that
Thank you! I thought I was the only one!
I've always wanted you to do a video on the Winter War and here we are!
Hello from Finland :)
I like that somebody finally talks about a war that my country has been in, not many people even know about the Finnish Winter War (Talvisota/Vinterkriget). All videos I've found thus far have only been Documentaries, and they were good and all, but they never talked about tactics or such. So Thank you for this video, keep it up! :D
You showed them ruskies who's boss!
Indeed :D
But we did loose...
Russians remember Winter War very well, there even exist mods/scenarios for wargames on that period.
Alexander Seven
Oh?
much respect to the Finns for making the bolsheviks pay for trying to take thier freedom
***** no one even mentioned national socialists,this is about the Finns removing the invaders from their sovereign country
Did you know that during Winter War Germany was actually stopping aid to Finland?
And about the civil war which you for whatever reason brought to Winter War discussion, the reds were not too brave, mostly they fled the battlefields or surrendered, the times when they didn't they suffered worse casualties than whites. Most reds were actually forgiven after the war, despite their treason.
Pasi Ahola your welcome
Pseudo-fascist dictatorship with proper, honest and regular elections and the Social Democratic Party - red side of the Civil War - in the cabinet during the latter part of the 1930s? Sounds odd. Also, why did this pseudo-fascist dictatorship oppose and foil an attempted coup by actual fascist to turn Finland into a properly fascist dictatorship? And if Mannerheim was a dictator, why did presidents such as Kallio, Ryti, Svinhuvud, Relander and Ståhlberg have more power than him, and why was Mannerheim actually mostly on the sidelines in the 1920s? This does not sound like fascism or dictatorship, whether pseudo or not. Care to elaborate?
Can't be Fascist if they kill Commies during 1918 due to the simple fact Fascism was around as a major political movement at least till the 1920s
yes finally thank you have been waiting for this
it's the king! BOW YOU FOOLISH (Console-)PEASANTS
Are the Zero Punctuation Imps coming to claim the world? Is this the apocalypse?
It's merely a collary of the recent understanding that "CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL"
Get ready, because, as the German butcher once said: "the wurst is yet to come."
"When the enemy is driven back, we have failed, and when he is cut off, encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded."
- Prince Aleksandr V. Suvorov, Count of Rymnik, Russian general
There are only 2 main rules for ground warfare.
1. Don't invade Russia in winter
2. Don't fuck with the finns
olavi kaskisaari more like dont invade russia at all
I personally think Germany could of conquered east Russia but they underestimated them.
Didn't have the winter gear
and so forth.
But yeah don't mess with russia
Mörköriinitta22 5/video &lumen tossa ja
they conquered a troubled Russia without a leader and tried to impose their own catholic King. not much bravery involved
And never start a land war in Asia.
The soviet union got more support from the Uk than it did the US and its soviets not russia. People really need to finally understand the distiction.
This Tactic is OP United nations nerf pls
Philipsgaming Geneva Convention nerf pls*
actually, everything banned in the geneva convention would be the counter to this obviously.
I like the video before it starts because I already know I'm gonna learn something good :D
Jacob Chard because finns know everything
PervertPete poika ansatsee kunnon oppitunnin...
The darkness of the human mind even as it is slightly lighter.
Nice video as usual. I came up with few points and/or clarifications:
1. Motti is stere (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stere) in english and refers to 1 cubic meter of firewood. Nobody really knows who or why first started calling pocket of surrounded soviet forces as a motti.
2. Motti tactics were mostly used in area north from the Lake Ladoga. This was very remote area with bad road infrastructure (as mentioned in the video) and finnish military planners didn't expect soviets to attack there as it seemed obvious that soviets couldn't use their numerical superiority and technical advantage in those circumstances. This resulted in serious lack of manpower in the area at the start of hostilities and hastily deployment of troops from Karelian Isthmus sector to slow down the soviets.
3. As famous as motti battles are, they were still a sideshow to battles at Karelian Isthmus where better road network allowed russian to use their advantages in artillery and armor more efficiently. War was decided there regardless how bad the soviet losses in the north were.
4. Mannerheim's knowledge and understanding of soviet capabilities should be taken with a grain of salt. Old man was and is idolized a lot but he was old guard from WWI era cavalry and maybe not the most modern military thinker at the time. He had quite capable staff to run the show and finnish army was mostly reacting to soviet moves. But motti tactics were truly tactical level stuff that emerged on the battlefield so this is more on the sidenotes...
that's a good point
I think point 2. and 3. illustrates the strengths of Mannerheim though. In finnish military command there was a rift between those that had served with Russians and those that had served with Germans(the Jägers) in WW1. The entire finnish officer corps were of course exceptionally good and innovative, however it seems to me that there were strong differences between these sides.
Mannerheim and his circles focused on grand strategy, having a consolidated front, conservation of limited resources and buying time. Also Mannerheim premiered political relaibility amongst his commanders during the Continuation war to avoid that Finland go too tied to Germany.
The Jägers however were more focused on operational art, using the limited finnish resources as efficiently as possible to deal as much losses as possible to the enemy and to blunt enemy offensives.
Neither of these focuese really worked on its own, Finland could not realistically hold USSR back by causing losses, military strategy had to be subordinated to diplomatic and political solutions. Meanwhile a consolidated front and conservation of resources is worthless if the enemy achieves and exploits a breakthrough.
Makes me proud to be finnish! Hakkaa päälle pohjan poika!!
what good job, idiot? they lost the war and soviets took all they wanted in the campaign.
Yes, it is true that the soviets eventually succeeded, but when you compare the manpower of the soviets to us finns, it is quite remarkable that we managed to hold them back for as long as we did.
Jonatan Jaakkola it wasnt easy to assault mannerheims defencive line in winter. as you know, you should have 3-5 times more soldiers for success. finns fought well, but for soviet soldiers it was harder - they were attacking foreign territory. the aim was to move borders away from leningrad.
schnitzel2121 No, the point was to turn Finland into a communist shithole like CCCP. That was like the mantra that soviet repeated constantly. They wanted a global revolution.
prospectus finland was hitlers ally. ive seen photos of soviet children in finnish concentration camps. ptzgovorit.ru/sites/default/files/original_nodes/301669_original.jpg so maybe finland was a shithole, no? red army was close to victory when finland agreed for soviet demands. global revolution? do you realise how much problems were in ussr? everybody thinked how to survive, how to industrialize country to make possible product enough tanks and planes for upcoming war, not about bullshit like global revolution. trotsky was already far away from ussr, by the way.
Instant like for video about Finland
perkele
My grandfater was a combat engineer at battle of Suomussalmi/Road of Raate. He told me that they did not have enough guns and ammunitions. But that was only in first days, after that there were all the ammunitions and rifles you need lying all over the forrest.
2:48 Feel it?
disturbance in the force
Star wars
It dawned on me that this is the exact tactics used at the Teutoberg forest by Herman the German.
Finnish strategists - if my professor is to be believed - preferred to liken these tactics to Cannae, but yes, it's almost exactly like the Teutoburg forest.
I was just thinking that.
+Ville Hammar Cannae was hammer and anvil though... I don't see how that is the same as motti
Eddycurrents
Cannae is a classic example of double envelopment, which was what the Finnish strategists were referring to. I think that to the Finnish army motti tactics, at the time, were mostly conventional warfare waged in atypical circumstances. Of course, Cannae is also a much more well known and widely studied battle than the Teutoburg forest, so it might have been more fresh in minds of the Finnish leadership.
+Ville Hammar It is clear that Cannae is quite different to motti, though. Motti is dividing a group of enemies and achieving a localised superiority. Cannae is the retreat of the centre to allow for the flanks to surround and collapse in. It speaks to a completely different style of warfare.
In fact, the winner of the war was the one who fulfilled his goal. The goal of the Soviet Union was to conquer Finland. They did not succeed in that but they still had to decide on the terms of peace which made it as if they won even though the Finns showed the world that the "mighty Red Army" was really weak (it was defence victory to finns)
>In fact, the winner of the war was the one who fulfilled his goal.
ROFLMAO
>The goal of the Soviet Union was to conquer Finland.
The goal of Soviet Union was to get Hankoniemi and to move border from Leningrad.
>it was defence victory to finns
ROFLMAO
@@ВячеславСкопюк How do you explain Suomussalmi then, which this entire video was about? 400km north of Helsinki... heading west, 450km north of Hankoniemi (at least you got that right)
@aua you only sent a signature without a message
@aua you're melting, boyo
@aua Y
Did anyone else chuckle at 2:46 "disturbance in the force"?
nope
lol xDDDD
Corristo89 no
Thank you for making a regular habit of providing information sources, that's a really good habit that people should adopt. It makes clearing up misunderstanding and tracking down information much easier.
Suomi mainittu
torilla tavataan
Torilla tavataan
Harmi vaan kun suihkulähteet on jo poissa käytöstä. Kerkesin ostaa jo useemman pullon Fairya, mutta kaipa se on vaan keskityttävä tiskaamiseen.
Ei tavata
perkele
Never stop what you are doing with this channel, loving the content!
Awesome you finally made it! Very well done, I've been looking forward to this one!
I'm happy that a channel like this exists. Immediately subbed.
Well....and they Had the Man with the Most Comfirmed Kills ever on their Side XD
cloudfanlp he made no Big difference
UltimateToby 17 Well 505 Sniperkills are Impressiv.......also the Sowjets Used Anti Sniper Teams and Artillerie to Deal With him (Which Failed) and so He Bound many Man and Ressources which the Sowjets Could have Used Otherwise.Also it would be an Enourmus Penalty in Moral if you know that a Enemy Sniper has Killed over 500 of your Own Men.I know that a Person Alone Doesn't make a Big Difference in a War but I believe that Simo Häyha would be an Big Exception to this Rule.....
cloudfanlp No one would tell you that enemy has a guy like that. You forgot propaganda.
Finlandiamapper I don't Forget It....the Higher Ups would not Tell you that for sure but the Soldiers Would Talk about it with each other.....Maybe some People who got away from him Told the Tale about the White Death (I mean he must have had Some Recognition if he was Given a Badass Nickname like that)
cloudfanlp Yeah. I think that maybe some people sent to kill him invented that name.
you should consider making a video about finnish artillery during the Continuation War
I have waited for this video for so much time, when i saw it i clicked instantly great work!
Good video! Liked the Finnish colours of it, was that on purpose?
yes, the colors of many of my videos are often carefully selected.
as in Vietnam it showed that an industrialized nation cant easily take over a dedicated local population
Difference is, the population wasn´t a factor - this was the Finnish Army, not a guerilla force.
The Finnish Army was made of the local population, soldiers were mostly conscripts and the NCOs were teachers, farmers, lawyers etc.
Vietkong and North Vietnam were heavily backed up by industrialized nations. And 'dedicated local population' was not able to do anything to stop the advance of Soviet troops in 1940
Вячеслав Скопюк Oh, yes it was, as Finland was never occupied.
MsTiK
Finland was pretty mush occupied until 1918. And after - perhaps no one wanted to occupy Finland?
Amazing video, thank you so much for making this, it is also a great complimentary material to the kings and generals' channel videos on the winter war.
Nice Star Wars refrence. ;)
And Game of Thrones refrence. The puns are strong with this episode.
Ewoks arent the only forest people to fight off an evil empire.
LOL @ Ewoks. What Game of Thrones reference? The "Winter War is Coming" or was there one I forgot?
Wait are you saying that 4:33 wasn't intentional?
oh yes that was intentional, but I forgot that I put it in there. I quite often forget jokes and reference I put in, especially this one, because I didn't write it during scripting, but during the design process.
Originally, the term "motti" was simply slang for "one cubic metre of firewood". Mind you, this was simply a measurement of volume, so the wood did not necessarily have to be in a nicely arranged pile; in fact, there are distinctions, such as "heittomotti" (thrown motti, wood in a loose, disorganised pile) or "pinomotti" (stacked motti, wood in a neatly stacked pile), and the latter obviously contains more wood by mass than the former.
I have heard at least three explanations for the origin of the word in military use:
1) There was a Finnish military base codenamed "motti" that was actually overrun by the Soviets and the term somehow transferred to mean an isolated pocket of troops;
2) Some officers were looking at a tactical map depicting a pocket of Soviet troops, the tactical markings (lines etc.) visually reminded one of a stack of firewood, he remarked on it using the word "motti" and it spread from there;
3) There was a military telephone exchange codenamed "motti", a Soviet unit was isolated near it and that particular pocket came to be known by the name of the telephone exchange, and then it spread from there and was applied to other such pockets as well.
"Motti" would be a very natural codename for the Finnish millitary, who preferred short, clear and distinct words, either first names or natural/everyday subjects. By all accounts, the term was invented fairly late, and mottis existed long before they were called that.
Mind you, the term was motti tactic- or even Winter War-specific for a very short time only (if at all) and soon came to mean any isolated pocket of troops, ie. it basically has the same meaning as the german "kessel". For example, Stalingrad would be called "a gigantic motti"
holy cow... I remember when this guy had 10k subs. nice video!
How many did he have ?
Motti at Raatteentie was extraordinarily brutal. The "fire woods" as you call them, could at some places be only a couple of meters long, where a squad of Russian soldiers were holding out.
One thing to mention was that Finnish ski-troops had pretty great camouflage and could pretty much move undetected to very close positions, the Soviets were easy to spot and were often fighting enemies that they could not see.
“ large amount of disturbance in the force” I like that!
Greetings from Finland. This was a good characterization of what happened. To add to this review: Finns faced a far superior foe in the Finnish wars. Russians had 5-10× superiority in men and equipment. The terrain in Northern Finland could be characterised as wilderness with only one narrow road passing through that. The Russian armored columns had trouble progressing in the extreme cold and Finnish ski patrols raided the columns from advantageous positions, which created havoc and panic. The winter conditions are so severe that there is a real risk of freezing to death if a man stays out without proper equipment and shelter.
in this sense, the Finns won the battles for having better mobility in this terrain. Similar tactics can be followed today with proper motorised units that can take initiative and reach local superiority thanks to their speed in attack and retreat.
Read the details about the cruellest motti: the Raate Road where a complete division was annihilated basically by raiding ski patrols.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raate_Road
Finnish army - 265k man. Soviet army - 425k man. Ratio 1:1.6
@@Mentol_ They started the war with about 450 000 frontline troops, not including personnel of supporting Soviet airforce and red banner Baltic fleet, which were rather sizeable in terms of equipment and manpower involved in their organization, while the original Finnish covert wave of mobilization could muster 180 000 men to oppose them.
The Soviets doubled their troop numbers during the war, adding about half a million more troops, focusing their reinforcements at the Karelian Isthmus. This ramped up the Soviet troop totals into well over 700 000 at one given time, despite their huge casualties. In some capacity nearly a million Soviet soldiers participated in the fighting and including the supporting and leading elements The figures may be as high as 1 100 000.
Finland could muster at the second wave of mobilization during the war more reservists, raising the troop total at about 340 000 at maximum I believe. The Finnish airforce and navy were tiny in comparison to the enemy and Finland didn't really have a functioning tank arm before the war at all.
Oh nice! felt bad when i diden't find some good sources for you when i promised it some while ago. But now i don't have to feel bad. Nice videos as always! :)
I love the "Purges" graphic - some poor officer dude with a gun at his head.
Don't forget Sisu. It's an intangible but undeniable contributing factor.
"...which will create a large amount of disturbance in the force"
FEEL IT
I read a book a long time ago about Lauri Torni, later Larry Thorne, who described Motti Tactics. He later went on to fight for the Nazis and then immigrated to America where he was one of the founding members of US Special Forces and I believe died in Vietnam.
He did die in Vietnam and if I recall correctly had influence on USMC training ideology of "every marine is a rifleman" which has been part of Finnish military doctrine since formation of Finnish Defence Forces.
Great video! The Winter War is particularly interesting to me, I admire the Finn's tenacity :)
the dedication of the Finish artillery to map and range the terain to the inch was incredibel
As a fin myself I feel very proud.
Ah yes, finally something about Finland! Great video, nice one Gladius. :)
fantastic video on a subject i knew very little about thanks
How motti tactics in winter war is understood by me= they took out the first vehicles in the column, thus stopping the force from advancing. Then, they took out the rear so that they could not move any vehicles without great trouble. Then, they just divided and waited for the enemy to be weak enough to surrender, or to be killed with low effort and casualties
Did you participate in any of my tours at the Helsinki War Museum? If not please do accept an open invitation.
nope, never been in the Finland, but once the financial situation of the channel is secured, I would love to visit. Thank you!
Hi Kenneth, I'm interested. I read somewhere that the museum is closed now?
Thanks, I'll check it out!
Your videos are always pleasant to watch. Keep up the good work!
I am from finland, my grandfather fought on winter war. If you want see one nice example of succeed motti tactic, Go look Battle of raate road. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raate_Road
Great detailed explanation of motti tactics. Thank you, too, for the beautiful white and blue graphics, MHV. :-)
"Feel it"? Spooooooooooopy!
Yeah, subliminal spookiness? :D
Im also from finland and the storys of great motti-tactics are gonna live forever
The Soviets also expected a very short conflict...a military band with all its uniforms and instruments was sent along with the invaders in anticipation of a victory parade down the main streets of Helsinki. A comment allegedly made by the Finns at the beginning of the wear was, "So many Russians...where will we bury them all???"
Hi "Military History Visualized", your illustration and choice of visual cues/icons is amazing and really helps retain the information that you are presenting. Thank for this great lecture about this lesser known aspect of the WW II conflict which did have a significant impact on the future performance of the Soviet Armed Forces, Ciao, L (USA/CAN)
Nice presentation, i enjoy every single explanation from it. Now pls can you do the opposite climate; Japanese Jungle Guerrilla Warfare?. Im so interest to know how they utilize their defence toward US Marines offensive.
As always, a wonderful video. They always are, at MHV.
Suomi mainittu. Leningradin torilla tavataan, perkele!
beatthisroot On. Ko. Si. Nun. Vit. Tu. Pak. Ko. Kir. Joit. Taa. Näin.
Viipurin kauppatorilla nähdään
Jatkot Petsamossa!
Nice timing. Released this on the day that we here in Minnesota (United States) were hit with a powerful blizzard that also happens to be the first snow of the season.
Two things:
Mind making a piece about the differences between "Blitzkrieg" and "Deep Battle"?
And, I really wonder how the soviet-finnish war would have turned out, if Stalin would have launched it in spring or summer - into the karelian swamps. According to my understanding, this landscape is mostly unpassable for heavy equipment, exept in winter when all is frozen. - In case this is really the fact, "winterwar" may have been the only option to attempt to swallow up Finland.
With the experience gathered in the eastern front, red army decided to start their decisive offensive against Finland on 9th of June 1944. Most combat took place in very similar terrain and in some cases in the old battlefields of winterwar. So even though Finns managed to eventually stop the offensive, Finland was effectively knocked out of the war. So summer offensive for example in 1940 could have been much more effectively than the winterwar. Especially since Finnish antitank capabilities, artillery or armored forces wouldn't have been anywhere near the numbers of summer of 1944. I cannot be but happy about this, since I'd hate to live in Russia...
+TheUtho
I'll try to make it simple:
Blitzkrieg basically means identifying a weak spot in the enemy's line and then concentrating most of your forces there in order to achieve a breakthrough.
After it is achieved, the units go on severing the communication and supply lines of the enemies in one big encirclement.
The deep battle has a few differences:
It begins with heavy bombardment against the enemy line in order to create more weaker points.
After these points were created, the massive numbers of troops in reserve will try to breach through all of them at once.
After that is done the troops will advance creating many smaller encirclements against the enemy.
This is also one reason that, to this day, there is no major motorway from Finland to Russia along the eastern border, nor is there major railroads despite Russia being Finland's major trading partner.
The Finns also invented the "Molotov cocktail", named after the minister of foreign affairs. I would not be surprised if some historians argued that without the help of the Americans the Germans would have conquered Russia.
nope. "Molotov coctails" were invented long before
Contradict for sake of contradiction! It got its name and fame after Molotov one of the SOVIET smartass and another contradictor for the sake of contradiction the west was against Hitler and tried to stop The SOVIET making a deal with Germany and it didn't work the US had to help Russia fight Germany after "Barbarossa", whatever was done or attempted by the west was contradicted by Russia or the SOVIETS. Simply put Russia was envious and jealous of the US and to prove their existence they contradicted. Moujiks is what they are the only great accomplishment by Russians is in the artistic world and the greatest were before the revolution.
fern van
you are drunk. Go home
Excellent video. Those of us who read in depth about the Winter War will understand that, in the fighting north of Lake Ladoga, the use of fortified roadblocks by the Finns had to be supported by mobile infantry units operating off-road along the Soviet's flanks. So in terms of a static fight, the evolution of motti tactics was clearly the best way for the Finnish army to offset their numerical inferiority and prevent the Soviets from bringing up company after company to reinforce their assaults at the spearhead.
The platoon-sized Finnish battlegroups which carried out the 'cutting' attacks on the Soviet columns employed some of the best shock assault tactics of the entire Second World War in my opinion.
Trotter's book, by the way, is a must read.
Platoon-sized? You misspelled 'battalion-sized'
my second cousin was a ski soldier for the finns during the winter war
Noice job, I'm glad to see someone who gets their content from academic resources instead of Wikipedia.
How many men were generally encircled in the mottis?
Andrew entire divisions.
+Riku Penttila
> against 2 soviet divisions and a brigade with 45 000-55 000 soldiers.
not all of them were encircled. And there were about 7000 battle casualties on the Raate road
Brace yourself, Motti is coming. xD
Dank *and* informative! These videos are the best. :)
the day will not save them, and we own the night.
*burn heretic*
2:47
Subliminal message shown for a fraction of a second. "Feel it"
Why?
Hey, Mr Visualised. Just a thought, how about you chuck-in some original photos into your videos? Does not have to be a lo t- maybe 2 photos per video should do. I am sure that we all appreciate your animations and tables - still a photo speaks a thousand words.
Lets take your video about Japanese defensive positions - you described it, you drew stages of its construction... now think how awesome it would be if at the end of it you would superimpose the drawing over an areal photo of the site :)
Yes, yes I know not all photos are easy to get but I think the additional visualisation and a certain "cool factor" is worth your effort.
I have done this a few times, but for the most part I don't have time to search for photos that can be used in commercial videos. You know copyright laws. Relevant tweet 21 minutes ago from the GreatWar twitter.com/WW1_Series/status/799616019971055620
Damn, that is what I feared :/ Well, shame, I thought that it could really help make your videos even more popular. :/ Thank you for your reply and your work.
well, I took some measures to get photos, e.g. like visits to museums, there will be more. But those take time and money.
Well, there are only around 160,000 photos in the Finnish wartime collection at "SA-kuva" that can be used...
> "SA-kuva"
thx, may use them in upcoming videos. The main problem is that every country uses different terms of use for its various footage, I only know that the US is pretty cool in that regard, whereas Germany isn't.
As an historian, I would like to thank the writers and the narrator, for this clear and well-organized presentation.
Could have said SOMETHING about submachine guns.
was thinking about it, but I decided not to, due to timing and scope.
Finns would get too triggered about the fact that the PPSH-41 wasn't copied from the KP-31.
+ redneck96100
Oh you!
not copied hmm my sources stated it was copied, but I am not really into guns. Sources?
Military History Visualized
PPSh-41 has predecessors like PPD-40, PPD-34 and PPD-27 - russian submachineguns by Vasiliy Degtyarev. You can google the pictures and see similarities - drum magazine etc.
Mechanically PPsh-41 has little common with KP-31.
I heard many story's from my grandfather when he was in the winter war, also I was in the finnish army. We use the land to hide and terrain to our advantage in strategic locations surrounding the enemy and picking them off
You know, after the Winter War, Stalin was so impressed with the Finnish soldiers he hailed them as the best army in the world.
Technically that was following the Continuation War and the end of WWII
Nice topic to discuss!As a native Finn i appriciate it.Also nice to use blue and white as your colours in this video.
I don't think you're looking for the word 'fixated' - it tends to refer to an emotional state rather than a physical one. Pinned, maybe?
thx, my fault, the Field Manual used "fixing" and somehow I went to fixating.
What software do you use to make these videos?
Winter... Man sieht nicht nur wenig wegen der Länge der Nacht. Gerade wenn die Sonne stark scheint, kann man schneeblind werden - auch als Pilot eines Luftfahrzeugs! Es sei denn, man hat seine Augen gewappnet...
My two cents:
1) You're exaggerating the impact of cleansing in the officer corps. Quality the officer corps has fallen significantly due to the increasing the numbers of the Red Army
2) Carl Mannerheim served in the Russian Imperial Army, not in Red Army. So he was aware of the capabilities of of the Red Army as far as the Finnish intelligence knew about them
2) I explicitly stated that he served in the Imperial Russian Army, I think you clearly underestimate how much can be changed in 21 years, when it comes to training, doctrine, etc.
about 1) check out what happens if a company fires about 5-10 % of its workforce. The purges killed a higher percentage of high-ranking officers. Most people are seriously inhibited just by thought of being fired, I can only imagine what happens if someone is faced with being killed almost constantly.
Military History Visualized
check out what happens if a company experiencing explosive growth. The Red Army was experiencing problems with the quality of the middle and lower command staff.
>I can only imagine what happens if someone is faced with being killed almost constantly.
You (and I) are the product of 60 years of peace, has not grown in the devastated country that survived civil war. It's difficult to understand the feelings of people who lived through this
+Military History Visualized
>I think you clearly underestimate how much can be changed in 21 years, when it comes to training, doctrine, etc.
I think, all was changed since WWI and Mannerheim service as cavalry commander. Emerged mechanized warfare, small unit tactics and such.
+Вячеслав Скопюк finnish army was weak but smart. They used little blitzkriegs and ski troops to weaken red army advance to Turku it is a city centre of finland so if red army would capture Turku finland would fall
"A disturbance in the force", very nice banter Kollege
Fantastic.
Motti tactics was never planned before Winter War. Finns improvised it to compensate their long list of weakness. The whole Finnish idea in warfare can be described: "we have here a huge dangerous problem, how to solve the problem". There was no "doctrine" at all. Red Army was schematic, their soldiers were extremely brave and stubborn, leaders followed their doctrine even when reality was suggesting more flexible tactic and strategy. I won't say Red Army fought poorly. Don't forget that Finns made also blunders and Motti tactics were used only north from Karelian Isthmus which was main front.
Karelian Isthmus was fortified and not all that big of an area so motti tactics weren't optimal there as it would have been too easy for Soviets to bring in other troops to help the surrounded units.
Think Ukrainians need this translated.
Aren't they already doing this. Russians enter a forest, few minutes later they get smoked. They can't fight them even in open fields because of general mud and range of their anti-tank guns.
Consider adding some maps for ones like this. And showing some specific examples
How did the finnish destroy soviet divisions? two words: Simo Hayha :3
Actually simo never fought in the motti battles he was at kollaa. holding back the soviets who tried to take the town using its railway. We had an armored train there.
Mikael Anton Kurki Oh, well thank you for informing me :)
We had many good gun handlers, because back in those days many were farmers and hunters. So they were used to guns.
Yoda: "A disturbance in the Force, I feel"
Soldiers: "Oh fuck the White Death is back"
They should have FINISHED the Russians off
Napoleon Bonaparte You should have done so 100 years earlier.
How? The Soviets fought poorly, but they could simply funnel in more troops and win by attrition. Which they did. The Finns were fighting very defensively and lacked a proper war industry. They had basically no tanks, no anti-tank weapons, no air force and only a small population to draw forces from.
aww, c'mon, who would be there to give 'muricans the finger if it wasn't for the russians ^^
Again, the Finns used what they had. The terrain was heavily forested and they couldn't land troop planes on open snow fields, so the soviets would fly really low over the fields at just above stall - and the troops would just jump out into the snow. The Finns prepared for this by painting rock fields white. That's a pretty cheap and easy defence against a known offensive tactic. It doesn't take manpower to monitor these weak points.This made the soviets use airborne divisions, which aren't trained for long term battle, but short intense battle to soften the defenses long enough for the main infantry to arrive. A paratrooper can only jump with enough ammo and food to last a few days - they require logistic support fairly quickly. The Finns didn't need to fight these guys, isolation and the elements would do the job for them.
The Finns used whatever they had and it initially worked, however, when the war was nearing its end the Soviets were reinforcing with more and more troops.
Finland sought peace because it was going to be completely annexed if the Soviets got a huge lead.
Actually, the USSR got more than it initially demanded from this war.
Hey! very good video with many well explained aspects.
If you want to make your videos more appealing: try to insert more illustrations such as maps of the area (in this case of Finland, I am sure you could find some old Maps where the finish officers actually wrote down these special artillery positions and such and the few roads. Also some pictures and maybe videos of the circumstances allow the viewer to imagine the nature of this kind of warfare).
I think your channel is very trustworthy and objective, which is a rare thing on the internet these days. Looking forward to more videos :)
Feel it
Yeah, what was that? :D
Garakh "disturbance in the force"
Great video, keep up the good work!