During the winter war of 1939-1940 the Soviet Union entered Finland on multiple locations across the nation’s vast boarder. Finland did not expect this range of attack and had massed its strengths to the country’s southernmost areas, which called for innovative measures taken by the scattered units across northern Finland. At Suomussalmi a remarkable event thus came to occur, where the Finns annihilated two soviet divisions through what is frequently described as the non-linear method of motti-tactics. Swarming is another non-linear form of warfare that is described to enable a smaller party to defeat a larger adversary through system-collapse. Scholars does however conclude that the practice of swarming is ahead of theoretical development, and that there are many cases of swarming that are yet to be discovered. The study observes clear similarities between the two types of warfare, and therefore aim to understand the Finnish successes along the Raate-road, which played a significant part in the battle for Suomussalmi, through Sean Edwards swarming theory on a brigade-level. The study concludes that key swarming variables were prominent in the Finnish warfare, which in turn indicate the presence of swarming warfare along the Raate-road. The study does thereby contribute to the scholarly debate on how the Finns achieved their brigade-level victories during the winter war with a new perspective. The results do however not reject previous explanations, and further research is required to single out the most prominent method.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:fhs-9992 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Rova, Oscar |
| Publisher | Försvarshögskolan |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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