A bit about the history of the Finnish Tank Forces

Finland might not seem to be a powerful nation, but its military can and has fought back against serious opponents in part because it has decent tank forces. They have come a long way since their foundation. From the WWI-era FT-17 tanks to the Panzers and T-34s, Charioteers and to the latest acquisition—the Leopard 2A6.

The Early Days (1917–mid-1930s)

The first tanks bought by the Finnish Army were Renault FT-17s. In 1919, 32 tanks were delivered to Finland, and two more the next year. The 34 tanks never saw actual combat, although some turrets were used as pillboxes by infantry. Later, FT-17s were used as training tanks for the military and were eventually retired.

They were quite modern for the time, as having a rotating turret, a coaxial machine gun, and only two crew members was considered unheard of. There were two variants: 'naaras' or female, with machine guns as its main weapon (much like the Mark series), and 'koiras' or male, with a SA-18 L/21 37 mm Hotchkiss low-velocity cannon.

A row of about 16 Renault FT-17 tanks in Finland.

The Interwar Period (mid-1930s–1939)

In the mid-1930s, the Finnish Army had realized the need for a replacement vehicle for the FT-17. So, after careful consideration, in 1933, they ordered one Vickers Mk. E for testing. Evidently the tests went well and the Vickers proved itself as a viable option, as just three years later, 32 such tanks were ordered from Britain. They did manage to see combat in the Winter War and in WW2 as one of the main tanks of the Finnish Army, but the Vickers Mk. E proved unreliable and faulty in actual combat conditions and many tanks were abandoned in battle. Many surviving tanks were later equipped with a Soviet-made 45 mm 20-K cannon, taken from captured T-26s.

At first the tanks didn’t come with armament, and the Finns had to fit their own cannon into the cylindrical turret of the Vickers. A 37 mm Psv.K/36 L/45 was chosen for the tanks, as it had decent ballistics and penetration (up to 55 mm at 200 meters against a 90° plate). The tanks had much better mobility than their predecessor, the FT-17, with their maximum speed clocking up to 33–35 kph. Funnily enough, the Soviet Army was using the Vickers too, albeit under a different name — T-26, and the two Vickers tanks saw combat in the same war, and had to fight against each other. The Finnish Army successfully captured 114 T-26 during the Winter War, and they were later fighting with the Vickers, often in the same battles.

Photos of the Finnish Vickers Mk. E taken during the Winter War.

World War II (1939–1945)

No tanks describe the Finnish experiences of the World War II better than the KV-1 and the Panzer IV J. From the Finnish perspective, there were two distinct wars during the 1941–1945 period: the Continuation War or jatkosota in Finnish and the Lapland War or Lapin sota in Finnish. In the Continuation War, Finland fought against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944. Finland was a co-belligerent of Nazi Germany, and it was supplied by Germany. During the campaign, Finland managed to reach its old borders and controversially take part in the Siege of Leningrad. But by 1944 the Finnish forces were pushed back a bit, and while both fronts were looking terrific for the Allies, Finland turned to them. And thus, the Lapland War started. The goal was to push out German forces from the northern part of Finland. Along with some help from Soviet forces, they managed to do just that fairly quickly.

Panzer IV J

Let’s start with the Panzer IV J “Nelonen” (Finnish for “The Fourth”). The medium tank was originally designed and produced in Nazi Germany by Krupp in 1936. In 1944, the Finnish Army had received 15 Panzers from Germany, as it meant to become the main tank of the Finnish Army, but were soon turned against the Wehrmacht. The Panzer IVs didn’t see actual tank combat, but nonetheless helped to achieve the victory. The tanks were later used as shooting targets for the trainees, and once the armour plates had had enough, sold as scrap metal.

The J variant had the long and powerful 7.5 cm KwK 40 L/48 cannon and mesh armour skirts on the sides of the hull and covering most of the turret, leaving some space for optics and the main cannon, for defending against early HEAT projectiles. The cannon was powerful enough to penetrate Soviet T-34s and KV-1s straight in the hull, but the Panzer IV itself lacked any decent armour. During the Lapland War the side skirts were taken off, as they proved to be ineffective and only caused problems.

The Pz. IV J in Finnish service.

KhT-26

The next tank, which we are going to look at is the Soviet KhT-26 or OT-26, or at least the captured version of it. It didn’t influence the results of the WW2 that much, but it’s still interesting to look at. The original name of the tanks (Khimicheskyi Tank — 26 / Химический танк — 26 or Ognemyotnyy Tank — 26 / Огнемётный танк — 26) could be translated from Russian to “Chemical Tank — 26” or “Flame-throwing tank — 26”. It was a flame tank based on the T-26 light tank, with the turret from the two-turreted version transferred to the right side of the tank and the main armament — the 7.62 mm machine gun — removed and replaced by a flamethrower. 605 such vehicles were made, and they saw combat in the battles of Khalkin-Gol and, what interests us the most, in the Winter War.

The combat experience of the KhT-26 proved that flame tanks were highly effective against infantry and such. This didn’t stop the Finns from capturing 2 OT-26s. The Finnish Army, however didn’t deem the tanks so useful as their Soviet counterpart, and the KhT-26s were remade to be essentially the same as the T-26, which negated the whole purpose of the original captured tanks. Now, one of the two Finnish (Kh)T-26s can be seen at the Parola tank museum.

The captured KhT-26 being looked upon by the Finnish soldiers.

KV-1

The KV-1 'Klimi' (referring to the original name for the tank — Kliment Voroshilov) was a literal fortress on tracks. The heavy tank was impenetrable for early Pz.IVs, all Pz.IIIs and IIs, many field guns, and could, albeit rarely, survive a shot from the 75 mm high-penetration cannon found on late Panzer IVs and StuG IIIs. The KV-1 was designed in 1938-1939 by Josef Kotin, famous for the IS series, and later produced at ChTZ. The Finnish Army had captured one KV-1 model 1940 in 1941, near the modern-day city of Petrozavodsk and took it into use. After WW2, it was used as a training tank for a short period, but was quickly phased out, as many modern tanks didn’t have similar characteristics.

The KV-IB was not liked by Finnish crews, as it had a sluggish speed of just 16 kph off-road. Visibility was awful, and the engine broke often, leaving the crew members with a basically unusable pile of steel. What made it even worse is that, according to photos, the crew inside had no way of communication to the outside, except shouting with the commander’s cupola open, as there is no antenna to be seen, and subsequentially, no radio inside the tank.

The captured KV-IB.

The Cold War Era (1945–1991)

Finland was one of the few developed nations that tried to stay out of the Cold War completely, while keeping relatively good relationships. The country’s most famous president, Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, who served from 1956 to 1982, once said:

Finland’s policy of neutrality, our desire to stay out of conflicts between great powers, does not mean that we have abandoned peaceful international cooperation. On the contrary, constructive and open-minded cooperation both with our neighbours and in the wider international arena is a prerequisite for strengthening the international trust that our neutral policy requires.

U. K. Kekkonen

A part of the speech on the meeting between the USSR and Finland.

This unique position gave Finland the opportunity to buy military equipment as freely from the West European countries and the US, as from the Soviet Union. As an example, let’s look at the Charioteer and the T-72M tanks.

Charioteer

The Charioteer was a British medium tank/tank destroyer, wielding an extremely powerful 84 mm 20-pounder cannon and good mobility. In 1957, Major Viljo Terho went to Britain to acquire some information about the available tanks for sale. Later he supported the Charioteer option, as it was cost-effective (8 million Finnish marks or around 1.4 million US dollars now, against the T-34, which cost 40 million marks or around 7 million US dollars now, or the Centurion, which cost a whopping 64 million marks or 11 million dollars), agile, and it had really good firepower. By 1960, the Finnish Army had 38 in deployment. After 12 years of service, the Charioteer was demoted to a training vehicle, and in 1980 it was retired altogether.

The Charioteer wasn’t considered a good fighting vehicle for long, as advancements in tank engineering were plenty at that time. The British tank just wasn’t made to deal with new composite armour; the 20-pounder had APDS shots had excellent penetration values for the time — about 350 mm at a kilometer of range, but in the mid-1970s this just wasn’t enough, as in 1973 the Soviet Union started the production of the T-72 main battle tank, which the Charioteer couldn’t penetrate at all, at least in the front. And on the other front, two competing M1 Abrams prototypes were already in testing by 1976.

A Charioteer Mk. VIIB in Finland.

T-72M

With all that said, the Finnish Army found itself once again in need for a replacement. And so, Army command started to look out for options.

In 1979, the T-72 was shown to a Finnish delegation, and by 1984 the Army was ready to buy about 50 tanks from the Soviet Union. But when the delegation approached with the money needed, they were told that the T-72 was no longer available for sale. Instead, the Soviet negotiators offered the new version — T-72M1, which had a new laser rangefinder and improved composite armour. But all that would come at a 40% price increase. The Finns agreed to those conditions, and therefore 63 main battle tanks were delivered to the Finnish Army over the 1984–1986 period. The second time the tanks were bought was in 1992, when ex-East Germany was clearing out old tanks and selling them for cheap. In total, over the years Finland amassed 162 T-72s. They served for about 20 years, and in 2006 all of T-72s were taken from service and either scrapped or sold.

A Finnish T-72M1 on display at Parola Tank Museum. By Richard Allen.

The Modern Days (2010s–Onward)

Now, Finland is in NATO, which makes sudden military reinforcements easier for the nation. This also implies that buying Russian tanks is now impossible for Finland. Nonetheless, they don’t need to buy any Russian main battle tanks now, as the Army has got one of the best fighting vehicles ever devised — the Leopard 2A6.

In 2014, the Finnish Army struck a deal with the Dutch counterpart for 100 used Leopards 2A6 for only 200 million euros, as they weren’t needed anymore. This was the best possible outcome, since modifying the existing 100 Leopards 2A4 would have cost 500 million euros and buying new ones even more — 1 billion. The Finnish Army plans to use them until 2035, or until unexpected circumstances happen.

The Leopard 2A6 is a modern-day main battle tank, designed and produced by KraussMaffei and Rheinmetall. The first Leopard 2 tanks were produced in 1979 and since then, eight generations have changed. The most wide-spread of them all is the Leopard 2A4, without the composite screens on the turret and a short-barreled cannon. The 2A6 variant features the aforementioned composite screens, which give the tank a nice sleek look and a long-barreled 120 mm cannon. The Leopard 2 is considered to be one of, if not the best tank amongst its NATO counterparts.