The Battle of Vuosalmi (also known as the Battle of Äyräpää-Vuosalmi) – the main bulk of it – lasted from July 4 to July 17, 1944. It was fought during the

Continuation War The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet-Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944, as part of World War II.; sv, fortsättningskriget; german: Fortsetzungskrieg. A ...

(1941–1944), a part of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, between

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Background

After the

Soviets Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Nationality policy in ...

saw that they had failed in the

Battle of Tali-Ihantala A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...

against the Finnish defenders in the late June and early July 1944, they tried to break the Finnish positions in

Vuosalmi Vuosalmi (now Druzhnoye) is a former village of Finland on the Karelian Isthmus, now in Russia. It is located on the northern shore of the Vuoksi River and served as the location of the Battle of Vuosalmi The Battle of Vuosalmi (also known as ...

(now Druzhnoye) and encircle the southern part of the Finnish forces in the

Karelian Isthmus The Karelian Isthmus (russian: Карельский перешеек, Karelsky peresheyek; fi, Karjalankannas; sv, Karelska näset) is the approximately stretch of land, situated between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in northwestern ...

. Soviet forces of the 23rd Army in the region had made unsuccessful low-scale attacks against the Finnish defenses for nearly two weeks at Äyräpää region. Lack of success from the 23rd Army's performance lead to change of command on July 3.

Order of battle

Finnish

Finnish defenses on the Vuosalmi consisted initially of only the 2nd Division (Martola, later Blick). But this was later reinforced with parts of the Armored Division (Lagus), 57th Infantry Regiment and 25th Separate Battalion of the 15th Infantry Division and 4th Battalion of the 19th Brigade (IV/19.Pr) after the battles in the Tali-Ihantala region started to slow down. A total of 21 artillery battalions were supporting infantry during the critical last stage of the battle. Per infantry battalion there were more artillery support at Vuosalmi than at Tali-Ihantala. : III Corps (Siilasvuo) :: 2nd Infantry Division (Martola/Blick) :: 15th Infantry Division (Hersalo) ::: 57th Infantry Regiment ::: 25th Separate Battalion :: 19th Infantry Brigade (Maskula) ::: 4th Battalion of brigade(during last stage) :

Finnish Armoured Division The Finnish Armoured Division ( fi, Panssaridivisioona, PsD or Ps. D) was a division of the Finnish Army during the Continuation War. Foundation The Finnish Supreme headquarters ordered the foundation of an armoured division on 28 June 1942 and th ...

(

Lagus Lagus of Eordaia (Greek Λάγος, ''Lagos''; lived 4th century BC) was a Macedonian courtier and the father of Ptolemy, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty. He married Arsinoe of the Argead dynasty and a concubine of Philip II, king of Mac ...

, during last stage) ::

Assault Gun Battalion An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...

4 Jäger Battalions 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

Total forces initially ~20,000 growing to ~32,000 in mid july. Average personal strength of infantry division around 13,300 men, while 6,700-7,000 of infantry brigade, 3,620 of infantry regiment and 1,022 of infantry battalion. 21 field artillery battalions (average 520-560 men each).

Soviet

The Soviet Leningrad Front's 23rd Army (Svetsov) was assigned with the task of making a crossing and a breakthrough at Vuosalmi. For this task the 23rd Army assigned first the 98th Rifle Corps and later switched it to the 115th Rifle Corps. : 98th Rifle Corps (Anisimov) ::

92nd Rifle Division 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...

:: 281st Rifle Division :: 381st Rifle Division : 115th Rifle Corps (Kozatsek) :: 10th Rifle Division ::92nd Rifle Division :: 142nd Rifle Division :

6th Rifle Corps The 6th Rifle Corps () was a rifle corps of the Soviet Union's Red Army and later the Soviet Army, formed three different times. The corps was first formed in 1922, and spent most of the interwar period headquartered at Odessa. It fought in the ...

:: 13th Rifle Division :: 382th Rifle Division ::

327th Rifle Division (Soviet Union) The 327th Rifle Division was first formed in September 1941, as a standard Red Army rifle division, based on a cadre of workers from Voronezh. This formation was assigned to the Volkhov Front near Leningrad, toiling through the so-called "Rat's War ...

: Supporting units of 23rd Army :: 17th Fortification Area troops :: 47th Guards Artillery Brigade :: 21st, 151st and 336th Artillery Regiments :: 165th, 641st, 883rd and 1072nd Antitank Regiments :: 175th, 456th, 506th and 567th Mortar Regiments :: 70th Guards Mortar Regiment :: 1469th Antiaircraft Regiment :: 71st and 618th Separate Antiaircraft Battallions :: 46th Guards Tank Regiment :: 226th Tank Regiment :: 938th Self-Propelled Gun Regiment :: 952rd Self-Propelled Gun Regiment :: 71st Separate Armoured Train Battalion :: 20th Engineer Brigade Total: 8 infantry divisions, 80-90 tanks or assault/self-propelled guns and around 600 field artillery pieces or heavy mortars. Average personal strength of rifle divisions was around 6,600-6,700 men.

The battle

The Finnish positions were very unfavorably located on the ridge of

Äyräpää Baryshevo (russian: Барышево; fi, Pölläkkälä, Äyräpää) is a rural locality on Karelian Isthmus, in Vyborgsky District of Leningrad Oblast. It is situated on the southern shore of Vuoksi River. Until the Winter War and Contin ...

, with the wide River Vuoksi behind it. Though the position was very unfavorable, the Äyräpää ridge dominated the lower terrain on the northern shore requiring the defensive lines to be placed on the ridge. The Red Army 98th Corps started heavier attacks on July 4 and heavy battles raged for control of the ridge until July 9 when the Finns finally withdrew to the northern shore. The Soviet 115th Corps then continued the attack and crossed the Vuosalmi on July 9. During that day both Soviet and Finnish forces had their highest numbers of artillery and mortar rounds fired: 30,000 (Soviet forces) and 18,800 (Finnish, 13,500 of which were field artillery rounds). The Soviet 115th Corps reinforced the bridgehead and had all its three divisions in the bridgehead on July 11. The Finnish forces also received reinforcements in the form of the depleted Finnish Armored Division directly from the

Ihantala Petrovka () is a former village on Karelian Isthmus, about 15 km to the north of Viipuri (now Vyborg), where the battle of Tali-Ihantala A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or ...

and on July 11 both sides were attempting to attack simultaneously. Attempts on both sides were halted when they ran into attacking enemy formations. Though the Soviets now had access to the open fields on the northern shore, which were advantageous to the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

armor, the Finns were able to stop all further Soviet advances. The following Finnish counterattacks in

at this point amounted to not much success either, and thus both sides were on the defensive here in mid-July, 1944. The Finnish field artillery fired altogether over 122,000 rounds of ordnance in

and

, from June 20 to July 17, 1944 – the same amount as in the

, which was fought during exactly the same time period in a nearby vicinity, on the relatively narrow

of Finland. Mortar units fired 85,000 rounds. When comparing the 8 day period of the most intensive fighting many more artillery rounds were fired in Vuosalmi (74,000) than in Tali-Ihantala (56,000). During that 8 day period in Vuosalmi Finnish mortar units fired also 52,000 rounds. Finnish field artillery especially during the latter part of battle fired relatively heavy rounds. On 16 July the average weight of rounds were around 28 kilos.War diary of 2nd Division artillery, http://digi.narc.fi/digi/view.ka?kuid=4507092

Aftermath

The commander of the Soviet Leningrad Front, Marshal

Leonid Govorov Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov (russian: Леони́д Алекса́ндрович Го́воров; – 19 March 1955) was a Soviet military commander. Trained as an artillery officer, he joined the Red Army in 1920. He graduated from several ...

heavily criticized the 23rd Army, 98th Corps and 115th Corps commanders when the offensive in Vuosalmi failed to yield any concrete results despite of the heavy casualties sustained.

Gallery

File:Piilotettu sturmi.jpg, Camouflaged Finnish

Sturmgeschütz III The ''Sturmgeschütz III'' (StuG III) assault gun was Germany's most-produced fully tracked armoured fighting vehicle during World War II, and second-most produced German armored combat vehicle of any type after the Sd.Kfz. 251 half-track. It ...

assault gun on the battlefield File:Alikessu franz haapala ja panssarinyrkki.jpg, Corporal Franz Haapala used

Panzerfaust The ''Panzerfaust'' (, "armour fist" or "tank fist", plural: ''Panzerfäuste'') was a development family of single-shot man-portable anti-tank systems developed by Nazi Germany during World War II. The weapons were the first single-use light an ...

to destroy a Soviet IS series heavy tank File:Tarkastetaan panssarinyrkin tuhoja 2.jpg, Fist-sized hole made by a Panzerfaust ("Armor fist") warhead File:Tarkastetaan panssarinyrkin tuhoja 3.jpg, Soviet tank destroyed during the battle

References

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vuosalmi

1944 in Finland Finland in World War II July 1944 events Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic