Editing Mannerheim Line (section)

==The Winter War==
===The Red Army repelled===
[[File:Fort65.jpg|thumb|A bunker on high ground 65 (2009)]]
[[File:SK16 bunker of Mannerheim line.jpg|thumb|Bunker Sk16 (2009). The modern Finnish graffiti reads: They sacrificed their lives for the country in the struggle for freedom.]]
[[File:Ink5 bunker of Mannerheim line.JPG|thumb|Bunker Ink5 (2011)]]

In the Winter War, the line halted the Soviet advance for two months. The Soviet battleships [[Soviet battleship Marat|''Marat'']] and [[Soviet battleship Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya|''Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya'']] attacked Fort Saarenpää several times during December 1939 and January 1940, but the Finns repelled the attacks, driving off the ''Revolutsiya'' by near misses on 18 December 1939.<ref>McLaughlin, p. 401.</ref>

During the war, both Finnish and Soviet [[propaganda]] considerably exaggerated the extent of the line's fortifications{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}: the former to improve national morale, the latter claimed it was stronger than the [[Maginot Line]] to explain the Red Army's slow progress against the Finnish defences.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}} Subsequently, the myth of the "heavily fortified" Mannerheim Line entered official Soviet war history and some western sources.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}} The vast majority of the Mannerheim Line simply comprised [[trenches]] and other field fortifications. Bunkers along the line were mostly small and thinly spread out; the Line had hardly any [[artillery]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The Árpád-line|last=Szabó|first=János J.|publisher=Timp|year=2002|isbn=963-204-140-2|location=Budapest|pages=6–67}}</ref>

===Aftermath===
Following the Winter War, Soviet combat engineers destroyed the remaining installations. In the [[Continuation War]] the line was not re-fortified, although both Soviets and Finns used its natural benefits in defence during the [[Finnish reconquest of the Karelian Isthmus (1941)|Finnish advance in 1941]] and the [[Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive|Soviet offensive in 1944]] (see [[VT-line]] and [[VKT-line]]).