Tero

>Ski troops, yes. Does it snow all year in >Finland? No. Most of the time anyway. There was a short hail storm last Friday and we are at the end of May for crying out loud. The ski troops were not used in such an extent people like to believe. The "main" battle was fought in WWI style meat grinder in the Karelian Isthmus where the ski troops could not operate as freely as they could further up North. >There has to at least some semblance of >summer in which the Russians would have the >run the place, especially in 44 and later. Except the Soviet 1944 assault got blunted. The cease fire was signed with the Finnish army relatively intact. With over 400 000 men in arms and armed with pretty much the same weapons the Red Army was using but armed also with the latest German Pzfausts and Pzschrecks, VERY accurate artillery, fighting in familiar wooded terrain the Red Army would have had to get really serious if they would have wanted to subdue us Finns utterly and completely. That would have meant they would have had to have diverted more men and materiel from the fight against the Germans. They could have of course come back after Berlin was taken but by then the risk of the Western Allies intervening in favour of the Finns was too great so they opted to agree to a conditional cease fire, not unconditional surrender. >Guerilla resistance would surely last a >while, but it would not stop the Russians >any more effectively than the Germans >stopped them from taking Berlin. I disagree. Look what happened later on in Afganistan and Chechenia. In 1944/45 the Soviet leaders had to take into account the expenses and the possibility of diverting badly needed resources to fight over an obscure piece or real estate which was occupied by a people willing to fight to the death. Their aspirations had been blunted already once in 1940. Finns had demonstrated their willingness and ability to fight eventhough outnumbered. Stalin did not toast many armies, he did toast the Finnish army. By 1970's the Soviet and the Russian leaders had forgotten the lessons of Winter War and they payed dearly for that.

>If the Soviets decided to "invade" Finland >in '44, they would have succeeded hands >down. Except they did decide to invade/attack/occupy in 1944 and they did not get a hands down victory. >The Soviet Army of '44 was a different >animal when compared to the Army of the late >30's and early 40's. Lessons were learned, >equipment improved, veterans were formed and >the troop morale was quite high. Quite true. But the Finnish equipment was also improved in the mean time so the match up was more equal in 1944 than it was in 1939. The initial 1939 assault had more chances in succeeding than the 1944 assault, relatively speaking. The disparity in arms and munitions was far greater in 1939 than it was in 1944. >Unbalancing things by giving one side >or the other extra points would just >complicate things. Agreed. I think the challenge is to make a viable model that allows alternate tactics to be used rather than gimmicks or unrealistic point value or other distortions.

>Not quite true, Lala. I think he meant occupy. >Soviet began their offensive against Finland >on 9 June 1944, taking Vyborg. On 19 >September 1944 Finland officially >surrendered to the Soviet Union. But it was not an unconditional surrender.

You are being too generous >USSR: 84 994 KIA+POW, 186 584 wounded, >51 892 sick and 9 614 frozen to death. From www.winterwar.com "The table below is provided by Valeriy Potapov and is based on the book mentioned below. The below data gives a total death count of 126 875.The Krivoshees's study came up with the figure of 264 908 wounded (not including the cases of sickness), thus giving the total number 391 783 Soviet casualties." [ 05-28-2001: Message edited by: tero ]

>The fact that Britian declared war on >Finland in 1941 and the U.S. severed >diplomatic ties Sorry to tell you this but the US severed diplomatic relations only in mid-1944 to speed up our willingness to accept the peace terms offered to us then. From 1941 to mid 1944 the diplomatic relations between Finland and the US were normal. >with the Finns did have an indirect impact >on the war in the far North. Not indirect but direct impact. >Finland was very concious to of this and >decided not to attempt cutting the Murmansk >rail line in Russian territory, which was >bringing vital lend lease equipment to >Russia. Instead they said the Germans >could try it alone if they wish. The >Germans only succeeded in doing so >intermittently through ski patrols equipped >with demolitions. What is your source ? The patrols which cut the rail line were most definitely Finnish LRRP's. I have not heard of any German LRRP's doing it but that does not mean they did not do it. What you said applies to the rail line being cut permanently.

>Originally posted by Skipper: >As I've read someplace, "Big powerful Soviet >Union won the war; small, proud Finland took >the honourable second place". This joke was >attributed to finns, though. That happened twice. In 1940 and again in 1944. Mind you, in the Finnish language version the wording refers to an athletic event. The USSR came in first, the little brave Finland finished second. >Another tidbit. According to Churchill, in >1941 Britain threatened to declare war on >Finland if finns go further than 1918 >border. Just wonder how big this factor >was? Not really a tidbit. Britain DID deglare war on us in 1941. Look it up.

This feature would help greatly in setting up defensive positions. Could it be done as a LOS radius calculation from a single point feature of the map ? You would position your asset and then ask the game engine to show LOS up to X meters radius over a 360º arc. In essence it would give you what you would see with the mouse action as a single automated sweep.