For PanzerJaeger, comparing the armies of WW2

[KarlXII]

Is there some European "Code of Bushido" that compels the two of you? As Mr. Spock might say....Fascinating

Must be the viking in me.

[KrooK]

Japanese army conquered big part of the world but...
1) there were practically no real defense
2) Japanse army had support from powerful Japanese fleet
3) morale were high but what is morale if commanders don't think

[KrooK]

I'm pround :)

In which World War 2 army you should have fought?
You scored as a Poland
Your army is Poland's army. Your tenacity will form a concept in the history of your nation and you're also ready to continue fighting even if your country is occupied by the enemy. Other nations that are included in this category are Greece, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Poland
94%
Finland
88%
United States
81%
British and the Commonwealth
75%
Italy
69%
France, Free French and the Resistance
56%
Soviet Union
56%
Japan
56%
Germany
44%

And quite nice that Finns are high too :)

[KarlXII]

Japanese army conquered big part of the world but...
1) there were practically no real defense
2) Japanse army had support from powerful Japanese fleet
3) morale were high but what is morale if commanders don't think

1. Are you kidding? They wouldn't budge. They had the "suicide before surrender" policy in mind.
2. Of course. Once the IJN was crippled completely at Midway, they couldn't stop island hopping. This wasn't a fault of the IJA, it was Allied naval supremacy.
3. Ummm, morale is fighting spirit. They were very eager to fight for the emperor, for their families. Its why they eagerly led mass charges.

[RollingWave]

Japanese army conquered big part of the world but...
1) there were practically no real defense
2) Japanse army had support from powerful Japanese fleet
3) morale were high but what is morale if commanders don't think

the problem here is that

a. the vast majority of the Japanese army conflict happened in China, a part of the war that goes very overlooked by the west.

b. by the time they actually fought a full fledged western army it was much later in the war. where they're strength have been wasted in China and their support cut off and their equipment fading while the Americans made great advances from earlier in the war.

c. by design, their army was only suppose to deal with China and some of the light colonial stations. they were decently designed for that. their tanks were bad but all of those places have pretty rough terrain (outside of northern China to some extend) so it's not like having a great heavy tank would have been practical. they correctly precieved that their real task is to controll the sea. as there were no truely first class armies anywhere on their side of the Pacific. they didn't need a great army to succeed and they wouldn't have been saved by a great army.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
that's not to say that they were good though. China was both poorly developed and suffering from massive internal conflicts prior / after and even during the entire war. the Japanese wasn't even out numbered as much as preceived as they did have some support from Manchuria and some local collabrators. but once they got pass the coastal areas they really started to struggle. often getting outflanked with really bad stratgey planning that basically could be summed up as a strait charge up the Yanzti river.

Of course, i think the biggest failure wasn't just the army strategy and tactics, it was the complete failure to assimilate the population. if you read some of the living recount of the guerrila warfare waged by the Chinese some were hilarious, as they basically put back on civilian cloth and walk right into the Japanese held towns to buy supply and equipment.... to blow up the Japanese! they basically had no defense against hit and run warfare. and didnt really try . they're rule didn't extend much further then the town they hold and even then it's not nearly as fully powered as it would appear.

For the Japanese plan to have worked, quickly conquering China and turning it into a useful base of operration to provide manpower and supply would have been crucial. but they ended up wasteing a lot more resources there then they actually got .

[KrooK]

Sorry - some Tankietka's had cannons - but only few.
http://www.1939.pl/uzbrojenie/polski...k/_galeria.htm

Swedish sorry but I simply can't find arguments. Maybe if Russia and Germany together attacked Sweden (to be fair lets add Norwegia who attacks Sweden from back :D ), you would understand what mean surrounded. Poles had no such advantages as Finland - if you had no good terrain you can't use it. Russians had practically 2 directions from whom they could attack. All of them well defended. Germans could attack from every place on border.
If you enemies are not idiots, you can't use it. Sorry but comparing German commanders to Russian has no sence. Generals of Russian divisions could not be captains into German ones.
If weather helps your enemy you can't change weather. If your allies leave you, you can't wait on help.
Only real advantage Poland had on Germany was generally better morale. But morale alone its not all.

[Tribesman]

Sorry - some Tankietka's had cannons - but only few.

Wow you mean that Poland had upgraded some of its little tanks by 1939while all the other countries still used just the little machine guns tanks for years after Poland got overrun .
Fascinating ...hmmm...but what about its other tanks that were not little tanks then Krook ?

[Kagemusha]

I would like to raise my tiny little point again. I understand that Winter War is fascinating subject, but we cant judge the Finnish military only based on it. During Winter War, we all know the problems Soviet Union had, Stalins purges had decapitated the Soviet Officer Corps, Soviet Union deployed many of its forces from the Southern Military districts which were partially very ill suited for fighting in Winter conditions, also the Soviet doctrine was pretty immobile during winter war, which gave advantage many times to Finnish troops.

Also there are some myths about the Finnish side which need debugging, first the So called Mannerheim line was not what the Soviet Propaganda made it out to be, it was nothing compared example to Maginot line, it was 132 kilometers long line, with three defensive lines one behind another. The line had 157 machine gun positions and 8 artillery positions made from concrete, so approximately 1,25 concrete installations per kilometer in the depth of the three defensive lines. Mostly it was just earthen bunkers and trench dig in the ground.
Many people have the picture that the Mannerheim line was strength of Finnish defense in Winter War, while it was ill suited for the Finnish doctrine.
When we look at the battles between Lake Ladoga and Icy sea during Winter War, the Finnish mobile forces were able to defeat the Soviet attacking spearheads everywhere, because of the high motorization of Soviet forces and by that they being very dependent upon the few roads that were available.
In these forest battles the Finns were able to use their mobile tactics successfully in order to defeat the Soviets, but in Karelian Isthmus, which was the shortest route to inner Finland the situation was very different. Karelian Isthmus was densely populated and hosted for example the second largest city of Finland then, Viipuri. It had the main railroad lines towards SU and the terrain was covered mostly on fields, rather then forests.There was neither lack of roads for the enemy to move its troops and equipment. Also because of the winter the rivers that ran through the Isthmus were frozen, which made it lot easier for Soviet tanks to operate, without depending on bridges. If there was a place which was suited for the highly mobilized Soviet army it was the Isthmus.
Because Finns lacked almost completely AT weapons during the winter war and because Soviets had a huge artillery advantage, the tactics was to keep minimal amount of men in the front lines, in order to save men from the pounding of the soviet artillery. When Soviets attacked, Finns let generally the Soviet tanks go through and then counter attacked their own positions with reserves, once the Soviet Tanks were separated from the infantry, small "tuhoajapartiot" = anti tank squads hunted down the separated Soviet tanks lacking infantry support and destroyed them with satchel charges and "molotov cocktails".
Also there the Finnish forces were forced to fight pitched battles for months against enemy which had superiority in both men and equipment and it was also there where Finnish army had its worst casualties and became exhausted, not broken before the peace was made, but almost completely exhausted. One major reason being that Soviets controlled the skies almost completely and supplying the troops was very problematic.

But enough of the Winter War. We have gone through it here and also it has been debated to death in other places. Lets talk summer 1944 and the fourth strategic offensive like the Soviets called it. During the Spring 1944, Finland asked for peace from the Soviet Union, as it seemed certain that Germany would not be able to defeat Soviet Union. Soviet Union did not accept Finnish terms for peace and demanded that nothing else but unconditional surrender was acceptable. Finland was not willing to surrender so Soviet Union decided to crush the Finnish army during summer 1944, with its fourth strategic offensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_strategic_offensive

This was two prolonged assault from both sides of Lake Ladoga, where initially there was 75 000 Finnish fighting against 500 000 Soviets with enermous advance in material and equipment. The assault happened in the middle of the summer and this time the Soviets didnt have the problems they had during Winter War. In the end Finland was able to stop all the Soviet attacks by deploying almost its entire army against the attacker thus winning the last 8 major battles and stopping the the Soviet armies before they crossed the border of 1940 in all fronts,thus the entire Continuation war was fought on Soviet area of 1940. Few of the notable battles in the end of the offensive are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tali-Ihantala

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vuosalmi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tienhaara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nietj%C3%A4rvi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ilomantsi

In my humble opinion, winter war was a glorious defeat, but continuation war just as glorious defeat, because while militarily the Finnish army was not beaten in the end of the winter war, it was exhausted, but in the end of the continuation war, the attacking soviet armies were defeated in detail and it would have taken from Stavka a lot of men to pull out from the German fronts to defeat the pesky Finns, which resulted in that the Soviet demands for unconditional surrender were withdrawn and Finland stayed independent after WWII, thanks to the great efforts of the Finnish army during the battles of summer 1944. I understand that this part of WWII, is not glorified by the West for example, because Finland was on the "wrong" side, but then for us Finns the defensive victories of summer 44 were even more wonder like, since our front was the only front where the Soviets were stopped.

EDIT: It seems im Finnish according to quiz.I guess our instructors used still the same essential doctrines

In which World War 2 army you should have fought?
You scored as a Finland
Your army is the army of Finland. You prefer to win your enemy by your wit rather than superior weapons. Enemy will have a hard time against your small but effective force.
Finland
100%
Poland
94%
British and the Commonwealth
56%
France, Free French and the Resistance
50%
Italy
50%
Japan
50%
Soviet Union
50%
United States
31%
Germany
25%

[KarlXII]

Swedish sorry but I simply can't find arguments. Maybe if Russia and Germany together attacked Sweden (to be fair lets add Norwegia who attacks Sweden from back :D ), you would understand what mean surrounded. Poles had no such advantages as Finland - if you had no good terrain you can't use it. Russians had practically 2 directions from whom they could attack. All of them well defended. Germans could attack from every place on border.
If you enemies are not idiots, you can't use it. Sorry but comparing German commanders to Russian has no sence. Generals of Russian divisions could not be captains into German ones.
If weather helps your enemy you can't change weather. If your allies leave you, you can't wait on help.
Only real advantage Poland had on Germany was generally better morale. But morale alone its not all.

You mean you don't consider German occupied Norway, Axis Finland and Germany below you being surrounded?

The Russians could attack from two places, which is why they won. There was simply not enough Finns to hold them back.

Germany had three borders with Poland, if you count the Axis allied one. This allowed them to utterly destroy Poland.

If Poland had better morale, then why did they capitulate so quickly? You would think they would have an Iraq-style insurgent force and NOT the Warsaw ghetto. Hell, Greece put up more of a fight in their occupation.

[KrooK]

Kagemusha- I don't deny bravery of Finnish army. I just tell that conditions we so different that uncomparable. Actually I read about war 1944 and I know that Russian won there practically only due to massive art support.
BTW did Russians give back Porkkala Penisula? From polish experience I know that its a bit hard to pull them back from places they once enter :)

Sweedish - if Poland lost into a month, Sweden would lost into 2 days :).
You are really deply resistant on argumentation. Maybe you would like to say something about swedish army? Maybe you tell us why Finland is not Swedish anymore :).

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

BTW did Russians give back Porkkala Penisula?

Yes, they did.

[Kagemusha]

Kagemusha- I don't deny bravery of Finnish army. I just tell that conditions we so different that uncomparable. Actually I read about war 1944 and I know that Russian won there practically only due to massive art support.
BTW did Russians give back Porkkala Penisula? From polish experience I know that its a bit hard to pull them back from places they once enter :)

Sweedish - if Poland lost into a month, Sweden would lost into 2 days :).
You are really deply resistant on argumentation. Maybe you would like to say something about swedish army? Maybe you tell us why Finland is not Swedish anymore :).

I just wanted to point out that WWII for Finnish army was lot more then Winter War 1939-40. I dont have anything bad to say about Polish army during WWII. I dont have a doubt in my mind that any country participating in WWII could have defeated the combined assault of Germany and Soviet Union in 1939. Polish army did what it could in impossible situation.
About Porkkala, it was leased for Soviet Union in the Moscow peace treaty of 1944 and was returned to Finland in 1956.