25th of June - Enter the Red Navy
Nearing dawn, German attacks on both Kowel and Alytus ceased - and troops were retreating back to their initial positions. The massive armour presence at Kowel had inflicted grave casualites on the attacking germans, and the Alytus offensive struck the strongly guarded forward flank of the attacking Mechanized Army, leaving the commanders of both attacks with little choice but to retreat to avoid a meatgrinder. Zhukov's 2nd Mechanized quickly followed the retreating Panzergruppe and eliminated german beachheads on the Bug south of Brest. Sporadic attempts to regain those beachheads were repulsed for the whole following day. The situation northwards was not as bright, however. With a formidable german formation marching towards Bielsk, and another sweeping into Lithuania, the first stage of the border battles seemed to be over. The two sides were starting to learn their first few lessons. Namely, the Wehrmacht learned of the massive concentrated armour available to the Soviets and its power in the general strategic plan. The Soviets learned that any offensive maneuver needed to achieve at least a 3 to 1 supremacy in numbers to come even close to success.
The Gulf of Finland
The decision to place the 69th Mountaineer Division into Tallinn was not made on a whim. The division was raised to full battle readiness in a day after the start of the war, and was immediately placed under the command of Marshal Timoshenko, who was leading the charge into southern Finland. Another force under Timoshenkos orders was the Baltic Fleet, led by Admiral Kuznetsov. The fleet was built around the two Gangut-class dreadnoughts of the First World War, named
Marat and
Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya (earlier
Petropavlovsk and
Gangut, respectively). Preparations for an amphibious operation by the 69th began the day the war started, and by the time Finland entered the war, the 69th was in a state of hurried preparedness for their mission.
While the fleet set out on the morning of the 25th, the two battleships, escorted by destroyers and submarines, head quickly northwards to clear the landing area from possible finnish shipping. At 4 o'clock, as the sun rose from the east, the Baltic Fleet spotted the two finnish coastal defence ships, the
Väinamöine and
lmarinen right off the coast of Finland about 15 kilometres to their west. Despite the perfect weather condition leaving the finnish batteries blinded by the rising sun and the russian ones completely free to engage the silhouettes of the finnish ships who had foolishly ventured outside the protective relief of the coastline, the finnish ships struck first. Both were armed with 254-mm Bofors cannons capable of engaging enemies two dozen kilometres away, and the
Väinamöinen aimed just some metres off the
Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya. The russian crews, startled by the accuracy of finnish fire, began to frantically counterfire to little effect. However, though the flagships and the destroyers accompanying them were functioning as target practise for the finnish ships, the supporting submarines and destroyers quickly closed in for their slice of the two ships. The
Ilmarinen was quickly struck by light fire from the Soviet Gnevnyi-class destroyers, and had to abandon the
Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya for now to fend off the incoming light ships. A few submarines of the 7th Submarine Flotilla also fired a couple of shots at the Ilmarinen, but missed.
A Gnevnyi-class destroyer
This brief pause in fire was all the russian battleships needed. An hour after first contact both
Marat and
Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya were firing accurately at the finnish ships, causing the
Ilmarinen to break and flee, while the
Väinamöinen, after seemingly fending off the Soviet destroyers, tried to find a safe path north through the hell it was subjected to. The finnish naval commander, Major General V. Valve, upon hearing of the engagement, demanded the two large ships immediately dock in Helsinki, ordering the few finnish submarines and gunboats to cover their retreat. However, the sheer range of the Soviet battleships made it very difficult for the finns to retreat. By 6 o'clock, all Soviet surface ships were engaged to the retreating finnish ships in one way or another, and at 6:27, the first major hit was dealt, as the
Marat hit the
Ilmarinen in the bow, dealing moderate damage and slowing the ship down considerably.
At 10 o'clock, when the two finnish ships were just a few kilometres away from the protective haven of Helsinki (and the coastal guns to deal with the pursuing russians), both ships were badly hit. The
Ilmarinen took a second hit to the bow, which resulted in a large hole in the starboard from which water came rushing in. Damage control attempted to fix the ship enough to let it float back into harbour for repairs. The
Väinamöinen was hit in the stern, leaving it unable to turn at a satisfactory rate, which was luckily not very necessary for the little bit of sea that was to be covered. By 12 o'clock, both ships finally limped into Helsinki, with massive damage knocking them out of combat for at least a month. The Red Navy had achieved temporary supremacy in the Finnish Gulf. Hopes were that the Kriegsmarine or Luftwaffe would not operate in the area until it was too late for the Finns.
The Finnish Offensive
The attacks into Finland were only partly successful. Despite Frolov repeating his earlier successes with light infantry in the north, Levandovski's 15th Army had severe difficulties in keeping up the momentum against the 5 defending finnish divisions at Mikkeli. Their job was, however, to keep Timoshenko's flank clear, and in that respect, they were slowly fulfilling their objectives, as Timoshenko's personal control over the 7th Army enforced a gradual lurch forward, reaching the outskirts of Kotka by noon of the 25th. Resistance was however stiffening, and the 69th Division was badly needed for the offensive to continue. The plan had in mind an amphibious offensive between Kotka and Helsinki, preparing the ground for the conquest of the capital as well as creating a situation where the finns defending Kotka could be encircled, a bold move by the largely unmotorized force of Timoshenko.
Charge at Suwalki
Konev's 1st Mechanized Army finally made significant gains around the dawn of the 25th - the leading armour of the 1st Mechanized Corps, led by General Vassilevskij, scattered the rear guard of Suwalki, the German 526th division, which was now routing westwards. Suwalki, being an important crossing of the Czarna Hańcza river, was now the sole target of Konev. Conquering Suwalki could very well end in the cutting off of a hundred thousand german troops. It was an objective too sweet for Konev to ignore, and he ushered all his troops towards it. Suwalki was also the regrouping and command point of the defending germans, meaning it would be guarded by strong forces, so Konev could only expect very fierce resistance. By midnight, his lead tanks were not more than a dozen kilometres away from Suwalki, setting the stage for the first truly decisive battle of Operation Barbarossa.