I was reading about the winter war and all the different tanks the Finnish operated. They certainly had a mix lots of different French even char bs some British captured Soviet and some Italian. The Finnish m38 and m39'says it was based on a Italian tank and modified to meet Finnish requirements. I'm trying to find out what chassis they were based on as the running gear the road wheels in particular are not typical Italian. The Finnish were known for upgrading things to their needs, so I'm thinking they didn't like the Italians running gear replaced it with something they felt was better. Im impressed with their own build as the m38 and m39 became less effective their built the m42 using the hulls to start with from the now ineffective m38/39s Iooks like a m60'turret on a medium tank hull. It was consider a great tank built from 43-60s upgraded during the 50s the m52 from a 76 to105 gun. Says it was fast maneuverable and considered more than a match fo most mediums in service axis or allied. They say this was because the Finnish army studied the tanks of other countries and designed the m42 to be equal if not superior to its rivals since they could not hope to build in quantity they would make up in quality. Anyway any info on these tanks would be great as I haven't found a lot of info on the net so far.
This was just released and would definitely be of use to you. Good coverage of all kinds of modifications and use by the Finns of armoured vehicles.
Have a look at the thread: Battle of Tali-Ihantala; June 25th - 9th July 1944 Watch the film of the battle, very good and the only Finnish armour I recall were German StuG SPGs: A Finnish photo archive, a Souma is shown in the thread: Finnish Photographic Archive A 2008 thread on an earlier book: Finnish Army 1918-1945
Yes there's documentaries about there wide use of French tanks and French planes. They had somuas and a variety of French tanks even some char bis, r35s, etc. even planes the Finnish mm406 looks a lot like the French ms406. A little more stream lined but very close.
From what I've been able to read online it seems they were based on the t38 chassis but with considerable modifications which was common for the Finnish to do they were constantly modifying and upgrading their wquiptment to stay with other armies. The chassis looks about right the running gear looks really different the road wheels don't seem to match any Czech tanks I've read about.
Are you getting your info from this site ? Link removed as it's dodgey Google "alternative finland" It's all made up. Total fantasy. I found one of their pages mentioning the char-b that uses photos of French ones destroyed in France. They had an article with Selous Scouts in shorts with SLRs that was supposedly taken during the Winter War.
This is a good intro to Finnish armour. I do like the illustrations. Armor of the Republic of Finland during WWII
I'd recommend FINNISH ARMY 1918 - 1945: ARMOURED CARS CAPTURED YEAR 1918 (jaegerplatoon.net) and the following 9 pages
I watched a few excerpts from the film and like I remembered it,, it also showed the Finnish T-34, KV-1 and Vickers 6-ton / T-26. Only the T-28 was missing from the tanks used by the Finns in the summer of 1944. When the Great Soviet summer offensive began on June 9, 1944, Finns had from the top of my head 3 to 4 T-34s, 2 KV-1s, 6 to 7 T-28s, and 30 StuG IIIs. In addition, about 130 hopelessly obsolete Vickers 6-tons / T-26s and a dozen BT-42s, which were also rather useless.
Interest in Finland here appears to be a niche interest and Owen dominates many of the easily found threads, notably those on museums visited in 2022. I couldn't find another home for this, so here goes. Link: Finland's Last Tank Battle - Finland at War The author is British and the site started in 2020, so is a "work in progress".