Initially, the total number of Soviet troops, is 425 thousands of people opposed the 225 thousand Finns. But soon the Finns, quickly mobilized more than 100 thousand men older actually ages, brought the ratio to almost equilibrium, but in military technology The ussr had an overwhelming superiority. During the 1927-1939 years, strengthening its eastern frontiers, with German, French, British and Belgian specialists, Finland is building a so-called "Mannerheim Line" – a system permanent fortifications in the Karelian Isthmus, the total length of the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga is 135 km and the depth of defense and up to 90 km. It consisted of 2 thousand long-term fire facilities. In addition, sophisticated anti-tank barriers erected, concrete tank obstacles, many kilometers of barbed wire.
In the "Mannerheim Line" organically interactive features of geography, geology and topography combined with highly technical engineering structures. On the one hand, it provides multi-layer fire on the advancing troops, on the other, differed in many respects and invulnerability of the fortification belt. The thickness of the walls and ceilings of bunkers of reinforced concrete and granite reached 2 m. The total on the three bands 'Mannerheim Line' was equipped with about 1000 pillboxes and bunkers, about one third of which resembled an impregnable fortress. To this system of defense Finnish command and made the main rate, planning to tie up the Red Army forces here, wait for the Allied Expeditionary Force approach and move into positive approach, whose goal was the capture of Karelia and the Kola Peninsula through the White Sea – Onega lake. The Soviet command implied that the operation in Finland will take about two weeks. However, events unfolded differently.
The Red Army met stiff resistance in the environment fell entire Soviet division. The army was not prepared to wage war in woodland in a harsh climate, terrain. Tanks and heavy machinery stuck in the snow in many parts of the supply was interrupted, command and control gave serious failures. Began mass frostbite and colds among the lightly dressed Soviet soldiers. Poorly prepared command staff could not cope with the tasks. In combat soldier, a wave of repression, executions. Authorities sought to blame the failure on an imaginary 'enemy'. Huge losses, heavy fire from the bunkers and pillboxes and inability to move the Soviet leadership made ten days after the start of the war, in effect, collapse of active hostilities, in order to radically change his tactics, to restructure the management and produce rotation of command. The Finnish army had polls armed with automatic weapons, unlike the Red Army, who went into battle armed with rifles. There was no reliable means of evacuating the wounded from the battlefield, no heating items for soldiers not directly been at the forefront. Great difficulties experienced tankers in overcoming anti-tank ditches, a lot of time and effort spent on destruction of concrete tank obstacles, antitank hedgehogs, as well as long-term well-fortified enemy firing points. Therefore, 'small' and 'galloping' War, had counted on Stalin, unleashing a conflict with Finland, not happened. Advancing in the fierce fighting on the Finnish territory at best a few tens of kilometers, the Red Army troops were halted on the Karelian peninsula fortifications' line Mannerheim '. In other parts of the front there was the same. The war suddenly the Soviet side gained a protracted nature, the loss of troops in the harsh northern winter, grew more and more