Missing and incorrect information on Finland

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Foxbat:

The problem is that while that would work in scenarios giving the Finns access to ISU-152's, KV-1E's and whatnot could seriously unbalance their amor capabilities (unless giving a huge rarity penalty, which would render them useless in QB's...).

I would personally shoot to head ANY of my opponent who would use Finnish KV in quickbattles. That's no way to go, they were RARE. Mostly Finns should come with infantry only, anyway. But they had a noteworthy role in the Finnish armour force itself, and therefore would be valuable in depicting certain historical scenarios.

As the models are already in the game, it shouldn't be impossible for BTS to let Finns use them too, but with a high base price and very high rarity. (Insert your favourite "They also included Sturmtiger" argument here.) Then it should be judged per how great effort it would be for Charles, oh and you need textures too so Kwazy as well. Finland has gotten a nice treatment and plenty of attention from BFC, so it won't embitter me if they fail us on this as long as they'll give it a fair consideration.

[Sergei]

As a tip for everyone, you can get tabulations and things like that work here by using the CODE thingy. Here is the chart in correct form (dates shortened):

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> 5/41 7/42 7/43 6/44 12/44

T-26 m31 10 12 8 2 1

OT-26 2 2 1 1 1

T-37A 29 21 - - -

T-38/T38M2 13 12 19 19 3

Komsomolets 56 98 184 182 101

BT-7m35/37 53 23 23 - -

BT-42 - - 13 18 10

T-34m40/41 - 3 4 4 9

T-34/85 - - - - 9

T-50 - - 1 1 1

KV-1E m41 - - 1 1 1

KV-1 m42 - 1 1 1 1

Landsverk II - 6 6 6 6

Stug. III G - - - 30 46

Pz IV J - - - - 14</pre>

[Sardaukar]

Sorry that availability table is bit hard to read, but I think it can be deciphered . What I'd like to see as add-ons are: Komsomolets gun tractors (as you see, over hundred in use, huge number for Finns), KV-1E, KV-1 m42, T-28 m38, T-28 E..and PZ IV H (never seen here) changed to J. Fw 190F for Gemans here (not sure if they have), JU-87 dive bomber and "the most glaring mistake" ...Finnish Me-109 G6 had only one 20 mm cannon instead of 3, since wing cannons were removed.

Overall, great job from BTS...but there is always room for us nitpickers Besides, some battles are impossible to model without certain equipment.

Forgot this:

5/41 7/42 7/43 6/44 12/44

T-28 m38/T-28E 2 7 7 7 7

Cheers,

M.S.

[Sardaukar]

Originally posted by Sergei:

As a tip for everyone, you can get tabulations and things like that work here by using the CODE thingy.

Thanks...I wish I had seen this before I posted the follow-up

I'd like those things to be available, but with high rarity. That'd prevent them to be abused in QBs but used by scenario designers. After all, they were used.

Cheers,

M.S.

[ October 16, 2002, 11:46 AM: Message edited by: Sardaukar ]

[Nabla]

Ok, regarding the Pz IV question:

"We [Finns] bought in 1944 a test batch of three tanks [Pz IV], and a bit later 15 more. The price was 5 million [Finnish] marks for each tank. The tanks were obtained so late that they did not participate in the battles in 1944. After the war the tanks were used for training."

Source P. Kantakoski, Finnish Armored Forces 1919-1969. (Suomalaiset panssarivaunujoukot 1919-1969).

[Nabla]

And a second quote, from the same source, about the AA tank (10 ITPSV 40 / Landsverk-anti).

"The tanks [10 ITPSV 40 / Landsverk-anti] proved to be very useful during the battles in Kannas. They were always ready to open fire, and because of their armoring the tanks were able to operate efficiently under indirect fire and fire from enemy aircrafts."

Supports the statement, presented here before, that the AA tanks did see combat.

[ October 16, 2002, 12:48 PM: Message edited by: Nabla ]

[Nabla]

Bompidou.

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by tero:

Originally posted by Kallimakhos:

Here's a doable suggestion for compromise, which might silence most of the justified gripes: give Finns TRP's say at 90% reduction in summer 1944. This will make Russians attacking Finns a hell, unfair and frustrating close to boring, if the defender knows what he's doing, you moan? Probably so, but realistic and historical.

Any support for this idea?

Throw in the ability to buy them in all types of battles and I think that should be at least an approximation of a workable abstracted solution.

Mind you, I can not see why they should not come at a reduced price all the way from 1941.

I think that this is tantamount to asking for 0berness. Remember the germans have their mythical skills in panzercraft, it would be nice if one tank in each company was made elite regardless of force composition.

Or what about the russian artillery practices? Why don't they get big discounts on heavy arty post-43. And let's not even get started on their deep battle operations, if they're attacking anywhere after 43 they're going to have a massive troop density on the axis of attack, force ratio for russian attackers should be 3:1 and 5:1 in assault (and they would need it to when the finns get free TRP's in any engagements :eek: ).

Seriously though, I think you can see where I'm going, such changes are going to seriously inbalance the game, while the arguments for it are on shaky ground. Realism? Historical accuracy?

No doubt finnish artillery practices were superior to everyone else's and they spent a lot of time on pre-regestring their fires, but that seems to indicate a lot effort (ie points) was expended on them, and that Finish doctrine was mainly defensive in nature (which would make this a bit of an odd feature in non-defensive battles). I also don't think that the Finns won every engagement they fought, which is certainly going to happen if these changes take effect.

[ October 16, 2002, 09:29 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Kallimakhos:

Plus have the social skills to sell this idea. Tero, no disrespect hear, you may very well fill the first two requirements but I believe you yourself are the first one two admit that the history of clashes with Steve shows that your salesmanship skills have room for improvement

What are you talking about? I can't believe that tero isn't the Finnish representative to the UN.

Alright, that was obviously a joke.

What I meant, actually, is that I can't believe that tero isn't the U.S. representative to the UN.

He's everything we look for in a representative to the rest of the world.

tero, you are America to me! You personify all the characteristics that we hold most dear!

Emigrate, tero! Your future lies here! You'll never achieve your real potential in a small, northern nation dodging the odor of rotting fish drifting in from Sweden.

You have the soul of a True American!

I'm sure we can find a family in Texas to sponsor you.

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by Sardaukar:

Response time should be very good and accuracy too. Finnish artillery doctrine and practice was created by Gen. V-P. Nenonen. Some good info is found in:

http://www.winterwar.com/forces/FinArmy/FINartiller.htm

It explains the principles of Finnish artillery, and those are still in use today.

Cheers,

I read and I didn't see the magic formula..?

As far as I can tell the unique finnish system, that had no parralel in the rest of the world, comes down to doing a lot of pre-measuring (almost ad absurdam) and pre-regestering.

[EDIT] Not that I don't think it worked, but we were promised a system that had nothing in common with that used by other nations outside of ballistics itself (I guess this is where I should say: fix it or somefink.. but I don't know at whom ).

[ October 16, 2002, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by Foxbat:

Remember the germans have their mythical skills in panzercraft, it would be nice if one tank in each company was made elite regardless of force composition.

Apples and oranges.

The armour is easy to model as it is pure physics: MV, facehardened steel quality, all the nicely quantifiable and easily accessible mechanical stuff. You can be as good (or as bad) as you want since it is the pure tactical manouvering that decides if the performance of the vehicle is historically feasible (ie. use the Tiger as you would use a Hellcat and see what happens).

With artillery it is totally different. It is all about procedure, working out the solutions and doing the pre-fire mission preparations. All these are outside the players control. The most important factot that decides all is whether the FO unit has a radio or if it uses land line communications.

That does affect adversly the manouverability of the FO unit in the field but that does NOT affect how quick the fire mission arrives or how quick the corrections are processed. Granted the land line is more fargile but by no means were the period radios 100% trouble free.

And the fact that you can triangulate a FO radio in the battle field and target it when the land line equipped FO remains undetected to electronic counter measures is not even modelled in the game. überFinnish FO's have noted that once they went on the air they could expect a hail of (accurate) mortar or arty fire on their position within minutes of their first pushing the tangent.

Or what about the russian artillery practices? Why don't they get big discounts on heavy arty post-43.

The cost of the arty as a weapons system is not the issue here. The issue is how well the different arty practises of the different armies are modelled when the different delays are worked out (since there is still no way to have different types of fire missions, just plain vanilla barrage).

And let's not even get started on their deep battle operations, if they're attacking anywhere after 43 they're going to have a massive troop density on the axis of attack, force ratio for russian attackers should be 3:1 and 5:1 in assault (and they would need it to when the finns get free TRP's in any engagements :eek: ).

Please do a 1000pts Allied assault in the summer of 1944 and see how much more the Soviets get infantry compared to the Germans or the Finns.

Seriously though, I think you can see where I'm going, such changes are going to seriously inbalance the game, while the arguments for it are on shaky ground. Realism? Historical accuracy?

No doubt finnish artillery practices were superior to everyone else's and they spent a lot of time on pre-regestring their fires, but that seems to indicate a lot effort (ie points) was expended on them,

Most of the work was done before the war. The fact most of the battles were conducted in Finnish soil should not be a detrimental factor. It should be a bonus in fact.

Furthermore there are other contributing factors that affect the use of artillery, like:

http://hkkk.fi/~yrjola/war/finland/intel/

Soviet strategic offensive against Finland began June 9th, 1944. Now similar message traffic to the previously mentioned 4-digit code used by Soviet armored units was found in use in the Karelian isthmus. At first there were problems in decrycpting but then it was discovered that the code keys had been changed on June 12th, 24:00 hours. Accordingly the material was split into two and separate decrypting keys (bigram tables) were developed for both segments. Beginning June 15th all the Soviet armored units radio messages could be deciphered without delay and the defender was receiving the Soviet commands at about the same time as the attacking Soviet units.

This enabled the Finnish armed forces to concentrate defences on the right locations. Many of the Soviet ground attacks were halted before they even began with strikes by Finnish Air Force bomber units, German Gefechtsverband Kuhlmey and concentrated Finnish artillery hitting the enemy troop concentrations often just minutes before the attack starting time.

During the fierce summer battles of 1944 radio intelligence was also frequently able to inform Finnish Air Force about the Soviet air units flight- and attack plans, enabling the small air force units to be employed with maximum effect.

and that Finish doctrine was mainly defensive in nature (which would make this a bit of an odd feature in non-defensive battles). I also don't think that the Finns won every engagement they fought, which is certainly going to happen if these changes take effect.

The thing is the Finnish cartography service was so effective they had maps with hex grids and names of places in them to hand out to the troops on average within 48 hours from when the aerial photo was taken.

http://foto.hut.fi/seura/historia/toiminta.html (sorry, a Finnish site)

The Finnish topographical mapping and aerial survey was developed in the 20's and 30's by V.P. Nenonen and his team who were also responsible for developing the Finnish artillery firing system.

http://www.mil.fi/joukot/topk/sotilaskartoitus_historia.html (sorry, yet another Finnish site)

[ October 17, 2002, 02:37 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by Foxbat:

I read and I didn't see the magic formula..?

Try harder

The fire control chart, a fire observation instrument introduced in the 1920s, enabled the quick transfer of fire (i.e. fast switching of targets) ....... The new benefits of the new firing chart was numerous. It made the calculation of firing data quicker being at the same time simple enough to be used efficiently in the battlefield. It also removed the usual "bunch of small errors", that plagued the sine-technique. And if the exact position of the battery was unknown, the chart made it possible to determine it's exact position with a few ranging shots (Note: the battery position, not the target position !!!!) .... The fire control chart was quickly classified, as the fast fire control system was, at the time, ahead of any other system anywhere in the world. ..... The topographical preparations depended on the front. There were quite good "1:20 000" maps available from the Isthmus, and from some parts of the Ladoga Karelia, but in the northern parts of Finland, the only maps were "1:400 000" maps. Still, the stockpiled storage of maps, proved out to be way to small, thanks to the shoestring defense budget before the war. There were efforts to compensate this shortage with different types of maps, like making maps of aerial photographs taken in the summer of 1939. The resulting "ik-maps" (the "ik" is an abbreviation of "ilmakuva" which is "aerial photograph" in Finnish) wasn't liked by the artillery.

ik-maps were available on average within 48 hours from the taking of the picture. It would be reasonable to think they flew recce/photo missions to scout and map out the unknown terrain of Soviet East Karelia the troops were advancing into during the attack phase (even before the hostilities started ).

Also, this implies the Germans were not perhaps given the accurate Finnish maps when they were preparing the failed assault on Murmansk.

Firing methods.....

Take a look at the different target types and areas. The arty shell fall pattern model in CMXX is nowhere near any of them.

Unit of fire

("Tuliannos" in Finnish)

The "unit of fire" is a unit of measurement, which is used both to simplify munitions logistics, restrict munitions consumption and to keep the rate of fire in such limits that it won't wear down the barrel too much. So the Finnish "Tuliannos" could also be translated as "required supply rate".

(All weapons, artillery pieces, small arms etc., have a set "unit of fire")

In Finnish artillery, the "unit of fire" was set according to the caliber. These were as follows:

75 mm - 76 mm 100 shells/gun

105 mm - 122 mm 60 shells/gun

152 mm - 155 mm 40 shells/gun

In CMBB you do not get the 400 75-76mm shells for a battery. Let alone the required amount of shells for the entire battalion.

And to make matters worse, the troops in many places ran out of cables, forcing to use iron wire, which wasn't nearly as good as cable had been.

And they say the Americans were the masters of improvisation.

As far as I can tell the unique finnish system, that had no parralel in the rest of the world, comes down to doing a lot of pre-measuring (almost ad absurdam) and pre-regestering.

But that is the key !!! It is not enough to know your enemy. If you have your topographical data down you can use the full spectrum and the full potential of your arsenal to outfight the enemy.

[EDIT] Not that I don't think it worked, but we were promised a system that had nothing in common with that used by other nations outside of ballistics itself (I guess this is where I should say: fix it or somefink.. but I don't know at whom ).

Who said "nothing in common". You were promised a list of differences.

The problem is that since most of the procedures are still semi-classified (they are still taught in the army as a back up for the high-tech systems) there is really no concise data on them, let alone in English.

The Winter War site does not mention for example the special camera developed by Gen. Nenonen. I have been trying to hunt down the data on it on the net but it is elusive. The camera took two pictures simultaneously, one down and one from the horizon. It also printed the flight altitude so the horizon could be matched with other photos so the terrain elevations could be mapped out accurately enough without having to do a full ground triangulation survey.

Nor is there anything about keeping record of barrel wear on each and every gun so the firing solutions could be altered accordingly.

[ham]

In CMBB you do not get the 400 75-76mm shells for a battery. Let alone the required amount of shells for the entire battalion.

It's not a question of how many tuliannos the battery has, its the question how much of its fire is given to the certain FO. I was trained as FO and the times I acted as the Company Chief of Fire (Tjpääl) normally a company was given 0,3-0,6 tuliannos / artillery unit on defence which was then split even more (between the fo's in the platoons and my personal reserve) and given to the individual FOs, a bit more on the attack.

So if the FO's in CMBB represent just single FO, the amount of fire they posses seems about right from my perspective (of course one FO could posses fire of several arty units). Yes, my experience is from today's practises but some things haven't changed a lot in the finnish artillery. The 'basic' stuff is still taught in case the more advanced means fail. Hell, we even still used the stereo rangefinders (yes we had lasers too but the optical is better in some situations) which had the german eagle and swastikas still in place =)

FoxBat wrote

[EDIT] Not that I don't think it worked, but we were promised a system that had nothing in common with that used by other nations outside of ballistics itself (I guess this is where I should say: fix it or somefink.. but I don't know at whom ).

Well the article didn't really tell a lot about the artillery doctrine and especially not about the details. Don't know if the details differ much from the other nation's practises (no knowledge about those) apart from Russian arty practise. And those two atleast do differ a lot.

[ October 17, 2002, 05:05 AM: Message edited by: ham ]

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by tero:

The Finnish arty doctrine was quite unique.

You can NOT apply your knowledge of German, Soviet, British and American arty doctrine to the Finnish arty.

Im sorry, I dont buy the "uber Finn" thing. And asking to be able to get KV 2s etc just because there were 1 or 2 tanks like this captured.. I dont know.

Anyway, it's not me u have to convince, but rather BTS, good luck, I think ur gonna need it!

[Fishu]

Panzer,

By that logic finns wouldn't have much anything

In WWII finns had bit of this and that.

Very versatile war machine collection of many nationalities.

Especially the air force had wide variety of plane types in use.

It needs couple pages to just list all the plane types used in WWII with very brief description.

[Ari Maenpaa]

Winterwar.com writes about the artillery practices of the Winter war era (1939 – ‘40) only, but I think that the korjausmuunnin, officially intruduced in July of 1943, was the most significant single innovation used by the Finnish artillery during WWII.

That was the tool which really gave the Finns the ability to concentrate the fire of all guns in range to a single target point, and make it quickly. The summer of ’44 showed the real potential of the new method. Even the Finnish infantrymen noticed the new power of own artillery and have mentioned it in many interviews and memoirs. Korjausmuunnin was invented by a Finnish artillery method teacher Unto Petäjä, and it was kept secret until the end of war even from the Germans.

As in game terms korjausmuunnin would mean shorter delays for the Finnish artillery from July 43 on, I guess. But how much shorter I don’t have a clue. Basically I only know that many sources in the Finnish war literature refer to the korjausmuunnin with terms like “revolutionary” and “breakthrough”.

Ari

[Prinz Eugen]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

Emigrate, tero! Your future lies here! You'll never achieve your real potential in a small, northern nation dodging the odor of rotting fish drifting in from Sweden.

Don't believe his lies ! Don't ever trust a sly American !

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by Fishu:

Panzer,

By that logic finns wouldn't have much anything

Hehe, true But, still, when u guys have only 1!! Come on!

[Geier]

I am so incredibly un-amazed that two weeks after the release of CM:BB, tero is running a "The Finns are not good enough" thread.

[Ligur]

Which I'm contributing in now.

SHORTER ARTY DELAY.

MORE STUG MG.

MORE üBER.

FIX0R.

[Tero]

Originally posted by ham:

It's not a question of how many tuliannos the battery has, its the question how much of its fire is given to the certain FO.

True.

I was trained as FO

Then you should know better than me. I was only a lowly comms NCO in coastal arty.

and the times I acted as the Company Chief of Fire (Tjpääl) normally a company was given 0,3-0,6 tuliannos / artillery unit on defence which was then split even more (between the fo's in the platoons and my personal reserve) and given to the individual FOs, a bit more on the attack.

So if the FO's in CMBB represent just single FO, the amount of fire they posses seems about right from my perspective (of course one FO could posses fire of several arty units).

The key issues are:

Is it assumed the FO is directing just 2 guns (jaos/section), one full battery (4 guns) or the entire battalion (or more) ?

How much should a FO have in a 20 min as opposed to a 60+min CMBB QB game.

The map size. How long would it actually take in a typical QB map (say a 1 x 2 km map) to replot and execute a barrage from one side of the map to another. Or to shift it just a few hundred meters.

I think it is a bit excessive to get a 1 minute delay on a TRP and then when you replot some distance from that to shift the fire a turn or two later you incur a 6min delay (happened to me last night in a 1944 Allied assault QB). The 6min delay alone made me squirm. Yes, the books say in a good day a fast replot and gambit would be around that. I do wonder how on earth a FO with a radio gets it done in 1/6th (or less) of the time.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Panzer76:

Im sorry, I dont buy the "uber Finn" thing.

What überFinn thing ? I have never stated the Finns were superior just because. I have always maintained there are differences in training, tactics and doctrine of different armies.

If the Finnish army of WWII was dropped in the middle of the Western Desert or the steppes of Southern Russia to fight the Germans, the British or the Soviets all their training, tactics and doctrine would have been totally out of place. Unfortunately that is not how it happened.

Just because your Anglo-American histories claim yours were the best, the brightest, the quickest, the meanest and the most resourceful and all round Best. Or the Germans were but they were evil and destined to fall. That does not take away the historical facts in the Finnish books pertaining these matters.

I find it more than a bit odd people feel offended if somebody claims there were differences between the armies which have very little or nothing to do with the tech-spec of the hardware.

You take for granted the performance of the German panzers had perhaps more to do with the tactics than the actual tech spec of the vehicles. How could it not be that there were differences in the performance of the different artillery arms despite the tech-spec of the guns used were all close to each other (MV, range etc). In CMBO the Americans got the VT fuse (tech-spec) but the rest do not get airbursts eventhough it is totally doable with regular fuses. Is that bias ?

And asking to be able to get KV 2s etc just because there were 1 or 2 tanks like this captured.. I dont know.

There were only 144 tanks in the arsenal. Most of them were T-26's. The two KV-I's make out almost 30% of the entire invetory of heavies in the Finnish army. What kind of a percentage did the Jagdtiger (or better yet the Maus) make of the German inventory ?

[Tero]

Originally posted by Prinz Eugen:

Originally posted by Seanachai:

Emigrate, tero! Your future lies here! You'll never achieve your real potential in a small, northern nation dodging the odor of rotting fish drifting in from Sweden.

Don't believe his lies ! Don't ever trust a sly American !

Well, at least he did not wish me to move to the Washington area.

[Bruno Weiss]

tero wrote:

That does not take away the historical facts in the Finnish books pertaining these matters.

Okay, now lemme get this straight. Finnish books are always right, Western books (is Finland near China), are always wrong.

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by tero:

Just because your Anglo-American histories claim yours were the best, the brightest, the quickest, the meanest and the most resourceful and all round Best. Or the Germans were but they were evil and destined to fall. That does not take away the historical facts in the Finnish books pertaining these matters.

You grasp of the english language seems quite good, but the situation you portray of Anglo-American histories glorifying themselves just doesn't exist. And you also seem to imply that the Finns were "the best, the brightest, the quickest, the meanest and the most resourceful and all round Best" even if this is denied by Anglo-American Propaganda... I think you're taking this a bit to far.