Area troops 47th Guards Artillery Brigade 21st, 151st and 336th Artillery Regiments 165th, 641st, 883rd and 1072nd Antitank Regiments 175th, 456th, 506th and 567th Mortar Regiments 70th Guards Mortar Regiment 1469th Antiaircraft Regiment 71st and 618th Separate Antiaircraft Battallions 46th Guards Tank Regiment 226th Tank Regiment 938th Self-Propelled Gun Regiment 952rd Self-Propelled Gun Regiment 71st Separate Armoured Train Battalion 20th Engineer Brigade Total: 8 infantry divisions, 80-90 tanks or assault/self-propelled guns and around 600 field artillery pieces or heavy mortars. Average personal strength of rifle divisions was around 6,600-6,700 men. The battle The Finnish positions were very unfavorably located on the ridge of Äyräpää, with the wide River Vuoksi behind it. Though the position was very unfavorable, the Äyräpää ridge dominated the lower terrain on the northern shore requiring the defensive lines to be placed on the ridge. The Red Army 98th Corps started heavier attacks on July 4 and heavy battles raged for control of the ridge until July 9 when the Finns finally withdrew to the northern shore. The Soviet 115th Corps then continued the attack and crossed the Vuosalmi on July 9. During that day both Soviet and Finnish forces had their highest numbers of artillery and mortar rounds fired: 30,000 (Soviet forces) and 18,800 (Finnish, 13,500 of which were field artillery rounds). The Soviet 115th Corps reinforced the bridgehead and had all its three divisions in the bridgehead on July 11. The Finnish forces also received reinforcements in the form of the depleted Finnish Armored Division directly from the Ihantala and on July 11 both sides were attempting to attack simultaneously. Attempts on both sides were halted when they ran into attacking enemy formations. Though the Soviets now had access to the open fields on the northern shore, which were advantageous to the Soviet armor, the Finns were able to stop all further Soviet advances. The following Finnish counterattacks in Vuosalmi at this point amounted to not much success either, and thus both sides were on the defensive here in mid-July, 1944. The Finnish field artillery fired altogether over 122,000 rounds of ordnance in Äyräpää and Vuosalmi, from June 20 to July 17, 1944 – the same amount as in the Battle of Tali-Ihantala, which was fought during exactly the same time period in a nearby vicinity, on the relatively narrow Karelian Isthmus of Finland. Mortar units fired 85,000 rounds. When comparing the 8 day period