Averaged over all of WW2, one Finnish soldier was worth how many Russian soldiers.

[Pekka]

But Russians might find this thread quite offensive?
It was only saying.. that 1:10.. only saying.. so.. no one should take it too seriously.

[Lancer]

You Finns are so Finlandized.

If you had disrupted the supply coming down from Murmansk, likely the Germans would have won the war in the east. I'm not saying that would be a good thing for the world, but it might have been better for Finland. Likely there was a secret deal with Stalin that allowed Finland to survive and an independant nation after the war. Otherwise, why didn't Stalin finnish the job? 'Finnish' the job, ha.

Mannerhiem line, thanks.

[Stefu]

I mean, when I saw this thread, I thought Lancer was in some way referring to the wellknown "One Finn equals ten Russians" phrase. I mean, he is American, but it's not impossible.

Now, if some Yank will start saying "The Centre will always betray", that's when things'll start get worrisome.

[Stefu]

If you had disrupted the supply coming down from Murmansk, likely the Germans would have won the war in the east. I'm not saying that would be a good thing for the world, but it might have been better for Finland. Likely there was a secret deal with Stalin that allowed Finland to survive and an independant nation after the war. Otherwise, why didn't Stalin finnish the job? 'Finnish' the job, ha.

Hey, Mannerheim wouldn't have been a leader or anything if he didn't consider all possibilities, and when it came to Murmansk line and Leningrad, Mannerheim believed that if the Russians won, they'd never forgive Finland for these.

Stalin didn't finnish (I tried to write finish, but wrote finnish like three times, so finnish it is) the job, because WE TUFF! WE TUFF!

[Lazerus]

I know it was a very high ratio ... forgot what number though, i was actually reading abit about this a few weeks ago how the finns launched counter attacks and encircled entire divisions of russians at a time. Its the main reason the Russians beat the Germans so badly once the winter set in there, they simply copied many of the strategies employed by the Finns.

Btw the reason American ships won those early battles is because they were the first to upgrade from the classic wooden galleons to ironclads, once we started upgrading our navy was more powerful then the 2nd and 3rd combined. It was our final attempt to keep the centre stage as a world power.

[Shi Huangdi]

to all the brave Finnisih heroes for giving the Russians a well deserved humiliation.

[Lancer]

Stefu, you Finns are TUFF, that's right.

Laz, ironclads came later guy...

We won those naval battles because we are Americans.

USA! USA! USA!

We had bigger, better built ships because we are Americans!

USA! USA! USA!

Also the Brits were the worst ship builders among the majors in europe. One reason why the Brits prefered to board the other guys ships during battle... They felt safer.

Actually the Brits were renouned for bad shipbuilding. The worst case was the great naval expansion at the beginning of the war. They built what later became known by the crews as 'the fourty thieves'. All 74 gun ships of the line that tended to fall apart in bad weather. The bolts holding the wooden hulls together didn't go all the way through. They were made of expensive copper and the professional shipbuilders would sell the centers, and pound either end into the holes. Looked ok, but the ships fell to pieces. Very few of the fourty thieves survived the war. Many lives were lost when they sank in rough weather on blockade duty in places like the channel.

[Pekka]

But we need to remember that it's only saying. Sure we had some tough soldiers and spirit, but the main reason for those massive casualties were bad tactics. We had and still have rough terrain for massive armies, and we are able to use it in our advance. You can't beat us by massive bombings because of the terrains and other factors, you have to send ground troops in, and than when the trouble starts .

Russia did learn from their mistakes, and started doing some decent fighting against Germans, AND at the end they did fight us wisely too.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Lancer
Stefu, I think it was alot more than 10. The Russians lost whole divisions during the winter war, then again in the attacks on the line. Finally they brought up enough artilery and pulverized the defenses.

The Dutch fleet was frozen in, the French cavalry rode up and took the ships, using cannons brought up threatening parts of the ships from which the Dutch could not return fire. The fleet then passed to the new French puppet regime, the Batavian Republic. They became the best the French had, fighting much harder at sea than the French did. Still, they couldn't match the Brits and many of the ships were lost over time.

The Brits didn't meet their match until the war of 1812 during which the US won almost every ship to ship engagement with them. It got so bad that the British instructed their captains to refuse combat with Americans on a ship to ship basis! This from the greatest fleet in the world. The Brits like to say it was due to the US ships being crewed by run British sailors, but only 8% of our sailers were run Brits.

We have a kick ass Naval tradition.

[Lancer]

USA! USA! USA!

[Nubclear]

Russia should never have tried invading finland

Until Finland joined the side that was "winning"

[David Floyd]

But Finland wouldn't have joined Germany except for the Winter War

[Serb]

Yeah, right. They joined Germany only because of Winter war, not because Germany could swallow Finland as f.e. Norway.
It's impossible to manipulate Finns. I guess they had some honorable reasons in 1944 too, when they declared war on Germany.


This thread sucks.

[TCO]

Finlandization.

[Rasbelin]

Actually I agree that this thread sucks. Based on the "question asked, question answered" policy it would be closed by now. Anyway, 1 to 10 was indeed the ratio as quite a few other Finns already said. And Tass, you're right. It was waste of manpower as it was done in a bad manner. If they would have wanted to do it properly, some better tactics would have helped then.