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Finnish Armour in WW2

The Winter War

The 1939 Soviet territorial expansions were ignored by Germany due to the Nazi-Soviet pact; this meant that Stalin was free to expand in some areas of Eastern Europe, and these attacks included the Russian invasion of Finland. It started with Russia asking Finland for territory near Leningrad (today known as St. Petersburg) and certain air and naval bases, in return Russia offered land in Karelia, Finland refused and on the 30th of September 1939 Soviet troops attacked Finland. In this early stage of the war to come between the countries, Finland itself had no specific tank units, though Russia had a large tank force, including the new T-28, these would become useful in the Finnish army in the future. Eventually Russia made peace with Finland, as Finland's soldiers held strong, but the Soviets had broken through the Mannerheim line, Finland still though, had to give up the territory and bases Russia had specified.

Building strength in peace

Finland had captured 167 Russian tanks which they pressed into service, most of these were the poor and obsolete T-26 tank, though the Finnish 3rd Panssarikomppania had purchased 3 T-34s from the Germans and had captured some T-28s that were pressed into service. 6th Panssarikomppania had also captured some T-28s and 2 of the heavy and much feared KVs. During the break between the Winter War and WW2 the Finnish tank troops had been training hard and had learnt valuable lessons for the Finnish Army in general in the Winter War.