Nov 30th 1939 - A Date which will live in Infamy

[Serb]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Serbiekins, are you crabby today?

Ha...ha...ha ... ...

[Serb]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Fez didn't say they lost the war, Leo. He just said they lost tons of people.

Some people here including David and Fez consider this a sign of historical ****iness of Russian military.

[Zero]

Finns did demonstrate amazing fighting agasint the russians, but i think lawrence's first post was to intend to remind ourselves of the tragedy of all who died, not to honor or make special mention of how great finns were at killing the russians.

There's no point in honoring the dead. They're dead. Its just such a sad story, that people had to die like that in those times....

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Serb


Some people here including David and Fez consider this a sign of historical ****iness of Russian military.

We have saying in America. If shoe fits, wear it.


BTW. How do you explain the attack on the Finns? Another Example of evil conspirotors against the mother land.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Sprayber


We have saying in America. If shoe fits, wear it.

We also like sayings, like "posle drki kulakami ne mashut"- after the fight don't swing your fists.
It means that guy who was hiding somewhere and watch the group fight (Russian tradition "stenka na stenku"- it's when people of one village (or just a group) fight vs. another group, (usually take place on holidays after big quantity of vodka)) from safe distance, after the fight shout laud that he is the super fighter and start telling fairy tales how brave he is and how good fighter he is.
Overall this saying means that guys who shout laud about their 'heroic fightings' usualy in real life are bunch of cowards.
Where did you guys where when my people paid millions of lifes in titanic battle? Where did you guys where in 1941 when Russians stoped unbeateable untill this moment Wermacht- conquerors of Europe? Perhaps you fought? Or you drunk Whiskey, danced and watch baseball? What gives you moral right to laugh memory of millions of my countrymans who sacrificed their lifes in war vs. nazism?

One more Russian saying for you "chya bi korova muchala, a tvoya bi pomolchala"- you should better look at yourself, before point finger on others.

BTW. How do you explain the attack on the Finns? Another Example of evil conspirotors against the mother land.

I guess Stalin explained this in the same words as George W. Bush explaining his desire to attack Iraq- self-defence and pre-emptive action.
Not big difference as for me.

[Sprayber]

You lost me on your story but It may be kind of like how the Soviet Union declared war on Japan AFTER it was already defeated by the United States and then had the nerve to want to occupy Japan. You do remember that the US was fighting TWO major wars at the same time across two very large oceans? WWII wasn't just about the Soviet Union you know. The US didnt give a damn about Russia and would not have helped if it wasnt for the fact that they were bleeding the Germans.

This thread is about how Russia attacked Finland BEFORE your ALLIES the Germans attacked you. The truth is, the SU thought Finland would be easy pickings and insted you had your ass handed to you. In fact, maybe its why Hitler thought he had a chance to begin with.

What is it about the Russians that they can't keep allies? They are almost as bad as the Italians about switching sides.

[Pekka]

Serb, haha good point. Stalin did explain it with self defence and pre-emptive strike of some sort. It was only 60 kilometers (?) from Finnish border to St. Petersburg and he didn't like it and saw it as a threat.
He wanted to push the border in order to make a buffer zone and feel more safe. But Finland didn't want to give any land, so the war broke.

Russians could have literally crushed Finland, but planning was bad and underestimated our forces. They were weak but not stupid. Also fooling the people into believing that they would be welcomed with warm and open hearts didn't do any good in actual combat. Soldiers thought they could walk in and have a nice chat with Finns, but obviously that was not the case. Kind of sad, because many of them believed it was so, and we wanted them to come and 'liberate' us.

They suffered much of not having really thought of winter conditions. People were freezing to death even without combat. No camoflague, so they were easy targets. They did some basic stuff very wrong, like crossing lakes with big troops. Needless to say they were already fixed and blown up and they got into freezing water with no way out. Also with poor equipment, it was easier to surround them in 'motti's', and let them starve and freez to death. Harsh, but that's the way it went.

I also remember the notorius minesweepers, soldiers, that walked hand by hand singing party songs and got blown up. Then they initiated the attack, but spirits were low because they have to run across their dead friends.
They had big army, in a tough terrain, with insufficient equipment (clothing, food) and planning.
Lack of ski troops, and everything else contributed to massive beating.

It was our fortune, that they didn't take it seriously right at hand, maybe we wouldn't be independent today (which is 6.12 btw). Also it had an impact to the whole WW2, Germans were looking close the fight, and thought they could do the same and beat the Russians easy, but that didn't happen, and they made the same mistakes as the Russians did when they came here, so they lost at Stalingrad. They had no right equipment, froze do death, had problems with logistics, underestimated the Russians.. and lost. So in a way we kind of helped the Germans to lose .

With small countries it's pretty much 'break their spirits' tactics, and it was easy since Russian officers scared their soldiers ready for us. For example they managed to freeze up their morphines and didn't know how to keep them usable. Needless to say it created bad spirits during combat. In time they of course caught up these little things and did a lot better, and it was our fortune that peace came.

[Pekka]

Oh, I saw a nice document just a while ago. It was about Berlin, and how the US troops helped the Germans after they were beaten to get food. They had to drop food from the planes and be carefull not to get shot down, since Soviet troops were in charge and didn't want them to give them any food. How nice.

Luckily German citizens won the hearts of US troops and they started to risk their lives and volunteered flying those planes. True story of group of heros.

[Pekka]

ps. we will take Karelia back!

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Pekka
Oh, I saw a nice document just a while ago. It was about Berlin, and how the US troops helped the Germans after they were beaten to get food. They had to drop food from the planes and be carefull not to get shot down, since Soviet troops were in charge and didn't want them to give them any food. How nice.

Luckily German citizens won the hearts of US troops and they started to risk their lives and volunteered flying those planes. True story of group of heros.

That was the Berlin Airlift. American and British planes flew day and night supplying everything needed to the people of west Berlin.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/berlin_airlift/large/berlin_airlift.htm

[VetLegion]

So in a way we kind of helped the Germans to lose

winter war did force Stalin to improve the army. so you did help them in a way

that was a magnificent struggle by the finns, even if they went co-belligerent in the end ...

[Pekka]

Funny how some allies worked together . Soviets and the US had many differencies, we had ours with German which ended up in small fight (under Soviet pressure though) etc etc.. everybody was kind of beating everybody and everybody was helping everybody. I say WW2 was a no contest.

Sprayber, thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

Also that www.winterwar.com is very very good. It's not overly biased I think, it has some Russians helping with it. It has everything from tactics to equipment to different battles to.. well everything.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Sprayber
You lost me on your story but It may be kind of like how the Soviet Union declared war on Japan AFTER it was already defeated by the United States and then had the nerve to want to occupy Japan. You do remember that the US was fighting TWO major wars at the same time across two very large oceans? WWII wasn't just about the Soviet Union you know. The US didnt give a damn about Russia and would not have helped if it wasnt for the fact that they were bleeding the Germans.

Already defeated? Hmm...then WHY YOP'VE ASKED Stalin to attack Japan? It was one of your (American) conditions for opening of second front in Europe- after defeat of Germany SU should declare war on Japan within 90 days. Sure you have no idea about this and about Yalta's meeting. This is not that kind of thing, they teach you in American schools.
As for Japan and Germany, I like how you describe it, BUT the facts are:
1) Hitler declared war on USSR you've watch how Soviets and nazi killing each other in bloodbath humanity never saw before, untill 1944.You call your actions in Africa vs, nazi a major war? In compare with hell which was here it's childish showdowns in sandbox. Today you shout that you are super-mega warriors and laughting about silly Russkies who don't know how to fight. Great, super warriors my ass.

2) Hitler declared war on USA. Hitler, it was his choice, not yours, after he declared war vs. USA you can't say that you don't care about Germany, that didn't want to be involved, because GERMANY declared war on you.

3) Japan didn't declared war on USSR.

4) It was YOU, YOUR president who forced Stalin to declare war on Japan. (to be honest Stalin didn't mind, because he wanted to return Sakhalin)

This thread is about how Russia attacked Finland BEFORE your ALLIES the Germans attacked you.

Allies?
WTF?
Are you sure you didn't messed the sides? Finland fought on Germany side in WW2, not SU.
To your knowledge SU fought among with USA, GB, France and others (26 countries overall) against AXIS.
As for Molotov-Ribentrop. You do realize, that non-agression pact and alliance are different things, do you?

The truth is, the SU thought Finland would be easy pickings and insted you had your ass handed to you. In fact, maybe its why Hitler thought he had a chance to begin with.

Stalin thought so. Big difference. He responsible for this decision and all mistakes. He even didn't ordered to plan this war in central Red Army HQ, instead of this he send HQ general into vacation and ordered to leadership of Leningrad's military district to plan campaign. He tried to make this campaign as silence as possible, to don't provoke GB and France to declare war on SU because of Finland. This war was a good lesson for him. It showed what he done with Red army, HE and his brilliant policy of purges in Red Army. Anyhow he won this war, and gained what he wanted- 1)new territory for protection of Leningrad, which he was trying to trade peacefully before his proposals were refused. 2) GB and France didn't declared war on SU (but were very close to do so)
He didn't care how many soldiers braverly died during attacks on one of the most significient fortifications of that time, esp. under temperatures -40C and below, when tanks just didn't worked. He never cared about Russian lives much.

What is it about the Russians that they can't keep allies? They are almost as bad as the Italians about switching sides.

Nice joke. It comes from an American a citizen whose country is world's heavy weight champion of hypocrisy and switching sides.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Pekka
ps. we will take Karelia back!

Come and get it.
You gave good lesson to Russians in 1939. We've returned the favor in 1944.
You want round 3?

[Pekka]

I agree with Serb, the problem was Stalins lack of interest in the Finnish-Soviet front.
He rather had his men killed for nothing, if there was some serious planning and so, things could be differently. We will never know that.. except when we take Karelia back and have a REMATCH!