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Finnish ability to keep up steam? - Printable Version

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Finnish ability to keep up steam? - Shrimpkins - 23.05.2009

Hello pilots!
Here I am again with a new question!
I've been reading some about the finnish winter war and continuation war.
Thinking of the numerical inferiority they suffered from and yet still could train and keep
a local air superiority at times of need, I managed to squeeze a question out of the old think-box, which
applies to every theatre of war - How did they manage to conceal own airstrips and squadrons?

Did they ever keep it hidden, did they place the little AA-batteries they had at these places? What made them able to keep on fighting? Was it a mistake from the soviet side to not focus on the airfields? I mean, when Goering bombed Great Britain he first focused on the airfields, which almost destroyed the whole british fighter system.

Do anybody have an answer to this question?

I do realize that it is, in every theatre, every nations priority to destroy the enemy ability to fight, not to go after those pestering fighters. It's the same with fighter aircraft - it is more necessary to intercept bombers than get stuck with fighters. But clearly the finnish fighters were a huge problem for the clumpsy soviet formations.

Any theories which can result in a good discussion is welcome!
Thanks for a great, great, awesome website and a good and friendly community!

Per from sweden

- Ectoflyer - 23.05.2009

Maybe here you can find some answer:

http://www.ww2wings.com/wings/finland/finlandmain.shtml

as they say:
"The consensus is that the Finns were vastly superior pilots compared to the Soviets particularly in air-to-air combat situations. This was due in no small measure to the fact that the training of FAF pilots focused on air-to-air combat. Historians credit Finnish innovations in loose formation flying, aerial acrobatics skills and improved combat tactics for their enormous successes. The FAF fighter pilots consistently used the element of surprise as a major weapon."

So it seems that Russian planes never could definitively penetrate finnish air space!

Also interesting:
http://www.sci.fi/~ambush/faf/faf.html
...
and surely other sites I don't know...

- Guest - 16.07.2009

Ectoflyer Wrote:Maybe here you can find some answer:

http://www.ww2wings.com/wings/finland/finlandmain.shtml

as they say:
"The consensus is that the Finns were vastly superior pilots compared to the Soviets particularly in air-to-air combat situations. This was due in no small measure to the fact that the training of FAF pilots focused on air-to-air combat. Historians credit Finnish innovations in loose formation flying, aerial acrobatics skills and improved combat tactics for their enormous successes. The FAF fighter pilots consistently used the element of surprise as a major weapon."

So it seems that Russian planes never could definitively penetrate finnish air space!

Also interesting:
http://www.sci.fi/~ambush/faf/faf.html
...
and surely other sites I don't know...


If you bothered to read your own sources with a sound amount of criticism, you would know that Finnish airspace was penetrated on daily basis, and that many Soviet pilots never saw a Finnish fighter during the Winter war, manly due to their numeric superiority.

The FAF did concentrate all their effort on intercept missions, avoiding Fighter to Fighter engagements. If we look at the share numbers of victories on both sides, the finns lost nearly as many fighter aircrafts as the Soviets, so the majority of the Soviet air losses where Bombers, recon and transport planes.