.On June 9, 1928, southeast of Finland, Mannheim defense line.

Compared with the Sokolov defense line in southwestern Russia, this line of defense, which is only 105 kilometers, is not only in terms of scale, but also in far less time and manpower and material resources. However, it is famous because this line of defense near the border of Russia and Finland guards an important passage from Russia to the hinterland of Finland, and is only 55 kilometers away from the Russian capital St. Petersburg!

Since the former Grand Principal of Finland's independence in 1914, Russian rulers have regarded this small Nordic country that had a huge potential threat to its capital and guarded the export of the Gulf of Finland as a thorn in the side. Unfortunately, Finland's independence received strong support from Germany. Tsarist Russia during the Agrenian period relied heavily on German funds and weapons. Even when Queen Diana I, who adopted an iron-blooded policy, the Tsarist Russian government did not dare to anger this military empire at all, so the regaining of Finland became an empty target.

With the support of the powerful German Empire, the Finns continued to pay tribute to Germany and lived a happy life. Although the Finnish Army was managed by General Mannheim, the talented and ambitious General Mannardheim only maintained a scale of less than 100,000 people. Most of the equipment, including military uniforms, were imported from Germany, and the military pay received by the soldiers was also European marks. Therefore, it was not until early 1928 that Germany proposed to sign the German-Finn offensive and defensive alliance treaty that the Finns felt that the war was coming, but they were unwilling to let German soldiers defend their country, so they began to build fortifications in the area of ​​the Isthmus of Carellia. The time was only more than two months. Fortunately, the total length of this defense line was only 105 kilometers. During the German-Russian War, the main body of the defense line had been completed, and 6 Finnish infantry divisions had about 110,000 people arrived.

On June 4, the war began in a very etiquette manner. The German Emperor personally read the declaration of war to the people of Germany. Then Finland and other countries also declared war on Russia one after another. A large number of German fighter jets stationed in Finland could not wait to cross the border and attacked important Russian targets, and seized air supremacy in the Russian capital area in one afternoon. Seeing these silver-gray war eagles flying frequently overhead, Finnish soldiers at the beginning felt that the war should soon be

The Germans ended with victory, and they could only wait quietly in this line of defense to harvest the fruits of victory. However, the good wishes soon ended with the fall of Russian artillery shells. Although the Germans held air supremacy, and although there were more than 2,000 German military aircraft stationed in Finland, they could not be the only factor in the war to judge the outcome. On the evening of June 5, the Russian army crossed the Russian-Finn border and launched the first attack on the Mannarheim defense line in Finland a few hours later.

The Carellia area is close to Lake Ladoga, with swamps and forest terrain that is conducive to defense. With the permanent and field offensives built by the Finns for more than two months, the Russian army did not make significant progress in the first few days of the night attack, but instead suffered thousands of officers and soldiers. At the same time, the German army maintained high-intensity air strikes on St. Petersburg and surrounding areas. The Russian air defense forces were at a loss for the large number of German bombers, and the army could think of was to clear the German air base in Finland through ground offensives.

Therefore, with the personal intervention of the Queen, 12 guard infantry divisions and 20 independent artillery regiments were strengthened to the ranks of attacking Finland through night marching, which led to the total Russian troops attacking from the Mannaheim defense line to 450,000. There were more than 2,000 cannons, more than 4 times that of the Finns. In addition, there were more than 120,000 Russian troops attacking from the northern Bechamo and Sara areas. On this side, the Finnish army had obviously weak defenses. Therefore, it was impossible to resist the Russian army's rapid advancement.—In

Under this situation, the Luftwaffe had to allocate a large number of fighter jets, dive bombers and even medium bombers to support the defense of the Finnish army. Under the strong oppression of German fighters, the Russian army was deployed in the Russian-Finance border area, and could not carry out military operations during the day. They had to do everything possible to hide their soldiers, cannons and vehicles, woods, haystacks and even farmhouses, and transfer as many small-caliber anti-aircraft guns and machine guns as possible for air defense. Russian officers and soldiers also used machine guns in their hands.

Guns and even infantry artillery dealt with German fighter jets flying at low altitudes. The Luftwaffe stationed in Finland lost as many as 47 fighter jets and dive bombers in a week because of support for the Finnish army. Half of the pilots failed to return to the Finnish army controlled area. On the other hand, the Russian army also lost a large number of soldiers and equipment due to German air strikes within a week. However, when German fighter jet attacks were limited, the Russian army would become extremely active. Several consecutive large-scale attacks were launched at night.

At 8 p.m. on June 16, the Russian army finally launched a general attack on the Mannaheim defense line.

Although there was no legendary Katyusha or the T-34 that traverseed the battlefield, the Russian army showed strong ground firepower in front of the Finns. More than 2,000 artillery pieces of various caliber bombarded the already crumbling defense line of the Finnish army with the momentum of tsunami.

The Russian infantry even rushed up with bayonets. That night, the Luftwaffe fighter jets dispatched thousands of consecutive flights, but they failed to block the Russian army's attack. By dawn, the Mannaheim defense line fell!

The Finnish army, which had lost its troops, immediately retreated to the Vyborg area to organize a new defense line. The Russian army did not dare to march on a large scale during the day, which also gave the Finnish army valuable respite. General Mannaheim collected the remaining troops while demanding that the government send him at least 30,000 reinforcements within three days no matter what, otherwise the Russian army would likely defeat the main force of Finland in one fell swoop. At that time, even if the Luftwaffe had great skills, it would be difficult to turn the situation around.

After receiving the emergency military information from the front, the top leaders of the Finnish government were extremely anxious. At this time, the entire Finland had only a population of 3 million, and it was widely distributed on more than 300,000 square kilometers of land. So far, the Finnish army has recruited more than 150,000 regular troops and the same number of militias, plus nearly 10,000 navy and air force. This number is close to the limit of the number of people that Finland can mobilize! Not to mention where to draw 30,000 soldiers at once, even if it can, these troops may not be able to meet with the army in Mannahem before the Russian army arrives. The Luftwaffe can destroy the roads in the Russian occupied areas, but this does not have a good blocking effect on the Russian army, mainly infantry and cavalry, and there is no severe cold and ice and snow to stop the Russians in the hot summer.

At this time, the Finns finally remembered the Germans who had been strongly requesting direct ground troops to assist in defending the Finnish border. Previously, the Finns were worried that the German army would not leave once they came, but in the current crisis situation, the Finnish government did not care about so much. So on the morning of June 18, an encrypted telegram was sent to Berlin. After receiving the Finns' request for help, Chen Tian and his generals did not care about or ridicule the overestimation of their ability to defend their homes independently before the war. As early as when the Russians began to attack the Mannheim defense line, the German Supreme Command had predicted that

When the Finns were too huge, they were likely to lose that important border line. In the Barbarossa plan, it was very important to ensure that Germany's air base in Finland was leased to two German military ports in Finland, and a total of 5,200 marine troops were stationed in two military ports. In addition, the German army could also board the ship through the ports along the East Prussian coast and then rush to Finland from the sea. However, in the current emergency of the war, Chen Tian proposed to adopt the No. 3 backup plan, that is, to urgently transport the light infantry division to Finland by air transport, and then transport armored troops and heavy artillery from the sea.

The straight-line distance from East Prussia in Germany to Helsinki, the capital of Finland is 600 kilometers. This is naturally no problem for Germany's best transport aircraft at present. Therefore, the Supreme Command of Germany not only gathered large transport aircraft stationed in East Prussia and Poland, but also urgently requisitioned passenger aircraft from major German airlines. Four light infantry divisions of the 8th Army of Germany were also ordered to assemble at the airport near the station. While this series of intense and orderly ground-to-air operations were underway, 5,200 Marines stationed in the Finnish military port were transported directly to the Port of Vyborg at the mouth of the Neva River by ship.

Compared with the German Navy, which had a long history, the German Marine Corps had just celebrated its 100th birthday, the German Marine Corps was a new force. The idea of ​​establishing the Marine Corps came from the combat operations that landed in England in 1915. Since then, large-scale landing operations have rarely occurred, but hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of people are often possible to be implemented. Therefore, in 1916, the Supreme Command of the German Command selected a group of soldiers with experience in landing combat from the 8th Army that landed in Bonamouth and the 5th Army that landed in Dover and formed the first Marine Corps.

In the past twelve years, this army was once the vanguard of the invasion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as the vanguard troops, and the coastal provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It also had many opportunities to perform during the German-US war. It has so far grown to a scale of more than 100,000 people of six divisions. It is well-equipped and well-paid. It is needless to say that the service period of officers and soldiers is two years longer than that of ordinary German army soldiers, and the training is even stricter than that of German army troops.

After arriving at the Finns' new defense line, the soldiers of the 5th Marine Division of the German Navy were disappointed to find that there was no solid fortification of reinforced concrete as imagined. During the whole day, all the exhausted Finnish soldiers did was to dig a field defense line of about 10 kilometers according to the terrain. Under the night, the only simple trenches and civil structures were fortifications.

The Finns knew that the Russian army always took advantage of the dark and windy opportunity to march quickly, because in this case, it would be difficult for German fighter jets to accurately find targets even if they take off, and the effect of relying on flares to carry out ground attacks was really unsatisfactory. Therefore, General Mannheim sent some of his only cavalry to reconnaissance and alert, and even arranged the six infantry divisions in his hands in the south, east and north of the city. The Bay of Vyborg, adjacent to the west of the city, was controlled by the only few gunboats in Finland and the German Navy. The two German combat cruisers responsible for escorting the Marine Corps also remained in the Port of Vyborg to provide fire support.

Without knowing the combat effectiveness of the German Marine Corps, Mannahem did not deploy the more than 5,000 soldiers of the 5th Marine Division of the German Navy in key areas, but stayed in Vyborg City as a reserve force. The Finnish commander did not know that he had put the most powerful weapon in his hand aside at the beginning of the battle, but this deployment also saved the fate of the Finnish army when the war was in a critical situation.

At midnight, the Finnish cavalry found the Russian vanguard 5 kilometers east of the city. After two harassment battles, hundreds of Finnish cavalry were forced to withdraw to Vyborg, and the Russian large number of infantry arrived in front of the Vyborg defense line at 2 a.m.

Due to the sudden marching overnight, the Russian vanguard carried not many artillery. The artillery fire preparations lasted for half an hour were basically carried out by cavalry artillery towed by cavalry and infantry artillery below 76.2 mm. Simple fortifications to defend one side could only withstand this level of artillery fire. After the artillery was completed, more than 70,000 Russian troops began to charge!

During the Mannaheim defense war, although the number of Finnish troops increased to nearly 130,000 due to reinforcements, the continuous consumption and separation during the retreat made General Mannaheim's army only less than 110,000 troops at this time, and many of the wounded soldiers were preparing to retreat to the rear by sea. In addition, heavy machine guns and various artillery were mostly thrown in Mannaheim, so the firepower was much weaker than before. With similar soldiers' qualities, the Finnish army using Mauser rifles and Firebird light machine guns were not very different from that of the Russian army. In the first wave of impact, the defense only relied on its terrain advantages for the time being.

At that time, he defeated the opponent, and dozens of German fighter jets barely flew over the battlefield under extremely poor sight conditions and dropped bombs and strafing the Russian army on the attack, but the effect was still not very good. - At 764 o'clock, at the darkest moment before dawn, three elite Russian guard divisions were thrown into the battlefield. These Russian ace troops, which had won the only victory in the German-Russian army confrontation in the Polish battlefield, quickly launched an extremely powerful death charge. As long as the Finns' bullets did not hit them, these fearless Russian soldiers would move forward bravely. This momentum often drives ordinary Russian troops who charge with them. What is surprising is that these guard divisions sometimes suffer no more casualties than other troops in a battle.
Chapter completed!