Winter War - Finns vs. Commies - Order of Battle WW2

Started by airboy, October 31, 2016, 06:42:07 PM

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airboy

I'm playing Order of Battle: World War 2 - Winter War add on.  The Aristocrats distributed by Slitherine/Matrix have done a simulation of the War in the Far North between the Finns and the USSR.  The war started when the Commies attacked the Finns after the Nazis and Commies split Poland.

You play the Finns.  I like the Finns for several reasons.  First, they are not the USSR.  Second, I've been there three times and they have a beautiful country with pretty citizens and good beer.  Last, I took a beer tram tour last time I was in Helsinki and it was a blast. 

Finland broke away from Czarist Russia at the end of WW1 and managed to stay independent.  They were one of the few allies of Germany that did not suffer a government overthrow, occupation, and basic destruction after the end of WW2.

I'm playing this on the 2nd level of difficulty.



Difficulty Level 2


airboy

#1
The Finns have no armor.  They start with no air force and no artillery.  All the Finns have is infantry and engineers.  Later on I buy ski troops which are very fast moving infantry in the far North.

The Russians have a lot more infantry, a lot of heavy artillery, at some minimal armor.  The Russian Attack is in two prongs.  Both the North and the South attack axis follows a major road.  The roads have a lot of forest in close proximity.  The Finns need to successfully withdraw two supply trucks simulating evacuated refugees.  They have weak forces that start out damaged.  But they quickly gain reinforcements.  If the Finn's hold the first major Northern bridge for 8 turns they get some pillboxes and victory points.  The other victory points are for holding key city hexes.

Attached are photos showing the North and the South Axis of Attack.

North Axis of Attack 



  South Axis of Attack



airboy

Initial Commie Attacks are Crushed by the Gallant Finns! 

The initial attacks are made with a small number of units that are separated from the Russian Heavy Artillery.  The attacks are not coordinated and follow the roads.  This is pretty much what happened in WW2 and my Finn defenders shredded the commies.

First we show the attack in the North.

It started badly for the Russians


And ended worse

airboy

#3
In the South the initial Russian attacks were also by relatively weak forces with no artillery support.  In the South the Russians managed to retreat two of the attacking units with only one unit completely destroyed.  But the attack was easily repulsed.




airboy

That wraps up the first 25% of the first scenario.
I'm very busy with work for the next week.

Let me know if you are interested in my continuing this AAR.

JasonPratt

ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Sir Slash

I'm in Airboy. I've always loved that the Finns kicked the Russians butts so thoroughly in 1940.
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

airboy

#7
Turn 6 & 7

I reinforced in the North and counter-attacked in the South.

Unfortunately, I was unable to destroy the two commie infantry units in the South leaving them with minimal strength.  I also got hit by two heavy artillery units in the counter attack.  One is spotted and the other is not. 

South Turn 6



In the North I've reinforced all of my units and have successfully evacuated the civilians and supplies represented by the truck units.  However, the Russkies have advanced two artillery units.  The Russian heavy artillery is a regular pain every time my gallant Finns establish contact with the Red Army.

North Turn 7

airboy

#8
South Turns 7-10

I was able to stymie the Russian Offensive in the South.  They did not pull their units back when damaged and the Finns managed to kill off the weakened units.  Then the Russki attacked again and got a unit cut off.  It was easily destroyed.  In the process the Finn's got exposed to multiple turns of Russian Heavy Artillery.  This hurt my organization and weakened my units.  The Finn's need to pull back to resupply and refit outside of spotting range of the Russian guns.

Without an Airforce or Artillery of their own, the Finns are very susceptible to the heavy Russian guns that have long range.

Turn 7 Southern Front


Turn 10 Southern Front

airboy

#9
North Turns 8-10

There was a thrust and counter-attack in the North during turns 8-10.  The Finn Infantry in the North is in more exposed terrain, but does not face as much long run artillery.  In turn 8 the Finn's managed to wipe out the Russian Infantry screen in front of two units of medium artillery.

On turn 9 the Finn's managed to heavily damage one of the medium artillery units but they could not destroy it.  Unfortunately, this left two units weakened and in low supply status.  Worse, the units are heavily exposed to potential attack.

On Turn 10 the Russians attacked one of the exposed units and almost destroyed it.  The Finn's need to tactically retreat to resupply and reinforce the Northern Front.  So both in the North and the South the Finn's repelled the Russians but could not sustain a counter-attack against Russian reinforcements.  But ten of the 20 turns have been finished and the Finn's win if they can keep the Russians from rolling over them and capturing strategic locations.

North Turn 8


North Turn 9


North Turn 10

airboy

#10
Turn 11 - 14 in the South

Turn 11 - 14 decided this scenario.  The Russians brought up armor which attacked in the South.  I had nothing that could significantly damage a medium tank.  I purchased two units.  A ski-troop infantry unit and an anti-tank gun.  The Finnish Ski-troops are great.  They have significant movement advantages in broken terrain.  The anti-tank unit is relatively slow and cannot move in broken terrain very well.

What I did after the Russian Armor attacked was this.  First, I pulled all of my troops out of the open ground and stuck them in the forest except for a blocking unit in front of my anti-tank gun.  In this game, if you attack with armor with an adjacent anti-tank gun it is very bad news for the tank.  I exposed a pocket for the armor to move down the road towards the victory objectives. 

The Russian Tank moved down the road and smashed one of my infantry units in the woods.  The Finn infantry unit went to "red" organization level which would make it very easy to destroy.  But I moved the untouched infantry unit behind the tank and cut it off from supply.  Next, I moved the anti-tank gun up and hit the tank.  I then swung the ski troops around and attacked the surrounded and weakened tank.  Last, the infantry unit which cut the tank off from the rest of the Commie army attacked.  The three attacks on the isolated tank starting with the anti-tank gun almost destroyed the tank unit.  On turn 14 I continued to resupply my two heavily damaged infantry units and finished off the tank.

But notice that my ski unit and one of my infantry units are now out in the open and spotted for the Russian heavy artillery. 

As dumb as this Russian attack sounds, this battle went almost exactly like the Russian advance did in the war.  The Russians attacked piecemeal.  Their tanks would move out from infantry support, get surrounded, and get chopped up.  But the Finn's would get shelled badly when they moved into the open and were spotted by Russian heavy artillery.

At this point the Russians cannot win the scenario unless they have some big armor/infantry spearhead that can advance really fast in the South.  The South holds the key victory hexes.  By the end of these screen shots the Russians have only 6 turns left. 

Look at the screen captures to see what I managed to pull off.

Turn 11


Turn 12


Turn 13 - Part 1


Turn 13 Part 2


Turn 14 - Results of a Successful Finn Counter-Attack in the South


airboy

In the North through Turn 15 I had some give and take battles.  I did not have enough troops for a solid line.  So the Commies would attack and the Finns would counter attack.  If the Finns took too much damage, they would retreat and resupply.  The Russians would advance out of artillery range and the Finns would counter-attack and destroy them.

The net of going through Turn 15 in the North were several more destroyed Russian units and a return to the original positions by the Finns.

I will add one thing.  I was very cautious about adding extra units until I saw where the Russian main attack would fall.  I did not spend the majority of my reinforcement points until after I saw the main axis of attack.  When it fell in the South I bought the anti-tank and ski units which turned the tide.  If I had spent my reinforcement points early and guessed wrong, it would be bad news.

airboy

#12
Turns 15 - 20

The Russians got pretty desperate.  Stalin was threatening to shoot some more officers.  The Commies started launching some pretty wild unsupported attacks.  They were very easy to repel.  I had to hold myself back from wildly counter-attacking.  But there were not a lot of turns left and by playing defense I could save my reinforcement points for the upcoming scenarios.  I've got a couple of screen shots that show some of the wild, isolated attacks and then the victory screen.

Wild Attacks by Scared (of Stalin) Commie Officers



What Finns Tell Their Kids They Did in WW2


Time to Hit the Sauna for Scenario 1


JasonPratt

See, this is why I shouldn't have messed with the Finns during my Barbarossa game against Bart. And that was in summer!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Sir Slash

Congrats on the win Airboy. Way to give them the middle Finn-ger.   :DD
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.