Nabla

Ok, lets continue the discussion here. If you want to read the messages in the original thread, you can find them behind this link.

Shouldn't it be the other way round?</font>

Shouldn't it be the other way round?

I haven't received my copy of the final game yet (damn the postal service), so unfortunately I've got the time to type. Seriously, I am quite happy to dig up different types of information regarding Finnish troops, but at this time I will do so if the questions are relevant for the next possible patch. That is, if the hypotheses are well focused, limited, and might actually be changed in the game. Like whether the FOs had radios or not, and whether PzIVs were used or not.

Yep, there sure are a lot of details, even for a small country, let alone for the whole front (i.e., the guys at BTS). We found out that the first Stugs were delivered 29.8.1943, but at that time I really didn't pay enough attention to when they saw action for the very first time. According to Kantakoski they were indeed used for the first time (at least in a large scale) in June 1944, which is the date Steve has successfully dug out. I'll provide you with some further details on Monday, if you have the patience. </font>

Here's more info for you, translated by yours truly. Paulaharju, Sinerma, Koskimaa: The History of Finnish Field Artillery (Suomen Kenttätykistön Historia), vol. 2 Communications Equipment One of the fundamental prerequisites of efficient field artillery is adequate communications equipment and corresponding channels of communication. During the Winter War, the signal equipment and channels of communications were almost completely based on telephone connections. There were very few radios, on the average 2-3 radios for each battery. When the [Winter] war started, the field army had altogether 165 C-radios and 50 D-radios. The latter were mostly in the use of artillery. Even from this set of radios, some were old and not fit for field duty. During the battles, connections were broken, which caused many serious situations, and the connection between fire observer and the firing position was often non-existent. Far too often the artillery had to resort to relatively inefficient map firing [kartta-ammunta]. At the beginning of The Continuation War, communications equipment was still many-colored, and partially of poor quality. In spite of this, the artillery units were able to obtain a relatively good amount of wire communication equipment, such as phones and 10-wire field centrals. However, there was a shortage of proper field cable; the whole field army had only 78% of estimated overall need. At the beginning of [Continuation] war, the radio equipment of the field artillery consisted almost entirely of a batch of 100 D-radios (P-12-14) bought from Germany during the truce. There was a screaming shortage of radio equipment. The Finnish D-radio (P-12-15) had just entered production and experiences from the first equipment was partially negative. The problems seemed to be mostly related to their susceptibility to noise, and inadequate tolerance of water. Radio shortage was alleviated by handing over to the artillery half of the C-radios originally designated for infantry. By fall 1942, two Finnish radio factories were able to produce a sufficient amount of D-radios, so that the worst shortage was resolved. According to the TO&E of a field artillery regiment, accepted during the truce, each signal section of the battery had one radio, each fire control unit of a battery had two radios, and each fire position unit had one radio. In fall 1942, each field artillery battery had on the average 7 D-radios and 6 short-wave radios (P-12-12-U). Based on the experiences obtained during battle action, the commanders of artillery units hoped for more C-radios, which guaranteed better the connections to rear units and neighboring units. The short-wave radios were not considered as reliable, because of their limitations with respect to the terrain. In 1942 the shortage of C-radios in artillery was estimated to be 85 radios. Among the coveted models of fire observer radios were German Telefunken D-radios, and the Hungarian radios were also considered to be acceptable. Radios obtained from the Soviets were also used, although their technical quality was not satisfactory. During the attack phase in summer 1941 most of the communication channels of the field artillery consisted of wire connections, which were built along with the advance. This was the only way to take care of communication needs, and it required occasionally a lot of patrols for fixing the lines. The signal section of a battery had 14 phones and 55 kms of field cable, the fire control units of the batteries had 5 phones and 10kms of field cable. There was a continuous shortage of field cable, and the Finnish industry produced as much cable as was possible whenever sufficient amounts of raw material were obtained from abroad. During the trench war many of the phone lines behind the front were converted to clear line connections [kirkasjohtoyhteys], which relieved the shortage of field line. In summer 1944, the weaknesses of the line connections were emphasized. Artillery fire cut many lines, and during the retreat phase a lot of field cable was left behind because there was not enough time to take the built communication lines apart. At the same time, over 100 D-radios were lost to the enemy, although not all of those belonged to the artillery. The efficient use of field artillery requires reliable communication lines with a sufficient range. During The Continuation War, the technically high firing efficiency of the Finnish artillery could not be fully utilized due to the lack of needed communications equipment. [ October 21, 2002, 05:50 AM: Message edited by: Nabla ]

Yep, there sure are a lot of details, even for a small country, let alone for the whole front (i.e., the guys at BTS). We found out that the first Stugs were delivered 29.8.1943, but at that time I really didn't pay enough attention to when they saw action for the very first time. According to Kantakoski they were indeed used for the first time (at least in a large scale) in June 1944, which is the date Steve has successfully dug out. I'll provide you with some further details on Monday, if you have the patience. EDIT: An interesting thread, BTW. [ October 19, 2002, 09:47 AM: Message edited by: Nabla ]

It seems that's the number of 81/82mm mortars in standard TOE. On top of that you get heavy 120mm mortars (3/regiment AFAIK). If you look at page 28 of the same document, you can see that the total number of 81mm mortars in full strength was something like 800. If you divide those among 18 divisions (16 inf. div. + others), you get 45 mortars per division. Not sure how the rest were distributed. (The document is currently on the light side as far as arty is concerned, but I'm sure someone will provide this detail here in no time.)

Interesting. Perhaps you should start a new thread on this or something. I'm afraid this thread might miss the target audience (I'm afraid it will soon miss any audience.)

Bompidou.

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 ]

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).

I'm positive that none of the Panzer IVs saw any combat. They arrived too late to fight the Red Army, and they were not used in Lapland against the Germans. I'll nip down to library this afternoon and see if I can dig up some references. </font>

Yes, but only if you can do it very well.

Salute! [ October 14, 2002, 06:10 AM: Message edited by: Nabla ]

Must remind the guys at BTS to include a live audience feature in the new engine.

We're watching...

Sounds like a very good idea indeed.

Excellent work, guys! Wouldn't mind to see another one if someone has the time and energy.

Nice! I like the "Signpost in Belorussia" best.

I've added this on my list of things to do when updating the TO&E. I'm pretty damn busy for the next week, but I'll try to start working on updates after that. Thanks for the offer, but I'm pretty close to the sources, so I don't think you need to bother.

One shameless bump for our friends on the other side of the big water.

Eh, perhaps I should have emphasized the "fairly easily"-part... So no, no data on that important issue. That's true, and we all know that armor is pretty sexy in this forum too. So although I'm sure that the TO&E of the Finnish armored forces is standard stuff to you, I think it may have some appeal to the non-Finnish non-historians.

Thanks. All the TB tournaments are using the scoring system now, but I myself am especially fond of the idea of non-balanced scenarios too. I hope that others will run tournaments with some really nasty unbalanced scenarios, but if they don't, I will.