What is Reddit's opinion of A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940?

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Jeg har læst "Frozen Hell" inspireret en del af Ukraine krigen. Den er god.

https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Hell-Russo-Finnish-Winter-1939-1940/dp/1565122496

Bogen er kendt som en af de bedste engelske fremstillinger af vinterkrigen mellem Finland og USSR. Parallelerne til Ukraine er slående. Sovjet overfalder en mindre nabo men tager på trods af en på papiret overlegenhed enorme tab og taber stor prestige.

Man ender med at vinde og påtvinge finnerne en hård fred, men Finland undgår at blive opslugt som balterne eller at blive trukket ind i Warsawa pagten som andre dele af østeuropa.

Den er værd at læse, det er nogle fuldkomne sindsyge slag som foregik i karelen i 1939. Nogle af slagene involverede tungere artilleribeskydning end under Verdun.

I thought Frozen Hell was good and was available for “free” on Kindle Unlimited.

I highly recommend anyone who's interested in the subject read A Frozen Hell.

What's really messed up is the Finns allying with Nazi Germany in WW2 (or The Continuation War to Finns) to regain the territory lost to the Soviets at the end of the Winter War.

Well these guys actually do a very nice job:

K&G Winter War

This is a Finnish feature film made in the late 80’s…not much background, more drama: The Winter War Full Film

And this is a very good read: Frozen Hell

If you want good overall view of Winter War and tactics, this seems to be good book to start:

https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Hell-Russo-Finnish-Winter-1939-1940/dp/1565122496#customerReviews

I have not read it, but reviews like it being kind of overall book telling about troops and tactical viewpoint.

I would recommend this: https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Hell-Russo-Finnish-Winter-1939-1940/dp/1565122496

A Frozen Hell: The Winter War

It's about the Soviet invasion of Finland during the winter of '39-'40. It's sort of sympathetic to Finland, but that's okay with me. The author writes in a way that you can feel the panic all Finns must have felt when they realized they faced an existential threat from one of the most insane tyrants the world has ever had the misfortune to know. There's lots of detail regarding the ridiculous supply and manpower shortages the Finns faced as well as the clever ways they manged to overcome them. It also covers the diplomatic/political angles on both sides, which is nice. Also, sisu.

I think most of us have read about it on wikipedia, but this book makes the wiki article incredibly boring in comparison.

Battle Cry of Freedom by McPherson is also great. Has an exiting, almost cinematic vibe to it.

>and one account is what you base your knowledge on?

The one account is widely considered to be the best English-language history of the Winter War, so yes.

>look at the casualties on either side. i'd call it soviet ownage. along with during the continuation war only 3500 finns were captured compared to 60-65000 soviets

The Russians dealt with machine gun nests by charging them en masse (to the point where Finnish machine gunners needed to be pulled from the lines because they were so traumatized from slaughtering so many people) and cleared mines by forming a long line, linking arms, and walking across the mine field. The casualty count is really a reflection of the fact that the Soviets fought by throwing endless waves of conscripts at the enemy.

E:

>the mosin nagant was not invented until the last 26 years of that.

The point is that the Finns made Mosins into good rifles because they had lots of the actions on hand, and they already had the expertise to work on them. If they'd had the money and the opportunity I'm sure they would have gone with a superior action like the Mauser, like the Swedes did.

E2:

Almost forgot, the Russians also had horrible maps of Finland. That's why they committed so many troops north of Lake Ladoga; it looked like a good idea, since there's so much more surface area there between Russia and Finland than there is on the Karelian isthmus, except that entire area at the time was pretty much all impassable forest and most of the "roads" were rural wagon tracks.

There are tons of examples of things the Russians did that got lots of their people killed. I could go on.