Finland at War

Yes it's an ancient symbol which was used across different cultures until being hijacked and forever sullied by the Nazis.

Yeah! Edenderry.

to this day the swastika is paraded every day in Helsinki , down by the harbor by the Finnish air force , it is marched to the barracks

its a blue and white flag , as the Finns have been using it since the early 1900's

the finns are very proud of the actions they took against the soviet union , and have a pragmatic view on their alliance with he nazis , it was a case of be invaded by the Germans or the Russians , i know who i would prefer

I was in Finland a few years back and i saw a group of teenagers wearing tee shirts with what looked like Nazi soldiers on them , and written in English was the words " thank you "
from a distance it looked very odd , but on closer inspection it actually said " thank you Marshall Mannerheim , as the Finnish troops wore the same helmet as the Germans ( as did the Irish funny enough )

some good books on the subject of the winter war and the continuation war are

mannerheim - the Finnish years
under the north star trilogy - Vaino Linna
the un known soldier - Vaino Linna
The winter war - William r Trotter

the consequence of the Finnish stance against the Russians was that out of all the nations that the Russians invaded , Finland was the only country post war the was not under the control of the Russians for another 50 years.

hence the tee shirts - very interesting subject if one is into this kind of thing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR2FqMUVZzc

Fire and Ice , the winter war

also a good film on the winter war is TALVISOTA (1989)
im sure its online somewhere

at tactic that the Finns used to slaughter much larger and better equipped enemy , all on skis


from wiki

Motti [edit]
Motti is Finnish military slang for a totally encircled enemy unit. The tactic of encircling it is called motitus, literally meaning the formation of an isolated block or "motti", but in effect meaning an entrapment or envelopment.
The word motti is borrowed from the Swedish mått, or "measure" which means one cubic meter of firewood or pulpwood. When collecting timber for these purposes, the logs were cut and stacked in 1 m³ cubical stacks, each one a "motti", which would be left scattered in the woods to be picked up later. The word also means "mug" in many Finnish dialects; motti is thus related to kessel. A motti in military tactics therefore means the formation of "bite sized" enemy units which are easier to contain and deal with.
This tactic of envelopment was used extensively by the Finnish forces in the Winter War and the Continuation War to good effect. It was especially effective against some of the mechanized units of the Soviet Army, which were effectively restricted to the long and narrow forest roads with virtually no way other than forwards or backwards. Once committed to a road, the Soviet troops effectively were trapped. Unlike the mechanized units of the Soviets, the Finnish troops could move quickly through the forests on skis and break columns of armoured Soviet units into smaller chunks (e.g., by felling trees along the road). Once the large column was split up into smaller armoured units, the Finnish forces attacking from within the forest could strike the weakened column. The smaller pockets of enemy troops could then be dealt with individually by concentrating forces on all sides against the entrapped unit.
A motitus is therefore a double envelopment manoeuvre, using the ability of light troops to travel over rough ground to encircle enemy troops on a road. Heavily outnumbered but mobile forces could easily immobilize an enemy many times more numerous.
By cutting the enemy columns or units into smaller groups and then encircle them with light and mobile forces, such as ski-troops during winter a smaller force can overwhelm a much larger force. If the encircled enemy unit was too strong, or if attacking it would have entailed an unacceptably high cost, e.g., because of a lack of heavy equipment, the motti was usually left to "stew" until it ran out of food, fuel, supplies, and ammunition and was weakened enough to be eliminated. Some of the larger mottis held out until the end of the war because they were resupplied by air. Being trapped, these units were therefore not available for battle operations.
The largest motti battles in the Winter War occurred at the Battle of Suomussalmi. Three Finnish regiments enveloped and destroyed two Soviet divisions as well as a tank brigade trapped on a road.

Thread remind me of this:

Inventors of the molotov cocktail. Only country to give the Soviet Union any real trouble. I guess you could also put the battle of Stalingrad in that one too.

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Except, you know that whole Cold War thing, though in fairness that was for only 54 years or so

This thread is about WW2. You'd want to go and read your history books about when about when the cold war took place mate.

Advances in technology are always made during wartime. Everything from synthetic rubber and the tetanus vaccine right up to anti-mine tanks and the atomic bomb were developed during WW II.

The Finns appeared to come up with an ingenious bicycle anti-theft system:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Na4ANaNGoP0/UaYcBnFVZeI/AAAAAAABVh4/KqxFsw4xBbM/s1600/finland_in_world_war_ii_49.jpg