Quote:
Originally Posted by Ts4EVER
New version.
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Played it through, but with a twist - made it into a two scenario campaign and made player one Swedish, as a what-if should Sweden have been involved in the war on the Finnish side.
I expected the AI having substantial infantry forces (parts of the 72nd Rifle Division, with tanks, heavy tanks and ISU-152s in support). I expected a Soviet counterattack to materialize halfway into the scenario.
Some literature about the Finnish counter-attack at KUUTERSELKÄ suggest it should have been carried out with the full Finnish armoured division in order to be successful.
My force turned out to be overkill for the scenario based as it was on the Swedish 9th Armoured Brigade organized late WW2. It included:
HQ
FOO team x3
Motorcycle Company
Tank Battalion (4 companies)
Tank Battalion (4 companies)
Mech Inf Battalion (4 companies with APCs)
Engineer Company (leg) x2
AA Company (40mm)
AA Company (75mm - in a AT role)
Heavy AT Company (tracked long 75mm)
Artillery Battalion (off map - 10,5cm)
Heavy Artillery Battery x2 (off map - 15cm)
One Finnish rifle battalion (First/JR13 of four companies reinforced with 12cm mortars and 47mm AT-guns).
Substituted the Finnish air for Swedish air strikes.
Much of the Swedish tank strength was made up of 37mm armed light tanks but in total I had about three companies of (short 75mm armed tanks) - all but useless against Soviet tanks except at extreme short range. This is why I added the heavy AT Coy (with Pvkv tank destroyers, a type of AFV which was meant to be delivered to the Swedish army during WW2 but for some reason was delayed and showed up just after the war had ended.) The APCs were the armoured truck “KP cars” with no weapons.
I deployed in the north roughly where the original scenario had the Finns starting positions (but out of sight form the T-34 group Kvikant surprised) and attacked down the LIIKOLA road. I did not stray much into the woods, only a hex or two with the Finnish infantry who held the flanks of the armoured attack.
The Soviet forces in the woods (to the "east") do counterattack eventually.
The weight of the attack by four manouver battalions(+) is more than the AI Soviet defender with in part depleted units can cope with. The IS and KV tanks were a major problem to take out though, all ended up immobilized by infantry close assault and had the Soviet crews bail. All Soviet AT weapons were dangerous to the Swedish tanks, even the AT rifles could do damage at close range.
The AI Soviet behaves fine. Found no problems with the map. Venhola takes care of the contours but the road network, lakes, the support defences for the VT-line, the fields north of KUUTERSELKÄ are also correct. Well done! The fields are the area where most of the historical Finnish attack was stopped.