Early preparations, 3rd of january 1936
It's a dark, cold winter morning in northern Karelia. The sun won't show itself in atleast another hour. A man in his forties, named Hugo Österman is in a train transport from eastern Karelia to Lappeenranta, a major Finnish city. He is a world war one and civil war veteran, as he served in the eastern front from 1915 to 1917 on the german side and fought against russians. In 1917 he was sent home with his comrades, who were soon sent to some more fighting, as the Finnish civil war began soon after their return. After his promotion to major, he led his battle hardened men into combat one more time and came out victorous. Currently he is the Chief of Staff and the Chief of the Army. Yesterday he was inspecting the recently formed active service unit "Infantry regiment 1", until he was invited to a classified meeting, concerning improving the Defence Forces. He would be meeting the new commander of the Army of the Isthmus, - Mannerheim - the new Armament Minister, - Niukkanen - the new foreign minister, - Oksala - the new Head of Intelligence, - Kivimäki - and a few generals. The reason why most of these men are highly ranked enough to parcipate in that meeting today is because of the cabinet and army hiearchy reforms that took place around new year's eve.
10 am, new headquarters of the Army of the Isthmus
After disembarking from the train and beign escorted to the relocated headquarters of the Army of the Isthmus, Hugo is showed to the meeting room. He is walking through a hallway, with thoughts going through his mind: "Will this be just another cut of the military's budget?'" "Why all this secretivety?" "Are we preparing for war?". At the end of the hallway, there is a door leading to the meeting room and it is guarded by a tired looking unarmed soldier. As he reaches the door, the soldier recognizes him and opens the door for him. "Chief of Staff and Army reporting" Hugo says as he walks in through the doorway. "Now that everyone's here then I suppose we may begin. Have a seat Hugo." Field marshal Mannerheim says. In the center of the room there is a large wooden table with a map of Finland and some documents about the Finnish order of battle. The table is surrounded with a dozen chairs, some of which are occupied by important Finnish army and goverment personnel. After Hugo sat down on the chair nearest to him, Mannerheim decided it is time to explain the reason for this meeting in more detail. "By the request of the prime minister I've organized this meeting to discuss the future preparations for a possible war against Soviet Union. We are suppose discuss further fortifications in Karelia and enlargement of the army's wartime and active service size and weapon quantities. What we will come up with will be proposed to Svinhufvud. If the proposition passes, the military budjet will be raised to suit our needs." Mannerheim said. Everybody in the room is suprised about their assignment. "Isn't that a little... Extreme?" Oksala asked with a worried tone. "It's unlikely that we are to go to war with Soviet Union, but the prime minister and some goverment members have decided that 'unlikely' is enough for extensive preparations. And if we can stay quiet about this until atleast the public opinion has been swayed enough towards interventionism, this shouldn't be too harmful." Mannerheim said. "I'm not happy about this. Think of the scandal that would be the result if the existance of such plans would leak to the public knowledge." Oksala said after a short pause. "But how about if Stalin would launch a suprise attack right now? The russians would be here within weeks. Our independence is worth taking the risk for." Österman said in response to Oksala. "I think our diplomats and the non-aggression pact are more than enough for a defensive line." Oksala said with determination. "If the russians would truly want to reclaim what was once theirs, they wouldn't care about diplomatic barriers. They would attack without a declaration of war - non-aggression pact or not." One of the present generals, Talvela, said. "What do you think Carl?" Österman asked Mannerheim. After some though Mannerheim responded: "If Stalin would for some reason decide to invade Finland, he would find a way to undo the non-aggression pact or just completely ignore it and invade, as my collegue Talvela noted. I also believe that soviet aggression is unlikely to happen in the near future, but in the long run, almost inevitable. Further preparations are necessary." Everybody in the room have much trust in the greatest leader in the Defence Forces and takes his word for it. "Now if everybody is ready, let's start with the isthmus' fortifications..."
After a few hours of discussion, they decided that the following improvements and additions are necessary:
The active service units, "Seperate batallions" in south-eastern, central and northern Finland, which have been recently reformed into four active service regiments, should be formed into two divisions. The 3rd division and 7th division. They should be reinforced with two new
active service infantry regiments. The new divisions should be deployed in eastern Karelia and central Finland. Northern Lappland should be defended by
mountainjaeger and skijaeger infantry units. These units should be raised within the following two years, one by one. Their numbers and efficiency should be large enough for a succesful counteroffensive against a well equipped army corps. The garrison brigades in southern Finland should be disbanded and replaced with
reserve infantry regiments which should be raised within two years one by one. This would give our rear guard more flexibility. A few more
reserve infantry divisions should be raised within 3 years. They should be deployed where-ever manpower is required the most. (the colour of the text is suppose to show which part of the screenshot I'm talking about)
We should focus most on improving the equipment of our infantry, because regular infantry will be our army's backbone. We should also raise pioneer units to repair our equipment and help our infantry charge against barricades that are relatively difficult to overcome. Warmer clothing and white camouflage, among other equipment, should be improved to increase our infantry's efficiency in winter combat.
The research and production required to build efficient tanks is too much for Finland to handle. We will ignore armoured warfare completely. Anti-tank and anti-infantry artillery should be a high priority. Both will be great against the kind of warfare the Red Army is expected to wage. Anti-aircraft research should be ignored. We will use AA guns to defend our cities, but we will not send anti-aircraft regiments to the front.
The research and building costs of naval military units any bigger than submarines would be too much for Finland to handle, just like the production of tanks. Our navy shall rely on submarines, so we should focus on making better equipment for our subs and nothing else.
The Red Airforce bombers would be a great threat for our factories and citizens and our AA weapons are not enough to prevent them from bombing our population centers. We must develop atleast basic improvements to the equipment of the Finnish airforce. Further improvements will be added for our fighters later, but not until atleast 1940.
We should increase our knowledge about construction engineering to allow our workers to build more factories which we will need in the near future. And we should increase the production capabilities of our factories so that they would be able to supply our pioneers with the tools they need for combat situations as well as for repairing. And to allow better communication between our land forces and increase the efficiency of our forward observers, we should do extensive research on electronics and fine mechanics. After we have become capable to supply our units with communication equipment, we shall further increase the quality of their signal equipment, therefore allowing good communication between our military units.
Tactics of our ground forces would clearly play a key role in victory if we would go to war. Our enemy should face many uncomfortable situations. They should have to deal with tactical withrawal, delaying actions, motti tactics, infantry experteese, counterattacks, jaeger tactics, skilled artillery forces and ambushes.
The Red Airforce has great strenght in numbers, but it can be countered with skill. We should focus only in fighter tactics and ignore bombing tactics, because the Finnish economy cannot build and train bomber plane squadrons without giving great penalty to the production and research of other military units.
Before we can even hope to defeat the Red Army in land battles, we must explore the possibility of using asymmetric warfare against them. By finding weaknesses in their tactics and exploiting them, we will achieve a significant superioirity over their troops.
If we are to increase the amount of manpower which our army can use, we will first have start shifting the country towards interventionism. Our politics and Valvontaosasto's agents will be busy.
The meeting has come to an end as the leaders have decided upon what the proposition would be like. "...Now, is everybody pleased with the plans we have come up with?" Mannerheim asks. Everybody nods as a sign of approval. "Very well, then we may end this meeting. We will discuss unit deployment and possibly other issues later." Mannerheim said, concluding their meeting. Now Österman will go to his office in the parliament house in Helsinki and wonders about what the future will hold. He feels suprised about the stance the country is taking. The Finnish goverment used to be so isolationalist, that they were too scared to even make Mannerheim the field marshal, just because it seemed like a too 'war-like' decision.
A couple of days later, the proposition passed and reforming of the army began.