Aerial warfare in the Winter War

The aerial warfare in the Winter War was the aerial aspect of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union from 30
November 1939 to 13 March 1940. While the Soviet air forces greatly outnumbered the Finnish Air Force, the Soviet bombing
campaign was largely ineffective, and Finnish pilots and antiaircraft gunners inflicted significant lo
sses on the Soviets.

Contents
Soviet Air Force
Soviet aircraft
Finnish Air Force
Finnish aircraft
Finnish aces
See also
References
Citations
Bibliography

Soviet Air Force

The Soviet Union enjoyed air superiority throughout the war. The Soviet Air
Force, supported the Red Army's invasion with about 2,500 aircraft of the
Soviet Air Forces, (the most common of which was the Tupolev SB-2
bomber,[1] which had shown its effectiveness during the Spanish Civil war.
However the VVS was not as effective as the Soviets might have hoped. The
material damage by bomber attacks was slight, as Finland did not offer many
valuable targets for strategic bombing. Targets were often small village depots
Soviet Tupolev SB bombers appears on of small value. Finland had only a few modern highways, so the railway
the sky above Helsinki 30 November systems were the main target for bombers. The rail tracks were cut thousands
1939. of times but were easily repaired, and the Finns usually had trains running in a
matter of hours.[1] The damage inflicted on Finnish targets was also
diminished by poor navigation technique, and minimal bombing accuracy on
the part of the Soviets[2] and Finnish casualties were reduced by effective air-raid precautions. However the Soviet air force learned
from its early mistakes, and by late February they instituted more effective tactics.[3] One such success was the strike against the
Ruokolahti airfield on 29 February 1940. At noon on that day 40 I-16 and I-153 fighters struck the base, destroying three aircraft on
the ground and another three (twoGladiators and one Fokker) for the loss of only one I-16.[2]

Finland's capital city, Helsinki, was bombed on the first day of the war; a number of buildings were destroyed and some 200 people
were killed.[4] However the city was the target of raids only a few times thereafter. All in all, Finland lost only 5 percent of its total
man-hour production time due to Soviet bombings. Nevertheless, bombings affected thousands of civilians as the Soviets launched
2,075 bombing attacks on 516 localities.[1] Air raids killed 957 Finnish civilians.[5] The city of Viipuri, a major Soviet objective, was
almost leveled by nearly 12,000 bombs.[6] No attacks on civilian targets were mentioned in Soviet radio or newspaper reports. In
January 1940, Pravda continued to stress that no civilian targets in Finland had been struck, even by accident.[7]

Soviet aircraft
 [8]
At the start of hostilities the Soviet Air Force had the following aircraft in service:

Fighters

I-15: biplane fighter (Chaika-"seagull")

I-15 bis : (improved version of I-15)
I-16 monoplane fighter (Ishak-"donkey"; called Siipiorava, "flying squirrel" by the Finns)
I-16 bis
I-153 biplane fighter (also called theChaika; a variant of the I-15)
Bombers

DB-3 twin engined long-range bomber

SB-2 twin engined high-speed bomber K
( atyusha- "Catherine")
SB-2 bis
TB-3 four-engined heavy bomber
Reconnaissance

Po-2 multi-purpose biplane (kukuruznik-"crop-duster")

Naval aviation

MBR-2 multi-purpose flying boat

MBR2 bis
Figures of Soviet losses during the conflict vary from source to source; One estimate puts the loss at 700-900 aircraft, the majority of
them bombers:[2] Against this Finnish losses were 62 aircraft, with a further 59 damaged beyond repair.[9] Another states Finnish
[10]
aircraft shot down 240 Soviet aircraft, with ant-aircraft fire accounting for 314 to 444 others.

Finnish Air Force

At the beginning of the war, Finland had a very small air force, with only 114
combat airplanes fit for duty. Therefore, Finnish air missions were very limited
and fighter aircraft were mainly used to repel Soviet bombers. Old-fashioned
and few in numbers, Finnish aircraft could not offer support to the Finnish
ground troops. Therefore, the Finnish Air Force adopted the same guerilla
tactics used by Finnish ground forces, dispersing to makeshift airfields often The Finns ordered 18 BritishBristol
Blenheim light bombers in 1936
consisting only of a frozen lake.[11] In spite of aircraft losses throughout the
war, the Finnish Air Force grew by 50 percent by the end of the war. Most new
aircraft shipments arrived during January 1940.[12]

The Finnish Air Force had also revised its tactics; In air combat, the Finns used the more flexible"finger four" formation (four planes
split into two pairs, one flying low and the other high, with each plane fighting independently of the others, yet supporting its
wingman in combat), which was superior to the Soviet tactic of three fighters flying in a Vic formation. This formation and the credo
of Finnish pilots to always attack, no matter the odds, contributed to the failure of Soviet bombers to inflict substantial damage
against Finnish positions and population centres.[13]

Finnish fighter pilots often dove into Soviet formations that outnumbered them ten or even twenty times, and Soviet bomber
formations became wary of even single Finnish fighters, as they knew the pilot would not let them pass un-noticed. Entire squadrons
[14] On one
could disappear on missions over Finland, and those back at their bases in Estonia could only guess at what had happened.
occasion, the Finnish ace Jorma Kalevi Sarvanto encountered a formation of seven DB-3 bombers on 6 January 1940 and shot down
six in just 4 minutes.[2]

Finnish aircraft
At the start of hostilities, the Finnish Air Force had 146 aircraft of all types at its disposal, organized into 12 squadrons. The primary
fighter aircraft were

15 Bristol Bulldog IVs, which had entered service in 1935,

41 of the more modernFokker D.XXI
65 older Fokker aircraft of various types;C-10's, C-5's and D-10's
15 Blackburn Ripons
There were also 18 license-built Bristol Blenheim bombers. In 1939, an order had been placed in Italy for 25 Fiat G.50 fighters; two
were being assembled in Sweden when the war broke out.

During the war, a number of aircraft were ordered from abroad:[13]

30 Gloster Gladiator II biplane fighters from theUnited Kingdom

12 Bristol Blenheim IV bombers from the United Kingdom
30 Morane-Saulnier M.S.406fighters from France
44 Brewster 239 fighters from the United States
22 Gloster Gauntlet trainers from the United Kingdom
10 Fiat G.50 fighters from Italy
Owing to this reinforcement, the Finnish Air Force had a greater strength at the end of the conflict than at the beginning; however
[2]
they were seldom able to field more than 100 aircraft at any one time against an expanding VVS commitment.

Finnish fighters shot down 240 confirmed Soviet aircraft, against the Finnish loss of 26. A Finnish forward air base often consisted of
only a frozen lake, a windsock, a telephone set and some tents.[15] Air-raid warnings were given by Finnish women organized by the
[1]
Lotta Svärd. Finnish antiaircraft gunners shot down between 314 and 444 Soviet aircraft.

Finnish aces
[9]
The following Finnish pilots became aces (achieving five confirmed victories) during the war

name confirmed unconfirmed

Lt. Jorma Sarvanto 13 4
Lt. Tatu Huhanantti 6 4
S/M. Viktor Pyötsiä 7½ 2
S/M Kelpo Virta 5 1
Lt. Urho Nieminen 5 1
Lt T. Vuorimaa 4 2½
Capt. Erkki Olavi Ehrnrooth 7 4

See also
List of units of the Finnish Air Force during the Winter W
ar

References

Citations
1. Trotter 2002, pp. 187–193
2. Hardesty p. 52
3. Trotter (2002), p. 193
 4. Engle p. 22
5. Kurenmaa, Pekka; Lentilä, Riitta (2005). "Sodan tappiot".In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.).Jatkosodan
pikkujättiläinen (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö. pp. 1150–1162.ISBN 951-0-28690-7.
6. Trotter (2002), pp. 187–188
7. Tillotson (1993), p. 157
8. Hardesty pp. 250-1
9. Engle p. 62
10. Trotter pp. 187–193
11. Engle p. 60
12. Peltonen, Martti (1999). "Ilmasota talvisodassa".In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.).Talvisodan
pikkujättiläinen (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö. pp. 606–649.ISBN 951-0-23536-9.
13. Finnish Air Force in World War II, Heikki Nikunen (http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/fin_force.
htm) at century-of-flight.net
14. Engle p. 58
15. Engle, Paananen pp. 56–62

Bibliography
Engle, Eloise/ Paananen, Lauri (1973)The Winter War Sidgewick&Jackson ISBN 0 283 97949 6
Hardesty, Von (1982) Red Phoenix: the rise of Soviet air power 1941–1945Arms and Armour PressISBN 0-85368-
565-7
Trotter, William R. (2002) [1991]. The Winter war: The Russo–Finno War of 1939–40 (5th ed.). New York (Great
Britain: London): Workman Publishing Company (Great Britain: Aurum Press).ISBN 1-85410-881-6. "First published
in the United States under the title A Frozen Hell: The Russo–Finnish Winter W
ar of 1939–40"

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