Talk:Continuation War

Removal of FGAN tag

First I want to congratulate everyone who worked hard on this article to bring it back to GA status, especially Manelolo, to whom I promised I would help a bunch on this, but in the end I didn't do so much haha. I have removed the Former GA tag because it's obsolete. If ever someone thinks it should be brought back and udpdated, by all means go ahead. Cheers, Double Plus Ungood (talk) 00:50, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Misleading information about Soviet bombing targets in Finland on 25 June 1941

I am here for the first time ever, so please forgive me any newcomer's mistakes.

The article on Continuation War has the following sentence:

"On the morning of 25 June, the Soviet Union launched another air offensive, with 460 fighters and bombers targeting 19 airfields in Finland, however inaccurate intelligence and poor bombing accuracy resulted in several raids hitting Finnish cities, or municipalities, causing considerable damage."

What is the source of the claim that those bombers targeted airfields, and ended up hitting cities and municipalities?

Aerial bombing in WWII was mostly done visually using bomb sights, which must have been the case in these air raids as well. How was it possible at all for Soviet aircrews with normal eyesight not to distinguish between airfields and residential areas with civilian buildings, even if their intelligence was inaccurate and bombing accuracy was poor? The latter cannot explain destruction of populated areas, as those are certainly never built next to runways.

To me, this sounds like an attempt at apology of cowardly air raids deliberately aimed against defenceless civilians, rather than inadvertent navigation errors or mistakes in finding targets.

I suggest the above quoted sentence should be corrected. For example as follows:

"On the morning of 25 June, the Soviet Union launched another air offensive, with 460 fighters and bombers allegedly targeting airfields in Finland, however several raids hitting 15 Finnish cities and municipalities including Helsinki, Kotka, Loviisa, Forsby, Porvoo, and Turku, causing considerable damage and civilian casualties."

Yours sincerely,

Finnbloke (talk) 09:29, 19 October 2018 (UTC)Finnbloke

Initial operations section

"Although the 1921 Åland convention had clauses allowing Finland to defend the islands in the event of an attack, the coordination of this operation with the German invasion and the arrest of the Soviet consulate staff stationed on the islands, meant that the deployment was a deliberate violation of the treaty, according to Finnish historian Mauno Jokipii.[81]"

If this is the case then surely the first violation is the fact the islands hadn't been attacked and the other points as things on top of that? 2A02:C7D:86B:4A00:F02F:6B64:5C19:AA77 (talk) 02:45, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

The catch is that the treaty text does not explicitly require islands to be attacked for Finland to take action. Article 4 forbids any military (of land, naval or air) forces from entering to or staying in the Åland region. However Finland is allowed to keep police force on the islands during peacetime AND under exceptional circumstances is allowed to move there any such armed forces which are deemed necessary to preserve the local order. Additionally Finnish Navy is allowed to have 1-2 light (i.e. non-capital) ships to guard the waters in the area and is allowed to sail through it even in larger numbers. One (1) foreign warship in total may be permitted to enter the region. Article 5 notes that these limitations do not affect the right of passage (as defined in UNCLOS for example). Article 6 grants further rights: should there be a state war in the Baltic Sea region Finland is permitted to mine the waters of Åland and take any such naval/maritime measures which are deemed suitable. On Article 7 however: should a sudden attack aimed at Åland, or at Finnish mainland via Åland, place the neutrality in jeopardy Finland has to take (any) necessary actions to stop or repel the attacker until such time that the large powers (France, UK) who ratified the treaty take action to preserve/restore the neutrality.

So Finland was (and still is) required to defend the islands. In other words the act of moving the troops to Åland was not against the agreement (foreknowledge of the start of war would certainly fall into the 'exceptional circumstances' category). Also the Finnish forces moved were mainly coastal artillery which would fall into the topic ('naval/maritime measures') handled under the article 6, since Germany was in war at the time there was a state of war in the Baltic Sea region (technically if nothing else). Timing it with German actions was suspicious however. And detaining the Soviet consulate staff was certainly illegal. Other aspects than that may not have been violation of the letter of the agreement but more on the spirit of the agreement - but then again only the letter version can be enforced. - Wanderer602 (talk) 14:23, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

The Finnish actions were much more clearly violations of the Finnish-Soviet agreement on Åland however. Which is separate from the one involving the UK and France. - Wanderer602 (talk) 14:25, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Why are the listed Soviet strength figures so inaccurate?

The figure lists what Soviet forces on the Finnish front amounted to on two specific dates, according to the sources in question, instead of the total Soviet forces during the entire war. AFAIK the total figure should be c. 1.5 million. The currently listed figure's inaccuracy is already made plain by the fact that the casualties far exceed the reported strength. Actually Finnish sources put Soviet casualties as high as 1.1 million, higher than the ones currently listed in the article, but I digress.

Finnish total strength should be at around 600k; in June 1941 the military's strength was IIRC c. 475-490k, and in August 1944 it was about 528k. Add KIA, MIA and the badly wounded who did not return to the front and you get about 600k, maybe a bit more. The current ceiling figure of 700k is too high and is already including Lotta Svärd and soldiers stationed at the home front (training centres, city garrisons, POW camp guards, etc.). FulmenTheFinn (talk) 00:25, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

It's probably just that no one thought about whether it should be the total number of troops during the whole war or the highest peak at a given time. Template:Infobox military conflict#Usage does not give any guidance on which it should be. Might as well ping @Wanderer602:. --Pudeo (talk) 22:06, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware there is no real consensus on what the number should be or even what it should depict. The best i can think of would be to have the values on both sides to be somewhat comparable in scope - that is if one of the values is depicting the grand total then both of them should be. However with the Continuation War such a thing is much harder to do than what it sounds like. Not the least because the Soviets did not separate the strength set against the Finns (or the Germans in the north) from the rest but generally reported everything at front level at best. Same in a sense applies also vice versa - the Finnish reports may only contain the strength of the Finnish units, or they may be including the other units under the Finnish command (for example in summer of 1941 that would also include 2/3 (roughly) of German 163rd ID) while it could leave the Finnish forces under the German command in the north out of this scope. Mind you I'm not saying that either or both sides would be lying - just that great care has to be taken to ensure that the values are comparable. - Wanderer602 (talk) 05:14, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

"As far as I'm aware there is no real consensus on what the number should be or even what it should depict." To me this is an entirely unheard of line of thought. Should the article for WW2, or say the Eastern Front, also only include figures for when both sides were closest to parity? As far as I know the correct thing to do is and has always been to include total figures for the entire war, battle or whichever form of conflict is in question. --FulmenTheFinn (talk) 22:28, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

@FulmenTheFinn: Are they "inaccurate" though? They are both sourced, and thus not inaccurate. They show in 1941 and 1944 since that was the times the war was active. Also btw, what page is the soviet total you added from in the book? The same source is used for the 1944 soviet strength cite, with a specific page number, so that can be re-used with a new page number for this cite if you provide. --Havsjö (talk) 21:13, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Also maybe, if you have sources, the 1941/1944 strength of Finland could be added in addition to a total (and/or average) strength to "match" the existing Soviet and German 1941/44 strength listings --Havsjö (talk) 21:40, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Naming

I am surprised to see no discussion of the choice of the name 'Continuation War' as a title of the article, which is obviously and unabashedly pro-Finnish POV. The Finnish name is supposed to legitimise the collaboration with the Nazi aggression and the invasion of pre-1940 Soviet territory as a mere 'continuation' of Finland's legitimate defence against the Soviet aggression in the Winter War. The Russian name 'Soviet–Finnish Front of the Great Patriotic War' is similarly POV, since it presents the war as a natural part of the national defence against the (predominantly) German invasion of 1941 - which, of course, it was. The alternative Russian name 'Soviet-Finnish war of 1941-1945', which is chosen on the Russian wiki, is as objective as possible and a mere statement of fact, hence NPOV. As far as I can see, choosing the name preferred in Finnish historiography in this case could only be justified by a general principle that in any controversial matter involving Russia, the normal and appropriate perspective is the one that is opposed to Russia. Still, since the formulation of the NPOV policy on the English-language Wikipedia does not yet contain such an amendment, I think that the policy, if taken seriously, would require renaming the article to 'Soviet-Finnish war of 1941-1945'. --77.85.55.14 (talk) 20:12, 19 April 2020 (UTC)