Hey everyone, I'm Hagal.
I'm new to the forums and the SP community. I've lurked here for about a month now and read a lot of previous threads and posts as well as getting to know how the community works. This will be my first post.
I've played SP games and other war games since I was a kid, and recently discovered the highly upgraded MBT version made by the The Camo Workshop. Nevertheless, it's great and one of the fairly few games I play at the moment.
I've noticed a little running joke here that Finns are nitpicking and very sharp about our fatherland's defense equipment and unit structures.
Being a Finnish reservist myself, I can't help myself but contribute more to the joke. I'll try to be specific and clear as possible.
Quad bikes, motorcycles and snowmobiles:
Finnish army employs a lot of these in almost every Finnish ground forces company.
Uses for
motorcycles include: Scouting terrain, patrolling, field couriering, transporting individual fighters or conducting very desperate evacuations.
Motorcycles in short see a lot of use a lot in the military too, can't speak for every nation that employs them but in Finland they are quite common in cooperating with the HQ sections and their units under their command.
Finnish army, at the start of the 1939's Winter War requisited 186 motorcycles for military use from the civilian population. And later for example Finnish Army's 9th division had captured 15 soviet motorcycle for their use.
https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotata...visodan_aikana
https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/9._divisioona_(talvisota)
(Pages are in Finnish though and they're wikipedia, but do have valid source materials)
I do not know what motorcycle model was adopted just after the wars, but in 1976 FDF ordered around 60 "Winha" motorcycles, and all of them were delivered but further production stopped as the manufacturer went bankrupt and the bikes weren't that good. Yamaha XT 350 has been in use since the late 80's and as of 1999 FDF started to replace them with KTM LC4 400s. And then again in 2005 they started to get replaced with newer/better KTM 640 LC4.
https://www.tekniikkatalous.fi/talou...-pyora-6694709 - History of Winha, in Finnish of course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_XT350 - Article doesn't mention it, but the museum Yamaha in that picture is in fact the exact model FDF has been using since the late 80's.
https://www.ts.fi/teemat/auto+ja+lii...an+talvellakin - Mention of XT350's retirement, and the adoption of new KTM bikes during 1999 and 2005.
Quad bikes are a fast and versatile multi-tool used in scouting, transporting ammunition, equipment, transiting soldiers in the field and evacuating the wounded out of the battle. Also used in towing, and some construction and field engineering tasks.
FDF currently uses US made Polaris Sportsman 500/800 EFI and Sportsman MV7 models. I have no idea when FDF officially started using quad bikes but they've been around since the beginning of 2000.
However, Finland has a war/defence law (since 1930) where it states the defense forces can requisite civilian weapons, equipment, vehicles, working machinery, medical supplies, food and entire manufacturing plants for the military use. I can confirm that my brother's old Yamaha Grizzly (660?) was in the list of potential vehicles military could lend during crisis, when he called the FDF's local regional office about it back in 2005 just for fun I figure. I remember there was a paper article reminding that the law still exists.
FDF has specific training for the operators of both vehicle types. Courses are available for different units, like military police units, rangers, SF, light infantry and so on, but some support and HQ companies have exclusive motorcycle messengers and a rare few quad bike riders in their units. Motorcycle messengers or formal combat messengers (MP-lähetti/taistelulähetti) are specialized soldiers for the sole purpose of being battlefield messengers.
I've noticed that the Great Britain and USA has gained a lot of attention for the extensive employment of quad bikes by the SF units operating in Afghanistan. Game has 2 quad bike units for UK, while USMC only has motorcycles. I hope to see other nations employ quad bikes as well, as they are not just used for tasks that require the use of special tactics. These types of vehicles are very useful in nations that are mostly just fields, forests and rough terrain. Quad bikes are more mobile in terms of speed and maneuverability than tractors for example, that are actually still in use here as troop/ammo/equipment carriers by the light infantry and reserve troops. Tractors do offer more power from the transmission than quad bikes and for that they also see daily work use by the support companies. But in the battlefield they generate unwanted noise and smoke, they are slow and bulky, and in my experience they aren't that specialized in forest terrain with variable ground altitudes as they can fall and can't get up with ease, but still they are very useful as budget carriers and engineering tools.
https://maavoimat.fi/en/article/-/as...maastoajoneuvo - Official article about the quad bikes and their use.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdRVDviWj4o - Motorcycle messenger soldier (MP-lähetti) interviewed, couldn't find well written articles about them but here's a video that includes them.
Snowmobiles have been in limited military use here during the 1930's, but later on the numbers grew more from spoils of war and after the wars their use have been significant by both civilians and the military. Their use is very similiar what both the motorcycle and the quad bike does except in deep snow, minus it's not as powerful as the quad bike. And it requires snow or ice to work properly.
FDF has used Lynx GLX 5900 in the recent years but they've been phased out silently by newer models as some pictures show.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-7147165
I feel that the use of these small man operated vehicles are underrated. Especially the quad bikes, but that's just my opinion heh. Many other nations use them a lot for both utility and combat purposes, but as the media goes, they're mainly portrayed as the "perfect" special forces vehicle. Especially those pictures with SF soldiers riding on fully loaded quad bikes with a LMG/MK.19 attached to the front. They're not perfect though as they tend to consume gas a lot and their small gas tanks doesn't help it much either. That makes their operational range a lot limited than a regular lightly armored ATV for example, but hell are they useful.
Sorry for a long post, I feel like I should have made that shorter but wanted to give details as much as I could.
I still have more suggestions regarding Finland's limited but existing assault diver teams, and having more infantry variety such as the military police and guard jaeger sections. But maybe I won't get into them in this post, here's enough reading and frustration for you guys hah.
Thank you Camo Workshop for restoring and making already an amazing game to another and higher level of amazing. Great job! Hopefully I can stay around and help the further development of the game somehow.
Finnish OOB ATV/Motorcycle/Snowmobile suggestions
Linear Mode
