Silly Ski-Armor Got Lots of Soviet Soldiers Killed

War is Boring ^ | October 27, 2016 | David Axe

[C19fan]

It’s no secret that the Soviet army was badly prepared to fight Finnish forces in late 1939 and early 1940, during the brief, bloody and — for the Soviets — catastrophic Russo-Finnish Winter War. One particularly ill-conceived weapon underscores just how unready the Soviets were. The armored sled. In essence, a pair of overburdened skis supporting an entirely-too-heavy metal shield that Soviet commanders hoped would help protect hapless infantry in the absence of tank and artillery support. The sled failed. Worse, it actually got a lot of young Soviet troopers needlessly killed.

[C19fan]

This was not the first time someone thought up an armored shield. They tried this on the Western Front during WW I with equal lack of success.

[Ueriah]

General Winter won.

Great post.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The WWI museum at the Somme shows several varieties of german and Allied “portable” armored shields ... and several have been shot through. The high-speed bullets were just too powerful.

Even “tank” armor on the early WWII light tanks could be pierced by large rifle and machine gun bullets.

[smokingfrog]

Hell of an idea though & kept a few factory workers busy making them. Those Finns were just too stupid to understand they would be defeated by an overwhelming force.

[Travis McGee]

Simo "Simuna" Häyhä December 17, 1905 – April 1, 2002), nicknamed "White Death" (Russian: Belaya Smert; Finnish: valkoinen kuolema; Swedish: den vita döden) by the Red Army, was a Finnish marksman. Using a Finnish M/28-30 rifle (a Finnish variant of the Mosin–Nagant rifle) and the Suomi KP/-31 Submachine Gun, in the Winter War, he is reported as having killed 505 men, the highest recorded number of confirmed sniper kills in any major war.[2][3]

During the Winter War (1939–1940) between Finland and the Soviet Union, Häyhä served as a sniper for the Finnish Army against the Red Army in the 6th Company of JR 34 during the Battle of Kollaa in temperatures between −40 °C (−40 °F) and −20 °C (−4 °F), dressed completely in white camouflage. Stalin’s purges of military experts caused chaos, and Soviet troops were not issued with white camouflage suits for most of the war, making them easily visible to snipers.[5] Häyhä has been credited with 505 sniper kills.[2][6] A daily account of the kills at Kollaa was made for the Finnish snipers. All of Häyhä's kills were accomplished in fewer than 100 days – an average of just over five kills per day – at a time of year with very few daylight hours.[7][8][9] Häyhä used an M/28-30 with serial number 60974, because it suited his small frame (1.6 m (5 ft 3 in)). The rifle is a shorter, Finnish White Guard militia variant of the Mosin–Nagant rifle, known as "Pystykorva" (literally "Spitz", due to the front sight's resemblance to the head of a spitz-type dog) chambered in the Finnish Mosin–Nagant cartridge 7.62×53R. He preferred iron sights over telescopic sights as to present a smaller target for the enemy (a sniper must raise his head higher when using a telescopic sight), to increase accuracy (a telescopic sight's glass can fog up easily in cold weather), and to aid in concealment (sunlight glare in telescopic sight lenses can reveal a sniper's position). As well as these tactics, he frequently packed dense mounds of snow in front of his position to conceal himself, provide padding for his rifle and reduce the characteristic puff of snow stirred up by the muzzle blast. He was also known to keep snow in his mouth whilst sniping, to prevent steamy breaths giving away his position in the cold air.[10]

[Obadiah]

Thanks. Your post provided more information on why the sleds failed than the entire article did.

[Obadiah]

Fascinating.

[buwaya]

Most of the shields werent portable as such - they were used as part of the trench fortifications. A prefab firing slit. It was dangerous to observe from the trenches, or to fire from them because of course the other side were trying to do the same thing. So armored shields were one expedient.
Personal armor was another. The Germans even had special arnor plates for helmets and even machineguns.
Another was periscope rifles, I have seen several.

Mobile shields on wheels were tried a bit, but were not suitable to the ground.

[mabarker1]

Now THATS thinking things ALL the way through in detail.

My teeth are cold now...

[oldplayer]

president ubama and perhaps Mrs. Clinton, will strangle our military with ideas as equally silly.

If Mrs. Clinton was able to so easily kill a number of good folks as Secretary of State, think what she can do as POTUS. It should scare us all.

Oldplayer

[oldplayer]

president ubama and perhaps Mrs. Clinton, will strangle our military with ideas as equally silly.

If Mrs. Clinton was able to so easily kill a number of good folks as Secretary of State, think what she can do as POTUS. It should scare us all.

Oldplayer

[al_c]

Looks a lot like Johnny Carson.

[WKUHilltopper]

Yep...WW1 stuff.

[IronJack]

The Finns and the Poles are inspirations for defiance in the face of overwheling odds. I only hope those guts haven’t been bred out of them like so many other Europeans.

[Wneighbor]

When I was in elementary school our area didn’t have those nuke drills the rest of the country had. In 5th grade during “social studies” class another student asked why we didn’t have those. Teacher told us it was because we were within 20 miles of the largest army post in the western hemisphere and it would be one of the first targets. We did not have a chance of surviving.

That pretty much freaked me out so that night I brought it up at our supper table. My daddy told us about the winter war that night. (I learned a lot of the best history from my daddy at the supper table.) Since the social studies class in school was requiring some kind of report about communist Russia I decided to write about that war.

It is Texas and my teacher was what I considered an old lady at the time. There was no liberal crap taught in that classroom. She did talk about my report to the rest of the class, telling all that the Finn’s were an example to how our mindset should be in fighting commies. Use every sneaky weapon both mental and physical against them, bring out all age groups, men and women, but they must be defeated.

These days I shudder to think what Mrs. Brown would think of her own country.

[fella]

Here's a modern periscope gun.

[reed13k]

My daughter’s hockey team mate (parents from finland working here) graduated last year and is serving his mandatory service year(s) in Finland now. She’s gotten only one text from him, just a week or so ago, a picture of his boots/camo pants and the statement “I hate mornings”.

She showed it to me and I about died laughing, as I recalled the exact same feeling from my Plebe summer.

[Bull Snipe]

One Red Army General stated after the armistice was signed; they had conquered just enough of Finland to bury their dead.

[Chode]

another great Finn who survived the Winter War, but his luck ran out in Vietnam...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_T%C3%B6rni

Lauri Allan Törni (28 May 1919 – 18 October 1965), later known as Larry Thorne, was a Finnish Army captain who led an infantry company against the Soviet Union in the Finnish Winter and Continuation Wars and moved to the United States after World War II. He fought under three flags: Finnish, German (when he again fought the Soviets in World War II), and American (where he was known as Larry Thorne) when he served in U.S. Army Special Forces in the Vietnam War.

Vietnam War and death

Deploying to South Vietnam in November 1963 to support South Vietnamese forces in the Vietnam War, Thorne and Special Forces Detachment A-734 were stationed in the Tịnh Biên District and assigned to operate Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) encampments at Châu Lăng and later Tịnh Biên.[22]

During a fierce attack on the CIDG camp in Tịnh Biên, he received two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star Medal for valor during the battle.[1] This attack would later be described by author Robin Moore in his book The Green Berets.[23]

Thorne's second tour in Vietnam began in February 1965 with 5th Special Forces Group; he then transferred to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV–SOG), a classified U.S. special operations unit focusing on unconventional warfare in Vietnam, as a military advisor.[1]

On 18 October 1965, he was supervising a clandestine mission during which his Vietnam Air Force CH-34 helicopter crashed in a mountainous area of Phước Sơn District, Quảng Nam Province, Vietnam, 25 miles (40 km) from Da Nang.[1][24] Rescue teams were unable to locate the crash site. Shortly after his disappearance, Thorne was promoted to the rank of major.[1]

In 1999, Thorne's remains were found by a Finnish and Joint Task Force-Full Accounting team[nb 3] and repatriated to the United States following a Hanoi Noi Bai International Airport ceremony that included Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Ambassador Pete Peterson.[1]

Formally identified in 2003, his remains were buried on 26 June 2003 at Arlington National Cemetery, section 60, tombstone 8136,[25][26] along with the South Vietnam Air Force casualties of the mission recovered at the crash site.[27]

[Chode]

see post #19