How could the Soviet Union be so awful at fighting in the sn

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>>33893999
For starters, Stalin was a total nutcase.

Like if you thought Hitler was bad, you wouldn't believe what kind of coconut this ruskie with a 'stache was. Even Lenin hated and warned people about him before his death, but that cunning fox had been rising in the communist ranks by literally eliminating his competition + removing them from history records. When Germany started its WW2 stuff and struck a deal with Soviets, Stalin was already planning offensive actions against Nazis, part which involved occupying Finland.

Now this maniac had already eliminated tons of high ranking officers, people with actual military experience. In their place now stood lots of young, inexperienced rookies, who fearing the Stalin's wrath literally let him hear what ever he wanted to hear. You gotta remember that the WW1 had just ended less than 2 decades ago, there'd been a revolution in Russia, and the whole country was in huge mess in general, no matter the insane manpower. Russian officials thought that if they'd just rise their voice a bit, Finns would give 'em what they wanted, and that Finnish communist parties would even start a revolution of their own and welcome Russian overlords into the country. Too bad that they missed the memo saying that the Finnish "reds" had already lost the civil war those couple decades earlier.

At that point of history, winters still were real fucking things not to be messed with, and no one in their right mind believed that anyone would attempt hostilities in the middle of the season of death. But ruskies did, still thinking they'd march to Helsinki in less than couple weeks, with no resistance. There's stories saying that the first few batches of troops were literally wielding summer gear and parade equipment, so they could throw a party in the capital city.

End result we all know: Finns knew their home turf, and compensated their lack of modern gear and manpower with guerrilla / ranger tactics+ guts.

Nice trips btw

>>33893999
No matter how "used" to winters you are, you're still going to freeze to death if you don't have appropriate clothing provided.

>>33894140
fuck off you nazi fascist scum

>>33894140
Stalin wasn't as bad as Hitler was, Stalin fucked up with the purges but knew when to back off and leave shit to the generals. It's why the USSR was able to reverse things once Stalin let the generals do their jobs. Hitler by contrast got more and more meddling

Secondly, Stalin was more pragmatic and less prone to emotional decision-making than Hitler. Stalin would have never been dumb enough to do something like declare war on the US WHILE he was losing to Germany and Britain, yet Hitler basically did this.

Thirdly, Stalin had battlefield command experience from the Russian Civil War unlike little corporal.

The army purges were a mistake from a military standpoint, but the human suffering resulting from those are largely indifferent to Stalin. He saw the army purges as a way to subordinate it to his will and prevent a "red napoleon". Ultimately given how all his decisions turned out, I doubt there's anything Stalin would have done differently in his life save kill Tito early.

>>33894952
and before all you wehrboos start to sperg over saying "stalin isnt as bad as hitler was", I meant bad a leader as hitler.

Stalin and Hitler are ultimately on the same morality scale, except Stalin is more machiavellian and Hitler is more emotional

>>33894140
>stalin was worst!
>>33894952
>no, hitler was!
Nipping this shit in the bud RIGHT NOW!

They BOTH sucked, IMMENSLY! So much that it doesn't really matter who was "worse"!
/thread

>>33893999
As to answer OPs question

Essentially, the purges and Stalin's own paranoia led to heavy Soviet losses in the conflict. Stalins personal friend Voroshilov was charged to handle things, and he had troops from the more arid and hot regions of the USSR deployed to fight in finland as opposed to northerners as he feared they'd defect to the Finns. Once Stalin sacked Voroshilov out of frustraton and appointed an actual battlefield commander, Semyon Timoshenko, the war ended rather quickly and the Finns sued for peace

Ultimately, it would take the moscow counteroffensive for Stalin to finally trust generals to plan and execute operations independently, and the results were quite good for the Soviets all things considered

>>33893999
Because the Russians are really good at ending wars but fucking suck at starting them.

This coupled with the Finns being batshit insane levels of "GET OFF MY LAWN!" And having marksmanship as an integral part of their society meant the Russians, at the time also dealing with purges, were kinda getting the short end of the stick.
>>33894893
This as well.
>>33894980
This guy is also correct.

Morally they were both fucked, and in all honesty neither one can be considered anything but a monster.
Any further arguing will simply result in numbers, and numbers rarely truly quantify human lives properly.

>>33894980

Stalin only did it because his waifu was kill :(

>>33895076
She killed herself, according to his daughter's writings. Just like a few of Hitler's girlfriends did (and Eva tried to do).

>>33894952
I would like to point out that Hitler is indeed not a good military commander on most accounts, but most of the history we get is from German generals, so they like to blame Hitler for their mistakes sometimes. Mainstien brushes over some of his mistakes in Crimea, and Gudierian doesn't talk so much about how much he sided with Hitler on some issues in 1944 compared to his contemporaries on the Eastern Front.

Also please don't get in the fucking meme debate that is Hitler v Stalin

>>33893999
Ok here's list:
1.Most of Army consisted from Ukrainian conscripts (Ukraine is warm)
2.They used black/dark green clothes
3.They decided to invade without proper logistic
4.Their counterartillery sucked dicks because like 70-80% of losses were from arty

>>33893999
>implying peasants do anything during winter besides sleeping on the stove

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>>33893999

Partly it was Stalin's purges, partly it was because they expected a short war, and not having to fight that long during wintertime.

We invade, the Finnish defences collapse because we have bombers, tanks and arty and they don't, the Finnish workers rise up and welcome us, bada bing bada boom Helsinki by Christmas.

... but then the Finnish defences DIDN'T collapse in a week or two, the workers uprising failed to materialize, and all of a sudden you're wading waist-deep in snow, it's -35 °C and you're not wearing nearly enough clothes, and you're expected to charge at machine guns because your commanding officer is getting increasingly more nervous at the very real prospect of a trip to Lubyanka if he doesn't produce results soon.

>>33894903
Antifa no fagging

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because Finns are scary

>>33896301
Who the hell thought that the use of such an ancient piece of artillery was a good idea?

>>33896398
people with no other choice

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>>33896398

If ancient artillery is all you have, then you use ancient artillery. Besides, the gun is from 1904 or so, so it's not quite as ancient in 1939 as some other pieces used by the Finnish army during the Winter War. Some stuff was from the late 1870s.

>>33896339
What's the name of that rifle or lmg in the middle

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Post Finnish war tunes and songs, I'd like to expand a playlist

>>33896450
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZx1zl_sVTI

>>33896450
Here's some propaganda songs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAw2DBwtALQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz4mIn3swD0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYpUmZ7ih-o

First one is mostly chanting about shooting russkies between the eyes, second one tells a story of minister Molotov and how he's a great liar, and the third one is about russians losing the war and retreating all the way to the ural. We used to sing the first one at some university student events but it's not done anymore, atleast not with exchange students present

>>33896472
Do tell about Minister Molotov, was he a Soviet puppet?

>>33896476
He was the Soviet foreign affairs minister and probably most well known of the molotov-ribbentrop pact, which gives the soviets the OK to invade Finland, and concerning the song his great lie was that Finland would fall swiftly, this not happening spoiled his plans.
The molotov cocktail is spitingly named after him as he stated that the soviet union does not bomb Finland but instead drops food aid. The big cluster bombs were thus called "Molotov's bread baskets"

>>33896445
Lahti-Saloranta M/26. It wasn't a very good weapon, Finnish soldiers tended to prefer captured Soviet DP LMGs, which actually outnumbered Finnish L-S LMGs in Finnish use by the end of WW2.

>>33896558
>tfw you can no longer scavenge the ammo from dead enemies since they changed to 5.45

>>33896398
You go to war with what you have.

>>33896450
https://youtube.com/watch?v=D7b8E2lgLY4
Top tier march coming through.

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the legend

>>33894903
Fucking Antifa faggot

>>33896316
I've been on vodka-fueled benders in northern Finland, the fuckers can party

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>hey guys how about we just send our troops through this narrow road in the middle of the forest with like a meter of snow on the ground so they pretty much have to stay on the road and can't go anywhere else
>what could go wrong am i right?

>>33896450

Some of my favourites

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4jHY8h05jE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0dpsB5lmk8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck_BUUQODaQ