Patrik has asked - “What I really wish for is you to do a review of the battle of Tali-Ihantala
1944.”
Alright then, let’s do just that. For context about the Continuation War, please see my
previous video - “Finland's Continuation War in a Nutshell”. I also have videos on
Mannerheim and more, so I’ll leave links in the description.
But basically, between late 1941 and mid-1944, the Finnish Front had been quiet. So quiet,
in fact, that it’s fair to say that almost nothing had happened during that time. Lunde
has an entire chapter in his book titled “Front Without Combat Activity - January 1943 - June
1944”.
But on the 10th of June 1944, the Soviets decided to knock Finland out of the war, and
launched their Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Offensive. This colossal Soviet effort forced the Finns
back to the VKT-line.
This line ran from Viipuri (modern day Vyborg) to the Vuoksi River, then along the river
to Taipale (modern day Solovyovo). Well, between Viipuri and the Vuoksi River, there’s a
series of lakes, and a place called Paltsevo.
In this area, the Soviets hoped to break through the VKT-line, move into the Finnish interior,
and force the unconditional surrender of the Finns.
The Gulf of Finland Coastal Brigade was in the Viipuri sector. The Finnish 3rd Brigade
was in the area north of Viipuri, with the 18th Division to its east, then the 4th Division,
and the 3rd Division beyond that. The Finnish Armoured Division and the 20th Brigade were
north of Viipuri. And, acting as a reserve, the Finnish 10th and 17th Divisions, supported
by their Cavalry Brigade were in the area north of the Bay of Viipuri.
Govorov’s plan was pretty simple. 108th Rifle Corps would aim to clear the Viipuri
area, as 97th Rifle Corps attacked the Finnish 3rd Brigade. Gusev’s 21st Army would strike
at Paltsevo using the 109th Rifle Corps to break through the lines, then exploit using
30th Guards Rifle Corps. 110th Rifle Corps would also attack on the eastern side of the
eastern lake. And other Soviet armies would strike the VKT line further east. However,
the Finns realized that this area was the best place for tanks to be deployed, and correctly
guessed that the Soviets would concentrate their forces here. That’s why 14 of Finland’s
22 units were on the VKT line, and Finnish reinforcements were on their way.
Well, the Soviets opened up their offensive with a heavy artillery bombardment, followed
by smoke screens. Then the infantry and tanks struck. Paalu’s 18th Division was shattered.
30th Guards Rifle Corps broke through the lines almost immediately, sending the 268th
Rifle and 64th Guards Rifle Divisions east of the middle lake, and the 45th Guards Rifle
Division to the west of it. They almost caught the remnants of Paalu’s division in a pincer,
but the Finns held on. 18th Division was now at barely 40% of its authorized strength,
and it’s neighbour, the 3rd Brigade was also overwhelmed and forced back as well.
So, with a crumbling front, the Finns threw in their reserves. Lagus’ Armoured Division,
supported by StuGs and elements of 18th Division, counter-attacked the western part of 30th
Guards Rifle Corps’ advance, destroying a bunch of Soviet tanks and driving them back.
This counter-attack put enough pressure on the Soviets that their offensive ground to
a halt.
So the Soviets reorganized their forces. 63rd Guards Rifle Division was ordered to reinforce
the 64th Guards Rifle Division, and the 110th Rifle Corps relieved parts of 109th Rifle
Corps in the east, freeing their forces up to move west. But on the 27th of June, the
Finns also brought up their own reinforcements, with 11th Division arriving to reinforce Lagus’
Armoured Division, allowing the shattered 18th Division to withdraw.
With this additional force, Lagus now wanted to advance further and cut off the 63rd and
64th Guards Rifle Divisions in a pocket. So, using all the available artillery in the area,
and the German 303rd Sturmgeschütz Brigade, they attacked, and almost managed to cut them
off. They brought the Soviet supply routes under direct fire, but couldn’t quite seal
the trap.
“The situation was not helped by the German assault guns, which had quickly exhausted
their ammunition by firing wildly into the woods, and were forced to turn back for resupply.”
6th Division now arrived, and the Finns were about to try again, but the 63rd Guards Rifle
Division attacked northwards and forced the Finns back. Lagus’ division was also under
attack, and slowly began to lose ground. The Finns had therefore failed to completely surround
their foe.
And because of this failure, plus the fact that this line was a mess and required a lot
Finnish troops to hold it, General Oesch requested permission to fall back and form a more solid
line. Mannerheim agreed, and the withdrawal began on the 29th.
By the 30th of June, the new lines were formed, and the Finns had gathered 21 artillery batteries
in the area, plus a load of panzerfausts. So, when the Soviets attempted to break through
this new line, they were blunted, and took a lot of casualties. For several more days,
the Soviets tried over and over to break through the lines, but withering Finnish fire and
effective anti-tank defenses stopped them each time.
“During the two weeks of combat, the Finnish artillery fired over [122,000] shells. The
rapid rate of fire ruined many of their gun barrels in the process.”
On the 13th of July, Marshal Govorov was ordered to transfer five divisions to the Leningrad
area because they were needed elsewhere. Thus, he called off the offensive here, and the
battle was over.
So, now we get to the statistics, and mightily annoyed you’ll be. Why? Because this is
where I’ll be accused of being pro-this or anti-that, no matter what I say or do.
Look, I’m neither pro-Finnish nor pro-Soviet. In fact, I think politics is the cause of
most of our problems. So I’m not in favour of politicians, nor States. And in terms of
a certain ‘national’ or ‘social’ identities - no, I’m not interested because I don’t
care for tribalism. Tribes are political, and I see them as the cause of most of our
problems. So I don’t favour either side.
Now yes, I am biased. Why? Because everyone is biased, because bias means we don’t have
a complete all-knowing picture of everything that happened. And the reason I don’t have
that complete all-knowing picture of everything that happened is because I’m not a god.
In this case, my limited sources are pro-Finnish, but I’m aware of that. Most of the books
on this particular conflict were written from the Axis (or Axis co-belligerent) perspective,
due to politics. The Western world couldn’t access the Soviet archives, and ‘official’
Soviet State historians were untrustworthy at best. And this is a neglected topic for
the English-speaking world anyway, so yes, the sources I’m using are biased. But I’m
aware of the problem, and I’m going to try to compensate for that. That’s not because
I don’t trust the Finnish, or the Finnish sources, or am pro-Soviet - it’s because
I know you have to see things from both perspectives, which I’m not fully able to do, due to the
lack of accounts from the Soviet side. So basically, I’m trying to figure out what
actually happened, not blow smoke up one group’s backside.
Right, with that long, but necessary disclaimer out of the way, in this battle the Finnish
said that they deployed 23 tanks, 20 assault guns, 100 planes, and 50,000 troops. The Germans
deployed 26 assault guns, 80 planes, and 4,000 troops. And the Finnish sources I have say
that the Soviets deployed 280 tanks, 80 assault guns, 800 planes, and 150,000 troops.
However, according to Wikipedia - which I normally don’t like to rely on, but in this
case, I don’t have much choice because I can’t read Russian, and the only books on
this battle in English are reliant on the Finnish sources - so, according to Wikipedia
some Russian sources say that they deployed 48 to 60,000 troops, which is a lot less than
the Finnish estimate. I can’t read Russian or Finnish and I can’t verify these numbers
either way, but I can give you my honest assessment based on other factors.
Just like the Germans, the Finns assumed that Soviet divisions were the same size as their
own divisions. But this wasn’t the case. So, as we’ve seen in previous campaigns,
the Germans liked to count up the number of Soviet divisions, assume that they were the
same size as their own, and assume that they were at full strength. Then they’d calculate
how many troops the Soviets were supposed to have based on these false assumptions.
This will probably explain the discrepancy between the 60,000 and 150,000 figures, because
Soviet divisions (even this late in the war) were smaller than Finnish and German divisions,
and certainly weren’t at full strength either. Now yes, the Finnish divisions were also not
at full strength, but assuming the Finnish numbers are correct, then yes it makes sense
that the Soviet divisions wouldn’t be at full strength either.
Also, not all these troops were deployed at the same time. So the Finns probably deployed,
say 30,000 troops at the beginning of the battle. And I’m speculating here based on
what we’ve just seen. But then they probably reinforced them with another, say, 20,000
- giving the overall 50,000 figure. Well, the Soviets probably started off with more
numbers than the Finns at the beginning (which makes sense because they were attacking) and
were then slowly whittled down as the battle progressed until they couldn’t break through
the Finnish lines due to being exhausted and depleted. So, I think the 60,000 figure for
the Soviets is more realistic and is certainly not unreasonable.
But again, that’s not downplaying the Finnish side, or making excuses for the Soviets. It’s
about being more realistic. Plus, the Finns were still outnumbered for most of the battle,
so they still get credit for that. They just weren’t outnumbered by the insane amount
that their estimates claimed.
Now, the Finns said they lost 3 tanks, 12 planes, and 8,450 men. The Germans lost 33
planes, and an unknown number of troops and assault guns. And the Soviets lost around
210 tanks and assault guns, 415 planes, and 28,000 men. The Finnish sources I have say
that Soviet official records may have downplayed their losses, and that’s certainly a possibility.
But, if we take the more reasonable 60,000 figure as fact, this would mean that the Soviets
lost almost half their army, rather than just a small portion of it, as the Finnish estimates
would suggest. Yes, that’s less overall casualties, but imagine yourself in the Soviet
position. You’ve just lost half your guys! That’s insane! That’s a lot worse than
losing just a quarter of them. It also shows that the Finns did a significant proportional
amount of damage to the Soviet side. So again, less raw numbers, but a higher percentage.
And this also makes sense because the high Soviet tank losses is an indication that they
were reliant on vehicles to carry their offensive forwards, rather than raw numbers of men.
As I’ve mentioned before in previous videos, like in the Courland Series, the Soviet Union
was scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel by this point of the war. Therefore they were
more reliant on vehicles to carry the day - which is why the Finnish took out quite
a lot of them.
Overall though, it’s clear that the Finnish and the Germans inflicted a lot more casualties
on Soviet forces, so this was a decisive Finnish victory which may have prevented the Soviets
from completely overrunning Finland in World War Two. It has been argued that this victory
persuaded Stalin to offer a conditional surrender to the Finns, rather than an unconditional
surrender. And right now I subscribe to that view as well, since it makes the most sense.
It has also been argued that Stalin never wanted to conquer Finland in 1944 - a view
I can’t verify nor dismiss at this time. But considering that the Finnish hadn’t
attacked in the 1942 to mid-1944 period, they clearly weren’t a threat to the Soviet Union.
So, if Stalin didn’t want to conquer Finland, why did he launch this offensive in the first
place? Why not just leave them be and concentrate on the main Axis powers? There’s no reason
he would do this, if he wasn’t trying to conquer Finland, which is why the narrative
that Stalin wasn’t trying to conquer Finland in 1944 is questionable, in my opinion.
In terms of tactics, I don’t think this is a particularly amazing battle from either
point of view. Apart from the Soviet attempt to encircle the 18th Division, and the Finnish
attempt to fully encircle the two Soviet divisions, this battle strikes me as a slogging match
more than anything else, especially in the later stages. It evolved into an attritional
fight which favoured the side who was defending, and who had a lot of guns - both artillery
and anti-tank. It was pretty typical of the fighting that was going on in 1944, with many
similar battles happening in the Baltics, as I’ve detailed in my Courland series (link
in the description). In these battles, the Soviets attempt to break through the line,
which they often do, but if they came up against stiff resistance, they’d continue their
attacks until they’re worn down by an effective defence, rather than deciding to stop, reorganize
and rethink.
The Axis (or in this case, their non-Axis cobiligerants who weren’t ‘really’ Axis
but in my opinion were, even though that’s going to annoy some people) are usually forced
back at first, but rush lots of units to the area to plug the gaps, and are able to mount
an effective defense in the later stages, but only after losing some ground. And because
they’re never able to launch offensives, they’re slowly losing ground with no hope
of overall victory.
Finland managed to get herself out of the war before it was too late, and this battle
may have helped her do that. But Finland never had an exit strategy from this war. They were
relying entirely on the Germans to win the war in 1941, and the Germans didn’t win
it in 1941, or 1942, or ever. And this left the Finns with only one option - stay on the
defensive, and wiggle their way out of the conflict. The Finnish State and their leadership
were lucky that they were able to survive, thanks to the courage of the Finnish people.
Thanks for watching, bye for now.