Talk:Winter War

Casualties

User:Kovanja referred in his edit to a Russian source (in Russian) which claims that "in 1945 Finns recognised the losses in Winter War as 48300 soldiers killed". However, I've been unable to find such Finnish source, and all sources based on the Finnish civil registry (Finland has had centralised civil registry for the whole duration of its independence) don't support such claims. The source referred by him also gets it wrong, as it claims that the Civil Guardsmen wouldn't be counted in the military casualties - while in fact the Civil Guard was a part of the Finnish Defence Forces organisation already. The Finnish war casualty registry website Sotasampo has Finnish casualties during WW2 quite thoroughly listed (including all Civil Guard, all Lotta Svärd, all civilian medical personnel and other civilians in FDF service and civilian casualties of the warzone as well, though apparently not all civilian casualties at the home front) based on the Finnish civil registry, and it doesn't support such claims. Without any Finnish source to support the claim of Finnish sources at the Russian source, combined to a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Finnish casualty statistics in the source, in my opinion the source referred by User:Kovanja doesn't have enough credibility. --XoravaX (talk) 08:57, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It is an old error in the Russian data, possibly due to translation issues. That being said i would be really interested if some one could kindly link or otherwise point to the document from which the Russian author claims to have taken the number in the first place. - Wanderer602 (talk) 11:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Yet the source User:Kovanja refers to claims so, and it makes the source lose credibility (at least until User:Kovanja provides where the claimed source of the militera.lib.ru, Танкомастер 2/97 journal, sources the claim to - though, I have been unable to find such a Finnish source militera.lib.ru claims it is attributed to), especially in light of the Finnish civili registry which has been very accurate for the whole independence era. 48 000, that is roughly double the amount of the consensus of around 26 000 casualties would be quite the revelation. --XoravaX (talk) 12:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Real Finnish Casualties

After WW2 Finns admited 48k casualtes, 25k is old WW2 propaganda source. According to official Soviet propaganda Soviet casualties were also significantly lower. --Kovanja (talk) 11:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Can you please provide a credible source to that "Finns admited [sic] 48k casualties", preferably the Finnish source? Finnish civil registries are almost completely exact, and over 20 000 unmarked deaths would be quite the revelation. Especially that the mortality in 1939 and 1940 was only roughly 25 000 more than the standard mortality according to our statistics agency (in the graph, 1939 is the slightly alleviated over the 50 000 standard total mortality, 1940 is the first over 70 000 total mortality, 1941 the second over 70 000, 1942 and 1943 the two lower in between and 1944 again over 70 000 total mortality). Over 20 000 on top of that doesn't just suit anything in the civil registry. And not to mention how much your source lacks credibility - its claim that the Civil Guard, Lotta Svärd or non-combatant FDF casualties weren't counted is completely false. The Finnish war casualty registry website Sotasampo has Finnish casualties during WW2 quite thoroughly listed (including all Civil Guard, all Lotta Svärd, all civilian medical personnel and other civilians in FDF service and civilian casualties of the warzone as well, though apparently not all civilian casualties at the home front). --XoravaX (talk) 12:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Indeed - if that is referred to a Finnish source then for that claim to be credible we need to see that claimed Finnish source since the number that the particular Russian source uses contradicts many contemporary as well as current records. - Wanderer602 (talk) 12:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Map for Soviet territory exchange

The Soviets offered a territory exchange, no map is show of this. 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:51A:9D63:8D98:68A7 (talk) 10:54, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Lapland and trees

While in southern Lapland there are plenty of trees the further north they grew sparse. Link to a map 'Männyn puuraja' = 'Tree limit for pine', 'Männyn metsänraja' = "Forest limit for pine', 'Kuusen metsänraja' = 'Forest limit of spruce'. Beyond these limits there are just these Betula nana or 'dwarf birches' (which are not trees but rather twigs and small bushes) and limited amount (on sheltered locations) of Betula pubescens variants or hybrids called 'fell birches' which are typically around 2 to 6 meters tall a 'tree' (looks like a tree from distance but is in fact more like a tall bush). Plenty of exposed or elevated terrain in northern Finnish Lapland is however devoid of trees. The passage about there being no trees refers to the conditions faced when fighting in the Petsamo direction. - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:06, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I assume this relates to this edit of mine?

I appreciate the information on Lapland trees. I think it would be a good idea to add this to the Lapland (Finland) article, which seems to paint a more tree-ful picture.

I'm still in favor of keeping trees out the specified paragraph in this article, as the only significance it gave for this was that it made the area good for tanks, which was dubious as everything else in Lapland is bad for them. The paragraph is about how and why the Finns expected little from the Soviets in the area; I see nothing relevant to this about trees or lack thereof. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 00:52, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes it was about that. Mainly the point that the 'treeless' bit was accurate for the area. I didn't edit directly because i agree with you. Just offered a bit of information if you wanted to formulate the edit in a different manner. Also the lack of trees did not make the terrain 'good'. It is not nice and flowing plains of soft soil but instead a rocky mess. - Wanderer602 (talk) 06:53, 28 June 2020 (UTC)