The Winter War

[Fubarno]

Will the USSR 1939 invasion of Finland be part of the SC2 campaign? This might give a Soviet player something to do in a multi-player game while waiting for Germany to invade, or for the moment when a pre-emptive strike on Germany is available ot Russia? What gives HC, or any one else in the know?

The Soviet invasion took place in Nov of '39 and involved nearly 2 million men with lots of tanks artillery and air assets.

Facing them in defence were 133,000 highly motivated Finns.

I imagine that whatever penalties the Germans will suffer in their first winter in Russia would be suffered by the Russians in their attack on the Finns. It was a David vs: Goliath disaster for Stalin's armies. But, did the Russians learn some very important lessons that would later be put to great use?

It is reported that Finnland is where the Russians gained the knowledge and experience of fighting in the cold that was put to great use in defending their homeland against the Hunn in that 1st 1941/42 winter in which they drove the invaders back from Moscow.

Maybe the game could reflect that if the Russians don't attack the Finn's, they don't get as much of an advantage in their first winter against Germany. But, the Finn's must get some great entrenchment advantages as well as whatever Hubert has planned for winter effects in order for the Finn's to be able to hold off and destroy large sections of the Soviet invaders.

Of course a lucky and ingenious attack by the Russians might be able to annex Finnland for Communist indoctrination before it has a chance to later enter the war in support of Germany. There would be Finnish partisans for Germany to use. :cool:

Thoughts?

[With Clusters]

If I recall, A3R allowed Russia to declare war on Finnland in 39 and Rommania too, but generally just to occuppy the disputed border area (Bessarabia - sp? - in the case of Rommania). The slices of territory available for conquest had some slight monetary value to encourage the Russians to follow through with history. The Axis player could choose not to resist, and forfiet the border territory w/o a fight (at least in game terms of deploying 'army' counters, etc.), and generally did so, as units lost before the Axis minors joined with Germany were permanently lost to the minor allied country's force pool. I think most players wanted to save them for later. My memory is really foggy on this point, but I also think if the Axis player chose to have the minor fully resist the Russians, the Russian player could try to occuppy the whole country? That might be a false memory. I also remember that how the Russians dealt with Finnland, Bessarabia, the Baltic States, etc., had some effect on German/Soviet relations, and when the Russians could enter the war on their own, but have forgotton the details.

Could anyone with a fuller memory of A3R suggest how these sorts of actions could be incorporated into SC2?

[pzgndr]

Desert Dave and I are both former A3R players with a keen interest in seeing things like the Finnish border war and occupation of Bessarabia included in SC2 somehow. Perhaps a scripted event like Russia occupying the Baltic States will work, with some randomness involved and appropriate political reactions (ie, war readiness adjustments). That would keep games interesting for replayability.

The problem is that inactive majors will be restricted in doing things like declaring war on other neutrals. In A3R you could try Russia attacking Turkey or Italy attacking Greece while still neutral. That would be nice to have in SC2 but not likely to happen based on how the game is set up. So we need some other way of abstracting these historical or ahistorical events.

The good news is that inactive majors should be free to build units, deploy their forces, maybe invest in research, and stuff like that which allows you to "customize" what is currently a default setup in SC1. If we get events for things like Winter War to work, players would of course be free to edit those events to make them more random or less random depending on how historically accurate they want to be. So together these various options would result in quite a bit of variation from game to game, with USSR alone having several different setups possible. :cool:

[Edwin P.]

Excellent Topic,

Another idea would be to allow a Neutral Russia to use its diplomatic muscle (ie diplomatic chit) to allow its navy to sail through the Turkish Straits to the Med or it may invite the UK fleet to visit the Black Sea (although the UK player may find that the Turks don't allow them to return to the Med if the Axis expend a diplomatic chit on Turkey to keep the UK fleet bottled up).

And if Neutral Russia attacked Neutral Romania or Iraq or Iran, perhaps the Turkish Alliance % would increase enough so that a diplomatic chit or two might bring them over to the Axis side.

As for attacking Finland, perhaps this would cause Sweden to join the Axis, reduce USA war readiness and activate Finnish Partisans?

Will there be any limits on the Russian setup? I ask this because a Russian player to avoid the encirclement of his forces on the German border might be tempted to locate all of his troops 200 miles back from the Russian/German border.

[ June 02, 2004, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[ev]

Originally posted by Fubarno:

...

Maybe the game could reflect that if the Russians don't attack the Finn's, they don't get as much of an advantage in their first winter against Germany. But, the Finn's must get some great entrenchment advantages as well as whatever Hubert has planned for winter effects in order for the Finn's to be able to hold off and destroy large sections of the Soviet invaders.

...

Thoughts?

I have some thoughts regarding winter in general ...not so much regarding The Winter War.

Winter equipment was curcial in Europe, vital in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. And winter equipment implied some real expenditures. One million coats are a lot of coats even if they are only coats. I would suggest the following model for management of "Winter Equipment".

There should be an MPP cost related to Winter Equipment. It should be a small cost, say 1MPP per Infantry Core and Air Fleet, 2 MPP's for Infantry Armies and Tank Groups. This is cost should be a once a year cost incurred some time in the fall or early winter.

Once a unit is duly equipped for winter (winterized?) say in November, the unit remains "winterized through that winter. So the cost mentioned above is spent once every year.

A player may have the option to winterize some or all of his units. Units with winter equipment should show winter camouflage in their icons. Some check box in the information window for each unit should also show whether the unit has winter equipment.

In order for a player to distribute winter equipment to a unit, the unit most have a minimum supply level of say 7. Remember, Germany's failure to provide winter equipment in 41-42 was due mainly to distrbution problems. During the winter, the distribution problem grew worse since it became increasingly harder to supply the units in the front.

...as a mater of fact, winter in Russia should reduce the supply range of HQ's.

A player may chose to spend MPP's winterizing units in Russia but not units in North Africa. A player may click each individual unit and decide one by one whether it wants to winterize that unit (if it is really short on MPP's it may chose to attend some firts and leave others for a later turn. However, clicking each individual unit may be cumbersome. As a short cut, a Winter Screen may allow a player to winterize all units of a given kind in a given country. For example, the German Player could winterize all air units in France, and all Infantry Armies in Russia, but nothing else. Of course, units that don't meet the minimum supply levels would be skipped. If supply is restored in a later turn, then the player could winterize those remaining units in a subsequent turn.

Units without adequate winter equipment should suffer lower combat readiness and movement capability (AP's). The penalties should be even greater in Russia and Finland. In the coldest areas, perhaps there should be some random risk of actual loss from cold for units without proper winter equipment even if the unit is not attacked.

Units without adequate winter equipment but occupying a city tile should have some partial relief from the winter handicap to account for the shelter provided by the city.

Perhapps HQ's could also be "winterized". Winter should reduce the supply range of HQ's. In Europe Winter may reduce supply range by one tile or AP, while in Russia and Finland the reduction should be steeper (say a reduction of 2 tiles or AP's). But winterized HQ's would suffer a lower supply range reduction (say no reduction in Central Europe but 1 tile reduction in Russia and Finland).

Back to Finland. Finish troops should always be winterized at no cost to Finland or Germany. This would be a one single exception to the rule above. Russian troops should not be allowed to winterize prior to 1941 so that if Russia attacks Finland they would have to face an enemy that is much better prepared for winter war.

Comments?

[Edwin P.]

EV, I like your idea on winterizing but I would simplify it a bit more.

Option 1:

Winter Fighting Tech, maximum levels 2. 150MPP per chit.

Nations with Winter Fighting Tech get a 10% readiness bonus per level during the winter months in Russia and Finland. (max 20% bonus)

Back to Finland. Finish troops should always be winterized at no cost

Finish units have Winter Fighting Tech Level 2 (20% readiness bonus during winter months).

All other nations units start with Winter Fighting Tech Level 0. This can be changed in the editor.

Option 2:

Allow each nation to purchase Winter Fighting Tech Level 1 for all units for a one time cost of 200MPP or as you suggest for 100MPP each year.

My Opinion,

I prefer Option #1 as HC can use the existing game system for tech advances. The randomness of it reflects that fact that national leaders may or may not be able to convince their bureaucrats and purchasing officers of the importance of preparing for a winter war.

Reminds me the case where the US army purchased supplies for the Iraqi police force, the vendor obtained the items and had it waiting at his warehouse; however, because the paperwork was not filled out properly some officer in the Pentagon had the shipment halted and requested that the whole job be rebid following proper rules and regulations. The shipment of these needed supplies was delayed by months - True Story reported in the Wall Street Journal.

[ June 02, 2004, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[pzgndr]

Will there be any limits on the Russian setup? I ask this because a Russian player to avoid the encirclement of his forces on the German border might be tempted to locate all of his troops 200 miles back from the Russian/German border.

My initial thoughts are to have some sort of Polish border garrison requirement for both Germany and USSR. If USSR wants to pull back, then it can't very well be preparing for war, hence its war readiness should not be increasing, yes? This should create an overall negative effect for the Allies if UK is forced to bear the brunt of Axis aggression all alone well into 1942. To avoid this "penalty" the Russian player would have some positive incentive to forward deploy his forces and just be prepared to take heavy initial losses. Take one on the chin for the team, right?

This could create a very interesting border situation, assuming both German and Russian border forces affect USSR war readiness and neither side knows what the other is doing with FOW on. Anyway, a garrison requirement may be the way to go and allow players to make strategic decisions, especially if the border changes with random events as discussed above. Otherwise there probably needs to be some way to "lock in" some forward deployed units to at least create a semi-historical Barbarossa, but that "solution" to the problem infringes on a player's decisions. I believe there should be choices available, with pros and cons associated with every strategy decision.

Like I alluded to previously, we should see quite a bit of variation from game to game in SC2!

[SeaMonkey]

An easy fix to countries abandoning their forward deployments is to connect an inherent MPP value to each tile for the owning player. Think about this in a real sense. A 50 mile square area of earth represents 2500 square miles, surely there is a value(economic)in that vast amount of area. Now maybe not everywhere on the map, the Sahara is not worth much unless your into glass making.

[Raven25]

Just a little history lesson about the Winter War.

Russia wanted to Annex Finland along with the Baltic States (Finland shared a border with Norway -- which should be shown on the map, and this would be extremely useful for Russia if it could liberate Norway and get a major link to Britain and all the supplies it could spare). Russia staged two incidents in an attempt to justify an invasion of Finland (as they had refused to be annexed). The first was when the Russians used artillery on their own towns and blamed it on the Finns (this was disproved because Finnish Artillery, what little there was, couldn't reach that far even from the edge of the borders). The second attempt was an assisantion of a Russian political figure, which enough people accepted as truth (even though a Russian pistol was used for the assisnation), and an invasion began. Russia dispatched four armies, thinking that Finland's inexperienced troops and poor equipment (Finland had not been geared for war since its last civil war, and all veterans of that war were too old to fight in '39). The end outcome of the war was this: A cease fire was declared due to the heavy casualties being inflicted on the Russians. Russia had penetrated accross the Finnish isthmus and parts of Finland's former eastern border. Finland lost some land, but was willing to let it go for the fighting to stop (there was no way they could win).

KEY: How was Finland able to inflict so many casualties even though they had so few troops and so little equipment? Three things: The Finns were well fed, the Finns were motivated, and the Finns could mobilize their army on skis easily. The Russian forces were limited mostly to roads, as they nor their armor could penetrate the dense forests of pine easily. The Finns weren't weighed down by artillery, and their soldiers could just ski right through forests. The Finns had very high mobility, and were also very keen to demolish bridges. Finnish citizens were on high alert for sabateurs.

SC2 should definitely show this somehow. Perhaps give Finns movement bonuses, and stronger infantry.

[Fubarno]

Excellent ideas ev and Edwin P regarding the effects of 'General Winter'.

The winter weather in Russia, as well as the fall rains and spring thaw which muddied everyting up and made movement so slow going, will be a welcome addition to the Russian front. As of yet I don't believe it has been reveiled how these conditions will effect play. I have a feeling that HC has something ingenious planned.

pzgndr - glad to hear that the events that transpired in Russia/Finnland in 1939 have been considered for gameplay as they hold interest for many gamers. I look forward to seeing how it is handled.

I'm also glad to here that the non active major countries will have the options you mentioned in preperation for war.

Can you divulge anything about how the winter weather will effect gameplay?

Also, I haven't heard anything about mud, other than it is in the game, which was also a crucial weather effect that the invading Germans were unprepared to face and the Russians were counting on to slow the invasion drive on their capitol.

Man, writing about this stuff makes me even more excited for the game. It's so much more important now for the Germans to consider what time of year they will invade Russia (hour glasses may prove important after-all ), which adds more tension and strategy to the game.

Then, the Russians will be delaying the blitzkreig as well as possible in the knowledge that the rains and the snows are coming and this will give them an advantage/ slow the advancing Germans. They didn't call it General Winter for nothing; it was a serious advantage that the Russians were depending on. Great stuff!

[ June 02, 2004, 06:32 PM: Message edited by: Fubarno ]

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

For all the of the forum members that have been here long enough to know me well:

I am watching this thread, I am biding my time

CvM

[Fubarno]

Hey CVM, I discuss this topic knowing full well that this is an issue near and dear to your heart. I'm hoping that you have got your beta tester version and have already experienced some of these enhancements to SC2. You won the beta test opportunity in an AAR contest, right? I noticed in one of the screenshots what looks to be a Finnish HQ. Could it be Carl Von Mannerheim?

I'm looking forward to you getting Mr. Cater's permission to post some beta AAr's for us that aren't so lucky. Cheers!

[ June 03, 2004, 12:27 AM: Message edited by: Fubarno ]

[jon_j_rambo]

When it comes to Finland & Russia, CvM & Kuniworth are the historical concerned. I hope SC2 falls into the realm these guys want.

[ham]

If you would like to learn more about Winter War, here is a good site to begin, Winter War dot com.

Quite a lot of information about battles, tactics, weapons, forces and so forth. Definatetly worth a visit.

[fischkopf]

Thanks for link Ham, that's a fascinating read.

[Retributar]

This situation briefing is another classic example of where an Operational-Game will find it difficult to do a Situation-Scenario such as the Winter-War much justice!.

Gather your facts and figures...and be prepared to make a separate Scenario with the Editor... .

[Red Fleet]

Winter War

I agree to many of the things concerning the Winter war. One topic was not touched so far. The German support for the Finnish forces. The Reich supplied Finland with concrete obstacles against the invading Russian tanks and "experts" for training the army.

May be the Germans should have the option to activly support the Finns. This would influence the Soviet war readiness against Germany of course..

Winter Equipment

I would love some way of winter equipment costs. But may be only in the first winter in the war?? Because many German soldiers froze to death in the first winter (because the High Command was sure that the Soviet Union would surrender before the winter). This would also simplify the gameplay.

Germany should have the chance to buy winter equipment for their adequately supplied units at a cost for each unit (may be 10 mpp for corps, HQs and airfleets, 20 mpp for armies and tank divisions).

The Soviets were prepared for the winter war. They had enough centuries to adapt to it anyway. Just think about the Napoleonic invasion in 1812.

Waiting for comments.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Its micromanagement at a scale that SC doesn't cover to be concerned with purchasing winter equipment for units. Having to purchase equipment isn't neeeded.

Whats needed, is a "event" in SC2 that would have a negative effect on units in a specific weather zone. To allow for 20/20 hindsight, the probablity of the event occuring should not be 100%.

Then, all German units within Russia, during thier first winter, could take a reduction in readiness, strength points, whatever the designer feels is appropriate.

[Raven25]

Concerning the Germans:

Germany didn't aid Finland until after the cease fire.

[ev]

Originally posted by Red Fleet:

Winter War

I agree to many of the things concerning the Winter war. One topic was not touched so far. The German support for the Finnish forces. The Reich supplied Finland with concrete obstacles against the invading Russian tanks and "experts" for training the army.

May be the Germans should have the option to activly support the Finns. This would influence the Soviet war readiness against Germany of course..

Winter Equipment

I would love some way of winter equipment costs. But may be only in the first winter in the war?? Because many German soldiers froze to death in the first winter (because the High Command was sure that the Soviet Union would surrender before the winter). This would also simplify the gameplay.

Germany should have the chance to buy winter equipment for their adequately supplied units at a cost for each unit (may be 10 mpp for corps, HQs and airfleets, 20 mpp for armies and tank divisions).

The Soviets were prepared for the winter war. They had enough centuries to adapt to it anyway. Just think about the Napoleonic invasion in 1812.

Waiting for comments.

Jost an idea: Perhapps Major Powers should be able to transfer technology to Minor Powers. In this instance, say German's transfer anti-tank (Infantry Weapons) tech to the Finns...

[With Clusters]

Originally posted by Raven25:

Concerning the Germans:

Germany didn't aid Finland until after the cease fire.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I would be very suprised to learn that the Germans aided the Finns in the Winter War, seeing as how the Germans and Russians were happily splitting Poland between them at that time. I also recall that some in the UK were actually debating aiding the Finns against the Russians (who, in their opinion, were no better than German allies, what with the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and the affore mentioned gobbling up of Poland). How about that for a 'what if'? The UK gets itself involved in a war against Germany and Russia at the same time (that potential scenario is exactly why the Brits decided to let it go, I believe)! But let's save that for a nother thread, perhaps, eh?

[ev]

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

An easy fix to countries abandoning their forward deployments is to connect an inherent MPP value to each tile for the owning player. Think about this in a real sense. A 50 mile square area of earth represents 2500 square miles, surely there is a value(economic)in that vast amount of area. Now maybe not everywhere on the map, the Sahara is not worth much unless your into glass making.

...very interesting idea. I like it. Of course the production value of countryside tiles should have be small (probably less than 1 per tile, else we may get some really whacky results...

Elaborating further, not all tiles should have the same value. Somehow we would have to represent the fact that a lot of the Russian landscape was undeveloped and had no infrastructure serving it. One elegant way of doing so would be to reduce the MPP value of each tile as you move farther away from the nearset city. Because Russian cities are spread farthest appart, this would mean Russia would have a higher percentage of "unproductive" land than Western Europe.

[With Clusters]

Giving every tile a point value seems somewhat complicated. What about sea tiles? Heck, some of them might have been very good fishing grounds ("Ach, U-boats have deprived me of my sardine harvest! Minus 5 MPPs...")

To borrow another idea from 3R, how about having variable available force limmits, based on time? Meaning, until say 42, the Russians would have only a small (relatively speaking) number of available units for purchase and deployment (and mostly weak corps-strenght units, only a handfull of stronger army and armor strenght ones). They can choose to deploy them near the border, and hope to slow the Germans down there, or deploy them further back, at which point, the Germans might be able to drive deap into Russia right off the get go, and be able to isolate and destroy a number of units before the Russians had access to their 'full' deployment potential.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Raven25:

KEY: How was Finland able to inflict so many casualties even though they had so few troops and so little equipment? Three things: The Finns were well fed, the Finns were motivated, and the Finns could mobilize their army on skis easily. The Russian forces were limited mostly to roads, as they nor their armor could penetrate the dense forests of pine easily. The Finns weren't weighed down by artillery, and their soldiers could just ski right through forests. The Finns had very high mobility, and were also very keen to demolish bridges. Finnish citizens were on high alert for sabateurs.

SC2 should definitely show this somehow. Perhaps give Finns movement bonuses, and stronger infantry.

The example you are giving is of the more northern portion of Finland and what you're talking about is tactical mobility, which wouldn't show up at this scale.

I doubt the Finnish army of the time could have moved more than two SC hexes into Russia and kept their troops supplied.

Excepting the Leningrad area of course, where there is at least a road/rail network.

[Liam]

I read a link to a webpage about the Winter War on here by one of our unofficial experts. Supposedly even Russian Warships took part in the combat during the Winter War. The Truth is seems the Russians lost a lot of men. They got a little 'gains' and hardly worth the losses. In the end gotta say Finland with their tiny little Army were Brave and Diehards, give them credit.

You should give the Finns 1 Army and 1 Corps with an HQ. both with 2 Experience Bars...and some German Technology