Some facts on Winter War
There have been some observation on Winter War (30.11.39 - 13.3.40) between Soviet Union and Finland in connection of LW in Normandy. Even if Finland wasn't an Axis power at that time, as it was in war against SU which was a sort of non-combat partner of Germany at that time, I post this in this forum.
At the beginning of the war Finns had 119 a/c vs appr. 800 a/c against them.
1.3.40 Finns had 152 a/c vs appr. 3.800 VVS a/c.
Losses during the war were. Finns 49, SU 650 - 700 a/c. These are from all reasons, in winter climate operational losses on both sides were rather high.
FAF couldn't give much support to hard pressed front-line troops.
FAF succeeded in helping to keep the railwaylines open for supply traffic to the Finnish field army, but only with narrow margin.
Even in last weeks of war FAF was able to mount many bombing and straffing raids against Soviet forces which were crossing the Gulf of Viipuri/Vyborg (Viipurin lahti) over the ice and so possessed a grave danger to Finnish Field Army. In these attacks FAF suffered some losses but those were altogether in single figure.
Sorry, I don't have time to make a more in depht analyze.
Juha
|