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Osprey Elite #141
Finland at War 1939-45
Finland's fight to defend her independence earned this tiny nation of just 3 million people a distinct place in history. Invaded by Stalin before World War II, Finland held out for months and inflicted huge losses on the invaders, but she was eventually crushed by the weight of Soviet numbers. When Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 the Finns fought alongside the Wehrmacht on the northern Russian Front, with great skill and courage in an attempt to regain their lost territories. When the German armies were forced to retreat in 1944, Finland managed to conclude a separate peace with the USSR – uniquely, without being forced to accept Russian occupation. This book details the organisation, uniforms and equipment of this remarkable force.
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
About the author
Philip Jowett
45 books9 followersPhilip S. Jowett was born in Leeds in 1961 and has been interested in military history for as long as he can remember. His first Osprey book was Chinese Civil War Armies 1911–49, and since then he has published numerous other titles for Osprey including, The Russo-Japanese War 1904–05, Japan's Asian Allies 1941–45 and Armour in China 1920–1950. He lives in North Lincolnshire, UK.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 8, 2019
Excellent introduction and reference work. Lavishly illustrated with both colored plates and black and white photos, including some from private collections. A little skimpy on narrative, but that’s typical of Osprey’s more narrowly focused Elite volumes. (Side note: how amazing do you have to be for your whole country’s armed forces to get an Elite volume?)
Includes a chronology of Finland’s complicated roles on the margins of World War II: the Winter War, standing alone against Soviet aggression in 1939-40; the Continuation War, allied with Germany against the USSR from 1941-44 in order to reclaim territory lost in the Winter War; and, after settling a separate peace with Stalin in September 1944, forced to go to war against Germany in the Lapland War of 1944-45. The chronology does a good job of outlining these major events but is little more than an outline; major battles like Suomussalmi or Tali-Ihantala get paragraph-length summaries and there is a minimum of commentary. Similarly, the authors introduce but do not much elaborate upon the Finns’ fascinating bit players, like sniper Simo Häyhä (who killed over 500 Russians in 100 days during the Winter War) or Lauri Törni, who eventually joined both the Waffen SS and the US Army Special Forces and died in Vietnam.
These are not necessarily weaknesses, just the limitations native to this kind of work. The main attraction here is the sheer volume of straight information. After the chronology, the book deals broadly with three subjects: types of troops, tactics, and weaponry.
All three sections are informative and helpful. That on troops provides a good overview of the structure of the Finnish military between 1939-45, including both regular troops, reservists, elite unites like the Jägers, and the Civil Guard, a relic of the White (anti-Communist) forces from the Finnish Civil War that operated parallel to the regular army for years and provided it a lot of experienced, well-trained soldiers when the Soviets attacked in 1939. The authors even include a helpful section on the Lotta Svärd, the women’s auxiliary in which over 170,000 Finnish women served across all three conflicts.
The section on tactics is short but emphasizes the Finnish standby of the motti (a Finnish word for a cubic meter of firewood, neatly sectioned and ready to burn—a haunting metaphor): halting, encircling, and destroying a spread out enemy in detail. This played to Finnish strengths—mobility, flexibility, surprise—and the densely wooded Finnish countryside where Soviet columns could easily find themselves halted and wiped out. The tactical section also includes a short bit on snipers, with the interesting tidbit that Simo Häyhä was not the only Finnish sniper who preferred to shoot over iron sights—apparently this was typical of Finland’s sharpshooters.
Something on static defense, as at the Mannerhein Line during the Winter War or in Karelia during the Continuation War, would have been welcome. (In the Osprey volume on the Winter War in their newer Combat series, they include a case study of bunker assaults.)
The section on weaponry was particularly detailed and informative, especially as regards which weapons were introduced and fielded when. (E.g. the m/44, a Finnish copy of the Russian PPSh-43, a stamped metal submachine gun, was only introduced in a batch of 10,000 near the end of the Lapland War.)
The most interesting takeaway from the whole book, but especially the weaponry section, was the improvisatory quality of Finland’s military efforts during the war. Outnumbered, outgunned, seemingly outmatched, the Finns scraped together whatever resources they could from whomever they could get them—donated from abroad during the Winter War, borrowed or bought from Germany during the Continuation War, captured from Russia during both—and they nonetheless excelled, inflicting a disproportionate amount of damage on their enemies despite long odds.
The Molotov cocktail, which got its nickname in Finland, is a case in point—this cheap improvised weapon was used to disable or destroy hundreds if not thousands of Russian tanks between 1939 and 1944. The Red Army lost 600 tanks on the Finnish front in the last three months of the Continuation War alone. It’s telling that Stalin settled with the Finns—twice—rather than force his way in to take over. Compare virtually any other place in Eastern Europe.
In short, a good introduction to this “side story” from World War II, though the details are not in the narrative but in the pictures and explanations of gear and its use—which tells a story of its own.
For those who want more, Osprey has a two-volume set (by Vesa Nenye et al) that greatly expands on the material here; volume one covers the Winter War and volume two the Continuation and Lapland Wars. Where this book comes in at a little over 60 pages, those are over 300 pages each. Looking forward to digging into them.
Recommended.
Includes a chronology of Finland’s complicated roles on the margins of World War II: the Winter War, standing alone against Soviet aggression in 1939-40; the Continuation War, allied with Germany against the USSR from 1941-44 in order to reclaim territory lost in the Winter War; and, after settling a separate peace with Stalin in September 1944, forced to go to war against Germany in the Lapland War of 1944-45. The chronology does a good job of outlining these major events but is little more than an outline; major battles like Suomussalmi or Tali-Ihantala get paragraph-length summaries and there is a minimum of commentary. Similarly, the authors introduce but do not much elaborate upon the Finns’ fascinating bit players, like sniper Simo Häyhä (who killed over 500 Russians in 100 days during the Winter War) or Lauri Törni, who eventually joined both the Waffen SS and the US Army Special Forces and died in Vietnam.
These are not necessarily weaknesses, just the limitations native to this kind of work. The main attraction here is the sheer volume of straight information. After the chronology, the book deals broadly with three subjects: types of troops, tactics, and weaponry.
All three sections are informative and helpful. That on troops provides a good overview of the structure of the Finnish military between 1939-45, including both regular troops, reservists, elite unites like the Jägers, and the Civil Guard, a relic of the White (anti-Communist) forces from the Finnish Civil War that operated parallel to the regular army for years and provided it a lot of experienced, well-trained soldiers when the Soviets attacked in 1939. The authors even include a helpful section on the Lotta Svärd, the women’s auxiliary in which over 170,000 Finnish women served across all three conflicts.
The section on tactics is short but emphasizes the Finnish standby of the motti (a Finnish word for a cubic meter of firewood, neatly sectioned and ready to burn—a haunting metaphor): halting, encircling, and destroying a spread out enemy in detail. This played to Finnish strengths—mobility, flexibility, surprise—and the densely wooded Finnish countryside where Soviet columns could easily find themselves halted and wiped out. The tactical section also includes a short bit on snipers, with the interesting tidbit that Simo Häyhä was not the only Finnish sniper who preferred to shoot over iron sights—apparently this was typical of Finland’s sharpshooters.
Something on static defense, as at the Mannerhein Line during the Winter War or in Karelia during the Continuation War, would have been welcome. (In the Osprey volume on the Winter War in their newer Combat series, they include a case study of bunker assaults.)
The section on weaponry was particularly detailed and informative, especially as regards which weapons were introduced and fielded when. (E.g. the m/44, a Finnish copy of the Russian PPSh-43, a stamped metal submachine gun, was only introduced in a batch of 10,000 near the end of the Lapland War.)
The most interesting takeaway from the whole book, but especially the weaponry section, was the improvisatory quality of Finland’s military efforts during the war. Outnumbered, outgunned, seemingly outmatched, the Finns scraped together whatever resources they could from whomever they could get them—donated from abroad during the Winter War, borrowed or bought from Germany during the Continuation War, captured from Russia during both—and they nonetheless excelled, inflicting a disproportionate amount of damage on their enemies despite long odds.
The Molotov cocktail, which got its nickname in Finland, is a case in point—this cheap improvised weapon was used to disable or destroy hundreds if not thousands of Russian tanks between 1939 and 1944. The Red Army lost 600 tanks on the Finnish front in the last three months of the Continuation War alone. It’s telling that Stalin settled with the Finns—twice—rather than force his way in to take over. Compare virtually any other place in Eastern Europe.
In short, a good introduction to this “side story” from World War II, though the details are not in the narrative but in the pictures and explanations of gear and its use—which tells a story of its own.
For those who want more, Osprey has a two-volume set (by Vesa Nenye et al) that greatly expands on the material here; volume one covers the Winter War and volume two the Continuation and Lapland Wars. Where this book comes in at a little over 60 pages, those are over 300 pages each. Looking forward to digging into them.
Recommended.
December 28, 2016
A classic in the Osprey Elite Series, this book covers the whole Finnish WWII experience, both the Winter War and the Continuation War against the Soviets. The colour plates are excellent, and the photos are also great at showing off various uniforms and gear. This is a must for the Military enthusiast and the modeller of the period, but may be too much inside info for the casual reader.
October 8, 2022
This book covers a very niche topic, which just so happens to be a topic that I particularly enjoy. While it provides solid information and covers the topic in depth, it can also be a little difficult to understand in certain aspects. Also, it has a habit of just throwing information into your face that you know nothing about, such as battalion names (which are in Finnish) and weapon types without really giving you a preface about the weapon or signaling that this battalion that did this was called (insert Finnish name). However, it does a great job covering the topic it is supposed to cover, and if they wrote another book about this topic and made it easier for someone unknowledgeable to understand, I think it would be a perfect historical read.
November 24, 2020
This is another one of those Osprey booklets that, while fine on a factual basis, has been superseded a bit on the interpretive front. In particular, it's now appreciated that Helsinki had aggressive designs on Soviet Karelia from almost Day One of the republic, and that pressure from London and Washington had a lot more to do with Finland ceasing operations in the Continuation War than any sense of satisfying war aims. Still worth reading though.
If you want to do a deeper historical dive look at "Finland's War of Choice" (Henrik Lunde) and "The Finnish Civil War 1918" (Tuomas Tepora, editor).
If you want to do a deeper historical dive look at "Finland's War of Choice" (Henrik Lunde) and "The Finnish Civil War 1918" (Tuomas Tepora, editor).
December 6, 2025
Sterling brought this book home from the library and I picked it up while I was waiting for the oven timer to go off (the space in front of the oven is such a warm and cosy place to read in winter!). I ended up reading the whole book! It's not terribly long and it basically ONLY tells you the interesting parts. There are lots of ways to get to know a culture - its disasters, its famous crimes, its art, and, of course, its wars. This feels especially true to me when it comes to Finland. To understand the Winter War, in particular, is to understand so much more about Finland than you otherwise might. And this book helped me even farther along in that journey!
June 17, 2017
Aways fascinated by the tremendous military effort put up by tiny Finland against the Soviet Union, particularly in the "Winter War" of 1939-1940. They fought with spirit (nationalism), mostly obsolete weapons and ingenuity against massive Russian numbers. They were forced to concede territory in the end but not their pride.
November 22, 2021
A basic survey of the Finish army of the period in terms of weapons, uniforms, and such. Some discussion of tactics. Little on the actual history or operations.
February 26, 2022
Exactly what I was looking for - a brief synopsis of Finnish tactics, organization and equipment during her two wars with the USSR and one with Nazi Germany during ww2. Well illustrated as well. Available at this writing on Scribd.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews