It's easy to understand someone might get ticked off when your country fought at many times 10:1 odds and managed to stop the attackers.
Put it 1:1 and then let's see who'se mauling who.
There are many ways to look at the odds (as you say).
Considering that a "beligerant" must have some form of "force superiority" over its intended victim, odds of 10-1 (which incidently I vehemently question) is something not to extreme. In this 10-1 figure you use, you fail to take into account any "force multipliers" the Finns may have enjoyed. Such as weather, terrain, lines of communication, familiarity of terrain, interior logistics, local population support, intelligence as in "correct information recieved from patriotic locals" etc etc.
All of these things are serious bennefits (force multipliers) for "DEFENDERS". Now lets take into consideration the "pathetic" state of soviet forces at that time. The purge of officers seriously degraded an already poor quality military. Historically the Russian military was never up to western standards and only momentarily thru out its history did it have very brief moments of moderate success. The great expanse of Russia has been a far more effective deterent than its military. The Russian military was a very restrictive and monolithic behemith. Never encouraging self initiative or creativity. In contrast the Finnish forces enjoyed much "freedom of action and initiative" much like the western powers, this "flexibility" of command was encouraged by Finnish commanders all the way down to NCO ranks very closely resembling the German forces of the day. The Russians of the day were barely better than the Turks of the same period. I submit had the Germans NOT attacked the poles in 39 the, the poles would have had an easy go of repelling the whoefully inexperienced and incompitent Russian army as the Finns did. This is how bad the Russian forces were!!!
With all that said I again say I intend no disrespect to the gallant Finnish defenders but the facts bear witness to the real reasons the Finns were able to hold off the Russians during the winter war!
As far as the Brewster is concerned, it would be unreasonable to think that all of the problems that the Russian army had could not be extended to its airforce. In many respects the Russian airforce suffered far more degridation and paralysis from Russian purges and incompitanse.
With respect to Wmaker, whom is obviously a patriotic Finn, his "historical accuracy" is viewed thru his nationalistic fervor and should be treated as such.
A few years after the winter war the Finns enjoyed a far superior defensive position and were attacked by very large Russian forces again aand were rolled over like a worm on a muddy logging road. What was the most signifant difference? Well lets just say the Russians learned much from their experience fighting the very well trained, motivated and organized German army, of whom they could have only overcome by becoming far more trained, motivated and organized!
JUGgler
