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The Naval warfare in the Winter War was the naval part of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union from 30 November 1939 to 13 March 1940. Overall, the level of naval activity was low. However, Finland had coastal artillery batteries which took part in battles along its coast.
In addition to its navy, Finland had coastal artillery batteries defending important harbours and naval bases along its coast. Most batteries were leftovers from the Russian period, the 152 mm (6.0 in) gun being the most numerous, but Finland had modernized its old guns and installed a number of new batteries, the largest a 305 mm (12.0 in) gun battery originally intended to block the Gulf of Finland to Soviet ships with the help of batteries on the Estonian side.
The first naval battle took place near the island of Russarö, five kilometers south of Hanko. On 1 December 1939, there were fair weather conditions and visibility was excellent. The Finns spotted the Soviet cruiser Kirov and two destroyers. When the convoy was at a range of 24 km (13 nmi; 15 mi), the Finns opened fire with 234 mm coastal guns. After five minutes firing by four coastal guns, the cruiser was damaged by near misses and retreated. The destroyers remained undamaged and Kirov was repaired in the naval base, but it lost 17 men and about 30 wounded. The Soviets had known the locations of the Finnish coastal batteries, but had been surprised as their effective range was much longer than expected. The coastal artillery was old-fashioned, but the Finns had managed to modernize and improve it.[3]
The Soviet destroyers Gnevny and Grozyashchy attacked the Finnish lighthouse and fort at Utö on 14 December 1939. Finnish coastal artillery opened fire and after a short fight the destroyers withdrew with the help of a smoke screen. Poor visibility and the thick smoke initially convinced the Finns that one of the destroyers had been sunk by the coastal artillery fire.
Finnish coastal forts near the Karelian Isthmus saw the most action. In addition to the support of the land troops, Soviet naval forces made repeated attacks against the forts during December 1939. Finnish forts were repeatedly shelled by the battleships (Marat and Oktyabrskaya Revoluciya) as well as by Soviet destroyers.
The coastal artillery had its greatest effect upon the land war. Naval batteries near the front were in well-protected fixed positions, and with a higher rate of fire and greater accuracy than the army's field artillery, and helped steady the defence of the Karelian Isthmus in conjunction with army artillery. In March 1940, as the Soviets had broken through the front, all reserves were thrown into the fighting near Viipuri. The Soviets tried to cross the ice of the Gulf of Viipuri and come up behind the city, but the Finnish coastal artillery fired their heaviest guns, breaking the ice under the Soviets and preventing a clean breakthrough.
The Soviet Union declared blockade on the Finnish coast and guarded this blockade with naval aviation and submarines. Initially, Soviet submarines followed prize rules, but as this type of operation did not yield any results, the Soviet Union declared a 20 mile zone near the Finnish coast as to be an exclusion zone and warned neutral ships to stay away from it. However, the submarine campaign was not particularly successful and was cut short by the harsh winter. During the Winter War, the Soviet submarines sank a total of five ships: one Estonian (Kassari), two German (Reinbeck and Bolheim), one Swedish (Fenris), and one Finnish (Wilpas) merchant ship.
Four other Finnish freighters were lost when Soviet Air Force bombed the Finnish ports. One Finnish escort (Aura II) was lost while escorting convoys in Finnish waters, when during an anti-submarine operation a depth charge thrower misfired and the depth charge exploded while still onboard, sinking the ship. The Aura II was the only Finnish warship lost in the war. The Soviet Baltic Fleet lost submarine S-2 during the blockade. After ice formation prevented submarine operations, the Soviet blockade was based solely on aircraft patrols and the mines dropped from the aircraft.