Finland collapsing; armies unable to assist due to attrition

[Thistletooth]

September 29, 1941:

The Bolsheviks are being steadily pushed back from the Baltic to the Black Sea. My self-imposed "realism" limitations* are preventing me (Germany, duh) from completely crushing them as I usually do. However, my less-aggressive, less-effective advance has led to a very unfortunate, though not surprising, and very unrealistic side-effect that threatens to turn my game from an attempt at a re-envisioning of the Eastern Front to a gamey pain in the...: Finland is getting creamed.

Though I control Novgorod, Smolensk, and Kharkov, the Soviets continue to send dozens of divisions towards Finland and nowhere else, and they have just broken through the Finnish lines in the north, and are beginning to head for the Gulf of Bothnia and Helsinki's back door. I have rushed roughly 25 German divisions to Finland in hopes of keeping my ally alive (and increasing my difficulty further, as I have reached the limits of Germany's 1941 advance), but even though I have sent them to Finland as expeditionary forces, they are suffering attrition hits in the interior provinces.

The status of the entire front:

- The Finns have 5 divisions in Petsamo, who are about to be destroyed by 12 Red divisions, with 3 more held back in Murmansk.
- The Swedes (my puppets and allies) have 5 divisions in Rovaniemi, one of the only border provinces that has infrastructure high enough to support them, but I seriously doubt that they will be able to last a week against the Red Army if they come a-knockin'.
- The border near Karelia is still in Finnish control, but cannot spare any more divisions without opening itself up to attack from the East. The Soviets already outnumber the Finns there by more than 2:1.
- There are 4 Swedish divisions in Viipuri, opposite 28 in Leningrad (mostly Opelchenye militia), so I'm happy they haven't been attack yet. Needless to say, this area of the line is critical to the survival of Finland.
- I have 20-25 German divisions around Helsinki and heading north, but the lead army is beginning to take attrition hits, and probably will be unable to hold the Soviets off given this condition. They stand to confront 24-30 Soviet divisions currently running around in Kajaani.


So, how can I *quickly* save Finland and bring the northern front back to a more realistic shape? Just giving Finland my divisions, completely, would seem like a cheat, not to mention that I don't know how to do that, but my troops aren't going to be able to survive up there. I'm hoping that I won't have to surrender every sub-34 province in Finland and try to desperately hold Helsinki and the coastal provinces for the next year or so. If I were to do that, I would also have to redirect forces to defend Sweden and northern Norway, which would, the delay in getting them up there aside, force me to abandon all hopes of seizing Moscow this year (which would be realistic...).

In the past, I have usually seized Leningrad by early August (assuming a 6-22-41 Barbarossa), and Arkangelsk by early September, after having destroyed over half of the Red Army in the initial whirlwind of destruction, so they never have enough to sent north to break the Finnish lines, at least not advancing more than one province deep. But by trying to play things a little more fair and realistic, the Soviets have screwed me over in a very unrealistic fashion, and the game is facing a crisis: this is threatening to become un-fun.


* - Maintaining an army no more than half the size of the USSRs (at first), and relying on allied troops to pick up the slack in the south. So far, it has slowed my progress down a lot, and I may even get bogged down completely at this rate. Having 50+ Italian and Bulgarian divisions away in Turkey and Iraq, and 20+ more in Ethiopia is making it even harder (there are only 6 Italian divisions in Russia), though the prospect of a second front in the Caucases lie not too far in the future. I have denied myself the services of Frick or Himmler (part of my typical "Limited Bastard" playing style), so my IC is only in the mid-600's, far below where I would need it to be to research at anywhere near full speed while maintaining enough IC to put together the mighty Kriegsmarine and the occasional mechanized infantry and aircraft. IC is a big problem, as are the British bombings that I'm only now being able to prevent. It's a fun game so far, but it's not without its frustrations.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

I play Germany pretty much historically on very hard and still have no problem getting to Leningrad (usually taking it but not always). Can't you make a movement towards Leningrad and then Archangelsk to cut off that area? That would be a better strategy than fighting in low infra provinces in Finland which isn't going to help you much.

I usually leave Finland alone and then later annex Finland Sweden and Norway so that I have the direct land connection (after dealing with the Soviet Union first). Focus on cutting off the Red Army in that area rather than trying to help an ally. You can help your allies later but make things harder for the Red Army by cutting them off.

In my current Germany very hard 1.06c game I started Barbarossa with 21 Pz div (three MG, six each IL20 AL30 BM40) with IM50 in production and with 12 motor inf div and zero mech inf. I allied with Hungary and Romania and used them a lot after upteching them. I use plenty of inf armies in the north and keep on attacking. Von Salmuth took Leningrad in August, I had Moscow and Stalingrad, and cut off the Baku region by November 1941 when I had more divisions than the SU did.

My IC is higher than yours and I use man of the people along with admin genius. You should have more IC if you kept up with industrial and electronics computer research.

 

[Marcus]

I agree with the 'cut them off at Archangelsk Pass plan', this might be a little 'gamey' but I'm sure the brave soldiers of the Trans Ugric Front led by some guy in a cool fur coat would be in big trouble if the Wehrmacht cut them off.

 

[HistoryMan]

Oh - I think your armies in Finland are suffering due to Low Infra, by the way, seeing as how it isnt German territory. I am not sure that the Expeditionary Force status helps with that - and have you checked that Finland has enough supplies for all these troops you have sent them ? Their economy is very small, hardly able usually to produce enough for themselves, let alone lots of Exp forces

Tim

 

[unmerged(35332)]

Oh - I think your armies in Finland are suffering due to Low Infra, by the way, seeing as how it isnt German territory. I am not sure that the Expeditionary Force status helps with that - and have you checked that Finland has enough supplies for all these troops you have sent them ? Their economy is very small, hardly able usually to produce enough for themselves, let alone lots of Exp forces

Tim

I'm facing a similar situation in Finland in a vanilla 1.06c game. Although the Red Army had just lost about 70 divisions when I induced Finland to join the Axis, the Soviet AI decided that invading Finland was more important than stopping the German armor engulfing their Baltic flank. The difference in this game is that I've already cut off 50+ divisions of the Red Army under Timoshenko "at the Archangel Pass." The Red Army facing Finland seems to be getting supplies convoyed to them from somewhere although I've tried blockading and sunk dozens of Soviet freighters. Curiously, I am sinking lots of ships in the North Norwegian Sea and just off Murmansk, but none in the White Sea. Are the supplies coming from Valdivostok (???). [The Japanese have rebuffed my invitations to join the Axis although they (and the Thais)are fighting the Western Allies so they won't be sinking Soviet convoys.]

I am sending supplies and oil to Finland through the Baltic and have sent them 13 infantry divisions as expeditionary forces but the expeditionary forces are still falling apart in the interior provinces. The Finish AI sends them into the interior then pulls them back to the coast.

At one point it looked as if Timoshenko was going to try to break out (which would have been refreshingly realistic), leaving behind a garrison in Murmansk, but then he turned back west. Since I can't seem to cut their supply lines at sea, I'm sending troops up the west coast of the White Sea to Murmansk. If the Finns can hold on to Petsamo (which has changed hands several times), I'll drop some paratroopers in the undefended Kola Peninsula a little before Murmansk falls and be done with Timoshenko's army (I hope).

 

[unmerged(36117)]

The EU engine doesn't model supreme bravery and morale of finnish troops

 

[unmerged(3221)]

Any coastal province can be used to send supplies. It is very difficult to cut off supplies by sinking convoys. If you get a message that 19 were sunk, that could be 19 out of 123. Some supply convoys are probably getting thru even when you sink some. Meanwhile your naval losses mount and you need to rotate them.

Save the game. Then after you have dealt with the situation start a new game as the enemy and load the saved game. Then try yourself to convoy supplies to those cut off areas. That's a situation that most people in single play rarely encounter so try it to see how well it goes.

 

[Thistletooth]

Oh well, the crisis is over. I settled the matter by cheating.

*dodges various semi-rotten vegetables*

I just saved the game, started poking around in the savedgame folder, and changed ever sub-infra-34 provice in Finland to an infra-34 province.

My three German divisions managed to cut the Soviets off before they could advance past Kajaani, and I quickly sent a fourth by ship up to Petsamo, in hopes that the 5 Finnish divisions would hold out long enough. I also hit upon the bright (and so-obvious-I'm-embarrassed) idea to rebase my six HS-129s to Rovaniemi to help the Finns out. By the time my eight or so German divisions landed in Petsamo, the Soviets were fleeing with their tails between their legs. The 5 Finnish divisions actually held out, with the support of 6 TA=13 bombers. Given my observation of the "superior numbers beats everything, unless the superiority is yours" theme to HoI battles, I was thrilled. The Soviets were stopped in their tracks.

Unfortunately, my troops further south weren't. I took Moscow and Leningrad in early December (Leningrad had a garrison of exactly two divisions, and Moscow fell to my Spanish troops). Out of good sportsmanship, and hoping that I'd later regret it, I decided to give the Soviets four whole months to recover, in the hopes that they could add another 40 or 50 divisions in which to give me a harder fight. Nuh-uh. On June 5, 1942, I began setting up the boring ol' Vlasov regime again. I had made myself slower, I had limited myself to a much smaller army than normal, I had relied on allies who couldn't win with 4:1 odds, and I had given them three months to recover from an advance that, from its inception, had been moving at the speed of a steamroller with the parking brake on. And I still crushed them like a bug!

Try as I might, I just can't make myself any less of a brilliant player. Pity me.

(This does not mean that I'll start playing multiplayer - you people scare me)

Then the game got boring. It took exacly seven days from the beginning of the Second Russian Civil War for the Soviet Union to be annexed. The rebels seized Vladivostok and Irkutsk before I had noticed. I would have been thrilled if I had been trying to win. With the end of the war in the East, I tried to think of excuses for me not to invade Britain in August. With half the British fleet away fighting...someone else, I couldn't, and I began to consign myself to another long naval buildup prior to an invasion of the States. Sadly, my Frickless economy just couldn't match my R&D demands. I would go back to a "Total Bastard" playing style, but it always leaves me feeling dirty, and I don't need the game being any easier at this point.

Next game, I'm playing as Italy.

The EU engine doesn't model supreme bravery and morale of finnish troops

My biggest gripe with the game, really. And I'm not even a Finn, though I'd be willing to immigrate if one if you Finns could find me a nice job. I even speak a little Swedish.

While I'm on a cheating streak, maybe I should tweak the next game I play to give the Finnish troops SA=35 GD=70. Maybe then they'll be able to hold out against the Soviets.

 

[unmerged(35332)]

Any coastal province can be used to send supplies. It is very difficult to cut off supplies by sinking convoys. If you get a message that 19 were sunk, that could be 19 out of 123. Some supply convoys are probably getting thru even when you sink some. Meanwhile your naval losses mount and you need to rotate them.

Save the game. Then after you have dealt with the situation start a new game as the enemy and load the saved game. Then try yourself to convoy supplies to those cut off areas. That's a situation that most people in single play rarely encounter so try it to see how well it goes.

If I was trying to stop UK or US supply convoys I probably wouldn't have bothered trying. However, the Soviet merchant fleet is not that large so I figured they'd run out of ships fairly quickly. The third fleet I rotated up there may have done the trick because the Soviet divisions were looking rather shabby by the time I hit them in Murmansk.