vs.

Comparison of Finnish and Soviet units
in the Winter War

• Unit legends

• Divisional organization
     Division strengths

• Regimental organization
     Regiment strengths

• Finnish battalion organization
     The official strengths of a Finnish and Soviet battalion
     The  Finnish Sissi-battalions

 

Both Finland and Soviet Union had the basic "triangular" division organization. It's called "triangular", because each standard infantry division had three infantry regiments of three battalions each.

 

Unit legends

 

Divisional organization

Finnish division		Soviet division
- HQ - 3 infantry regiments - Field artillery regiment - Light detachment (bicycle company, cavalry company, mg-platoon) - 2 Engineer companies - Signals company - Wire laying company - supply formations			- HQ - 3 infantry regiments - Field artillery regiment - Field howitzer regiment - Tank battalion - Recon battalion - Sapper battalion - Antitank battalion - AA-company - Signals battalion - Field medic battalion - Transport battalion - Other: supply formations and gas protection company

Finnish division	Personnel, weapons, transport equipment	Soviet division*
		Fin	Off.'39
14 200	Total manpower	17 500 - 18 000	18 881
~ 11 000	Rifles	~ 14 000	?
250	Submachine guns (smg)	-	-
250	Light machine guns (lmg)	419	578
116	Machine guns (mg)	238	162
-	12.7 mm Antiaircraft(AA)-mg	-	18
-	Quadruple 7.62 mm AA-mg	30?	15
-	Rifle grenade launchers	-	108
-	Flame throwers	-	38
-	Mortars light (50 mm)**	-	81
18	Mortars light (81 - 82 mm)	18	36
-	Mortars heavy (120 mm)***	12	12
18	Antitank guns (AT-guns)	48	54
24	Field guns (< 105 mm)	38 (76 mm)	38 (76 mm)
12	Field guns (> 105 mm)	28 (122 mm)	28 (122 mm)
	Field guns (> 150 mm)	12 (152 mm)	12 (152 mm)
-	Tanks	55	18****
-	37 mm AA-guns	-	8
-	76 mm AA-guns	-	4
-	Armored cars	10	12
46	Motor vehicles	427	962
3 200	Horses	5 393	6 208
* = It's very hard to determine the strength of the Soviet division during the war, as the TOE was changed in September 1939, and many of the changes didn't take place before or even during the war. There was also considerable differences between individual divisions. So in general the figures from different sources have different strengths. I have also included the new "official strengths" to accompany the figures most commonly seen in Finnish books ("Fin" in the table), which however were "on paper only" during the war. As the source for the "official" strength ("Off.'39" in the table) I have used "Soviet Order of Battle of World War II", by Charles C. Sharp, Vol. VIII. Data was kindly provided by M. D. Fox ** = were relatively rare during the Winter War (probably arrived to the forces only after the war had started), some were however captured by the Finnish forces *** = During the Winter War, there was only one battery of 120mm mortars in use- it was top secret and was in action at Summa. Source: Winter War 1939 - 1940. J. Stalin and the Finnish campaign (record of the meeting at the Central Committee of Communist Party) Moscow, Nauka 1999 ISBN 5-02-009633-4 (2nd volume). Information was provided by Bair Irincheev (www.mannerheim-line.ru) **** = "T-38" tankettes Note that these are official strengths which rarely, if ever, represented reality in the front-line divisions. Especially the number of Finnish AT-guns never got even near the establishment strength of 18 guns.

 

As can be seen from the table above, the soviet division had approximately twice as many automatic weapons than the Finnish division (the soviet division had no smg's, but that was somewhat offset with the relatively large number of semi- and full-automatic rifles).
The strength ratio in artillery was a little over 2:1, and the ratio in AT-guns, on paper, was almost 3:1, but in reality bigger as the Finnish divisions had practically never a full complement of AT-guns. Besides, the Finnish division had no tanks or armored cars, so the soviet division was a far more powerful unit than the Finnish counterpart. The fact that the artillery of the Red Army enjoyed a seemingly unlimited supply of shells, despite occasional supply problems, increased the unevenness between a Finnish and soviet division.
The weakness of the soviet division was, that it was a division of a powerful army, meant to fight in the more open terrain in mid-Europe. The high degree of motorization and the large number of heavy equipment tied the division near the roads, while the Finnish division was more maneuverable in difficult terrain.

There were also other differences between Finnish and soviet units, besides organizational.
The main soviet communications equipment was the radio, which was a definite advantage in difficult terrain, such as the area north of Ladoga.
The problem with Finnish communications equipment was that it generally relied on cable connections, which was somewhat outdated by '39 standards. The low number of radios meant that cable lines had to be drawn, which usually were severed by soviet everyday artillery bombardment. In many cases, the situation led to the point, that messengers was the only way to communicate between front-line units and HQ's, not to mention with adjacent units.

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Regimental organization

The Finnish battalion organization

The Finnish "Sissi"-battalions

The Finnish Sissi-battalions had quite a lot differences when compared to an ordinary infantry battalion. The Sissi-battalions were intended to fight in a large area, possibly in the enemy rear area, as an more or less independent unit, making small attacks against the enemy supply columns, securing open flanks in the wilderness, mining roads in the enemy rear and severing cable lines. These attacks/actions were usually made with small detachments (1 platoon), but larger units were also used. (But even while this type of warfare proved successful, the shortage of troops forced the Finns to use some Sissi-battalions also in regular front-line duty).

Of course, the "Sissi" ("guerilla" or "special unit" is perhaps the most matching English word) warfare made the command and logistics (supply) very difficult. That's why the Sissi battalion's HQ was similar to a Finnish regimental HQ, including a command office ("komentotoimisto" in Finnish) and a logistics office ("huoltotoimisto" in Finnish). being larger in number of personnel than a HQ of an regular battalion.

A Sissi-battalion had 3 rifle companies (so it didn't have the mg-company, that the regular battalion had).

Each rifle company had 3 rifle platoons (each platoon having 3 rifle squads and 1 special sledge squad), a lmg-platoon, a signals platoon and a delivery platoon ("toimitusjoukkue" in Finnish), making the companies well capable of independent action. Each rifle platoon had 4 smg's instead of the 2 smg's in regular platoons, otherwise the armament of a Sissi company was quite similar to a regular company. Also, each Sissi-company had 10 sledges.

(Source: "Talvisodan Pikkujättiläinen")

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The TOE of a Soviet light Tank Brigade in the Winter War