Allies intervene during the winter war

Kongzilla

Banned
I was reading up on the Winter War and was wondering what would have happened should the Allies have been able to supply troops to Finland.

Could the troops have fought there against the soviet union and drawn out the conflict until the fall of France at which point the French troops would be withdrawn or kept there depending if they were under vichy french control or got pulled back before the surrender. And then the British pull out because they thought they needed the men to defend Britain from the germans.

I was thinking that this could cause a rift between the Allies pushing the Soviets towards the Axis and getting rid of any chance of Lend Lease. If it does cause the Soviets to fight the Allies would they attack Sweden and Norway. Is this possible
 
If the British send the same token forces that they OTL sent to Norway, lacking training, equipment and coordination, with a very distant leadership, the result would probably be disasterous.

As small as the Finnish forces were, any extra numbers might mean a lot, but if these troops are not fit to use in battle, and spend their time plundering and raping in the area where they are lodged, they would better not come at all.

The French might be more useful.
 
With the political and logistical issues inherent in the project, I think it was pretty unlikely actual ground troops with appropriate gear could have entered the front during the short war. Both the more or less realistic transport options, through Norway and Sweden or via Petsamo had their own sets of problems. What the Allies could have realistically provided in the OTL timeframe would have most likely been too little, too late to make a real military difference - and Mannerheim and the Finnish government knew this. The only thing to truly make an impact in time might have been if the Allies gave the Finns fighters and bombers with pilots and ground crews early on, perhaps entire units, as those could have been transported to Finland much easier than ground units.

The political implications would have of course been much more relevant, as we know that the mere possiblity of an intervention was a major reason for Stalin to halt the attack and agree to negotiate with the Finnish government IOTL.
 
If the British send the same token forces that they OTL sent to Norway, lacking training, equipment and coordination, with a very distant leadership, the result would probably be disasterous.

As small as the Finnish forces were, any extra numbers might mean a lot, but if these troops are not fit to use in battle, and spend their time plundering and raping in the area where they are lodged, they would better not come at all.

The French might be more useful.

What makes you think A British force would plunder and rape? It's 1939 and not 939
 

Kongzilla

Banned
If the fighters and ground crews were sent to the Finns how would that effect the battle of britain.

Also I was hoping that the withdrawal of Allied forces leaving the Finns to the Soviet Juggernaut would leave a bitter taste in their mouths allowing them to help the Germans when they play their cards during barbarossa.

I was also wondering if it was possible to have the Soviets attack the Finns, Swedes and Norwegians again later on so that I could have Axis Finns and Norwegians and Allied Swedes fighting together against the common foe.

EDIT: Also since the British were going to attack both Norway and sweden to destroy the ore mines. When Britain retreats could the germans send in forces to defend from the british and bring both norway and sweden onto the side of the Axis alleviating some of the Resource scarceness later on in the war.
 
Last edited:
If the fighters and ground crews were sent to the Finns how would that effect the battle of britain.

If we're really optimistic, a volunteer RAF fighter unit would learn how to dogfight using a modern fighter aircraft properly and thus Luftwaffe would get even more mauled than OTL, perhaps already over France. More likely end result might be that experience would be ignored.
 

Kongzilla

Banned
would the casualties be enough to allow the Luftwaffe to significantly dent the RAF before they lose the BoB
 
If the fighters and ground crews were sent to the Finns how would that effect the battle of britain.

Based on what happened in Burma, where the Flying Tigers tried to advise the RAF on how to effectively fight the Zeroes in the air, nil. The RAF ignored the advice, and indeed told their Pilots that anyone that dived away from a dogfight with the Japs would be court martialed for cowardice or something like that. And this was a couple of years after the BoB. The RAF had a bad time learning from experience and were always reluctant to learn from others.

One surmises from this that even if they had had fighter units in Finland, they would have not picked up much from the Ilmavoimat, and if they had, the RAF back in the UK would have ignored it. Shame, but thats the way it was. The RAF was rather insular.
 
The RAF in France learned quickly though, starting to use German rotten/schwarm (fighting pairt/finger four) tactics and recycling armour from Battles for their Hurricanes and synchronising their MGs to hit 100m ahead instead of "Downings spread" and those changes were distributed to most of Fighter Command by the time of Battle of Britain.

The Finns were the original inventors of the rotten/schwarm tactic, starting in 1932, while the Germans developed it in Spain 1937-38, the RAF might learn a thing or two even earlier.

The Finns had men, what they needed was arms. Sweden provided quite some, and 8500 volunteers, including a fighter squadron and a light bomber group.

A battalion of volunteer French Chasseurs Alpins (mountain infantry) and two of Scottish Highlanders from Britain, plus two fighter squadrons and a bomber squadron from each, lots of artillery, MGs, mortars, AT guns, AT rifles and ammunition is what the Finns need the most.
 
I think there was actually some plan by the French to bomb Soviet oil installations in the Caucus wasn't there?

Fortunately sanity prevailed and they were never carried out.

Having entered a war against Germany that they were wholly unprepared to fight, the last thing the Allies needed was to add more enemies.
 

Kongzilla

Banned
Should the Soviets be fighting the Allies as well as the Axis would this plan be potentially carried out by the British and Americans. Potentially drawing away incendiary bombs from tokyo
 
oing off on a tangent Sir Christopher Lee voluntered to fight for Finland but was not sent to the front line. In a different scenario it would be pleasing to think of him not only as Darcula and Lord Summerisle but also as a hero of Finland
 
What makes you think A British force would plunder and rape? It's 1939 and not 939
I thought I read in Kersaudy's book about the Norwegian campaign, that some of the brittish units consisted of newly recruited young men from the urban slums of England, that had received very little military training, and after landing in Norway with neither equipment nor appropriate maps, used the opportunity to wreak havoc on their immediate surroundings.

I cannot, at the moment, find the place in the book where it was mentioned, only that there seems to have been some looting, first in Namsos with British participation, and later at some place near Narvik, by the French, without the British.

EDIT: Google books is indeed useful sometimes. It was mentioned like this, page 169 of the English version:
"at Aandalsnes they [the Norwegians] had seen raw, ill-equipped, undisciplined [British] troops, without vehicles or artillery, who marched to the front with four footballs and 50,000 cigarettes. Colonel Thue, [...] stationed in the Romsdal, had added the following description in a report to his government: 'Very young lads who appeared to come from the slums of London. They had taken a very close interest in the women of Romsdal, and engaged in wholesale looting of stores and houses. [...] Besides, they would run like hares at the first sound of an aircraft engine.' "
It did not mention rape, so that might be an exaggeration in my mind.
 
Last edited:

Kongzilla

Banned
Is it possible to get better trained and equipped troops in Scandinavia without all the looting and pillaging. :)
 
Top