What are you supposed to do as Finland?

[Riekopo]

I really like Finland's position in WW2. They fought like hell and inflicted severe damage on the Soviet invaders. David versus Goliath situation. In the Winter War they ended up losing and having to give up more territory than the Soviets even asked for in the first place. But in the Continuation War they initially took back all their territory plus Soviet territory and helped the Germans surround Leningrad, though they refused to attack it. Finland's impressive performance in the Winter War made the Germans think the Soviets were weak.

So I was hoping to play as underdog Finland and refuse their demands and do a lot of damage to the Soviets as they invaded and hold out for a while like in real life. I built up my defenses and had at least two Divisions for every tile. And at first the war seemed to be going well for me. But then my Air Force was wiped out because my numbers were too small and there's no way to choose the intensity of their attacks. And my Air Bases were destroyed and there's no way to hide my aircraft in the forests like they did in real life.

And then what really ended my fun is that the Soviets sent an absolutely ridiculous amount of Divisions to my borders and attacked the whole frontline. I mean they must have had like 60 Divisions or something on my borders. And there's really no way for me to fight against that. They quickly overran my forces and the war was over very quickly. In real life the Soviets only had like 20 Divisions or so in Finland I think. Probably too hard to supply any more than that in real life in Finland.

So it's just doesn't seem possible to have a historical Winter War with the way the game works right now. The Soviets just send too many Divisions your way to have a fighting chance. Which makes it not fun.

 

[Spelaren]

Fall back to your lakes and make fallback lines there.

 

[I had a bad name 99]

Forests seem to also be a good place to delay enemy. Build forts too. Historically, this was where the Soviets did badly.


Soviet (Wikipedia)
425,000–760,000 soldiers[F 5]
2,514–6,541 tanks[F 6]
3,880 aircraft[14]

Finland
300,000–340,000 soldiers[F 2]
32 tanks[F 3]
114 aircraft[F 4]

I also believe that the odds were also heavily against Finland in real life. And they did eventually lose the war. So I guess hold out as long as you can, then give concessions ? When Germany invaded, you continued the war...

 

[Riekopo]

Fall back to your lakes and make fallback lines there.

Have you played Finland? No matter what defense I tried it all ended in quick defeat. There are simply too many Soviet Divisions sent.

 

[Geriander]

Joining the Axis in 1939 is the only way I have avoided defeat in the Winter War

 

[Riekopo]

Joining the Axis in 1939 is the only way I have avoided defeat in the Winter War

Avoiding defeat in the Winter War isn't the goal for me. I simply want to have a realistic Winter War. I don't want to have to fight half the Soviet Army because it's absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Diakonen]

Use the rivers, lakes and forrest to your advantage. You can make choke points and hold the soviet horde until white peace. You have to sacrifice alot of land so dont build anything in the north or east.

 

[Louella]

Did you get an event popup about surrendering to the Russians ?

 

[I had a bad name 99]

I think it is not possible unless you lower the difficulty of Soviet AI and buff yourself to match the historical odds (since you insist on playing a historical game).

 

[mursolini]

You need to limit your defensive line to just 12-odd provinces, and have, *ideally* 48+ 20width divisions of 10inf+Support AA, Arty, At, Engineer.

It will require 50+ army xp, and I'm not sure you can make this much equipment, so I suggest duplicate template of just 10Inf.
AA is really important, also is having enough troops to rotate divisions, because units under attack will eventually break.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't think you can do it with historical methods. You can give up most of your territory to limit front size, use maintenance to seize more equipment than you lose, and hold out until Germany goes in on them. It'll be a pretty dull game.

You can also just go fascist and expand a lot before it starts so you can win outright of course, but that doesn't sound like what you're looking for.

 

[Fulmen]

and helped the Germans surround Leningrad

By virtue of Finland's geographic location alone; Finland did not partake in the Siege of Leningrad per se.

So I was hoping to play as underdog Finland and refuse their demands and do a lot of damage to the Soviets as they invaded and hold out for a while like in real life. I built up my defenses and had at least two Divisions for every tile. And at first the war seemed to be going well for me.

If you're playing vanilla SP, having 40 widths and maybe a few 20 widths on every tile bordering Russia is enough to stop the Russians and make an attack of your own. You can easily take all of East Karelia and the Kola Peninsula within months by outmicroing the AI.

But then my Air Force was wiped out because my numbers were too small and there's no way to choose the intensity of their attacks. And my Air Bases were destroyed and there's no way to hide my aircraft in the forests like they did in real life.

Yes, there is no way to represent the historical air war over Finland in WW2. In the Winter War the Finnish Air Force was outnumbered 20:1 (30:1 in terms of fighters) by the participating Russian army and naval air forces and long-range aviation, and still achieved a K/D ratio of around 8:1.

And then what really ended my fun is that the Soviets sent an absolutely ridiculous amount of Divisions to my borders and attacked the whole frontline. I mean they must have had like 60 Divisions or something on my borders. And there's really no way for me to fight against that.

Ironically, 13.3.1940 the Russians had 58 divisions on the Finnish front, another 4 nominally under the Finnish Democratic Republic, though these 4 were less than half the size of a Russian division, and another 10 divisions in reserve. Furthermore there were 3 airlanding brigades, 1 infantry-MG brigade, 8 tank brigades, 10 tank regiments, various border and reinforcement brigades. These amounted to 11,266 artillery guns and mortars, 2,998 tanks, 3,885 aircraft, in total about 1,000,000 men.

So it's just doesn't seem possible to have a historical Winter War with the way the game works right now. The Soviets just send too many Divisions your way to have a fighting chance. Which makes it not fun.

It's not possible to have a historical Winter War or anything even remotely close, but not for the reasons you think.

Soviet (Wikipedia)
425,000–760,000 soldiers[F 5]
2,514–6,541 tanks[F 6]
3,880 aircraft[14]

Finland
300,000–340,000 soldiers[F 2]
32 tanks[F 3]
114 aircraft[F 4]

Those figures are off, for both sides. Considering that these figures are supposed to include all forces that participated in the war, even if it's not simultaneously, a more accurate listing of statistics would be:

Soviet Union
1,500,000 men (200,000-300,000 KIA/MIA, 300,000-600,000 WIA, 5,000 POW)
c. 6,541 tanks (3,179 were "lost" on the Karelian Isthmus alone, hundreds in other sectors, of which 2,200-2,500 to enemy action, the rest to breakdowns. Hundreds repaired or recaptured post-war)
c. 4,500-5,000 aircraft (1,000 lost, possibly more, c. 650-700 to enemy action)

Finland
372,000 men (25,904 KIA/MIA, 43,557 WIA, 1,000 POW)
c. 13+ tanks (13 Vickers 6-tons, a handful of WW1 Renault FT-17s that were only used as static, dug in defences. 8 Vickers 6-tons lost in combat/due to breakdowns. A number of Renault FT-17s were either lost or abandoned where they were after the peace - recaptured in the Continuation War as they were so obsolete even the Russians didn't bother taking them)
c. 230 aircraft (64 lost, 47 to enemy action; 35 to enemy fighters, 8 to AA)

Navies also played a role, e.g. the Red Banner Baltic Fleet had orders to cut Finland's vital trade routes, but failed in this. I won't go into detail regarding navies though since they weren't mentioned and weren't ultimately that relevant because of the ice. And honestly because writing this post and checking all the figures has taken too long already. This Finnish Wikipedia article covers naval activities during the war in some detail, use Google Translate if you're interested (the English article on the topic is lackluster by comparison): https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talvisodan_merisotatoimet

And they did eventually lose the war.

I guess this comes down to how you define losing. Stalin wanted to annex Finland, he failed: Finland's military remained intact and undefeated, and the country kept its independence, at a price. A far worse outcome was avoided.

 

[I had a bad name 99]

It was insane how badly the Russians performed. No wonder, the Germans had such confidence in Barbarossa. Human lives were cheap back then!

 

[The Russian Empire]

Don't worry boys, when the inevitable Scandinavian/USSR DLC comes Finland will hopefully be a much more attractive country to play as.

 

[I had a bad name 99]

Don't worry boys, when the inevitable Scandinavian/USSR DLC comes Finland will hopefully be a much more attractive country to play as.

Is this a joke or real news?

 

[Znail]

There are many issues with the current winter war in the game. The only real concession to history is the white peace offer that is triggered after a while that lets Finland get a break.

The main problem that is also hard to fix is that there is currently no way to do irregullar (or as it's often called, guerilla) warfare. What is needed is some way to send troops behind enemy lines and act like partisans. Finland had both elite soldiers, plus local militia (ie local hunters) that did a very good job at disrupting the supplies of Russia. This also ment that Finland had very good intel about Russian troop movements.

It didn't help that Russia essentially sent far too many units, more then they could supply, with the front bogged down and supplies destroyed so was the Russian army performing very poorly. For this to happen so would we actually have to dumb down the AI, although I guess it will happen if the front is stalled long enough.

Another problem is Swedish aid, in the game Sweden gets the option of sending I think 500 or 1000 rifles, it doesn't help much. In real history so was it much more:

• 50,013,300 rounds of small arms ammunition
• 135,402 rifles
• 450 light machine guns
• 347 machine guns
• 301,846 artillery shells
• 144 field guns
• 92 anti-armor guns
• 100 anti-aircraft guns
• 300 sea mines
• 500 depth charges
• 83 motorcycles
• 83 cars
• 350 trucks
• 13 tractors
• 17 fighter aircraft
• 5 light bombers
• 1 transport aircraft
• 3 reconnaissance aircraft

Swedish intervention in the Winter War - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Those weapons would make the job far easier then it is right now. The problem is that there is pretty much noway for Sweden to have that much stuff in the game to give away.

 

[Diakonen]

The main problem that is also hard to fix is that there is currently no way to do irregullar (or as it's often called, guerilla) warfare. What is needed is some way to send troops behind enemy lines and act like partisans. Finland had both elite soldiers, plus local militia (ie local hunters) that did a very good job at disrupting the supplies of Russia. This also ment that Finland had very good intel about Russian troop movements.

Well, you do have Guerilla warfare at the end of Mass Assault doctrine & Werewolf on the Mobile Warfare.. but I dont know if you can reach them in time for the Winter War.

Finland should have a national spirit for Motti.

 

[I had a bad name 99]

Is it possible to quickly train lots of one-battalion divisions for infiltration behind enemy lines?

 

[Fulmen]

The main problem that is also hard to fix is that there is currently no way to do irregullar (or as it's often called, guerilla) warfare. What is needed is some way to send troops behind enemy lines and act like partisans. Finland had both elite soldiers, plus local militia (ie local hunters) that did a very good job at disrupting the supplies of Russia. This also ment that Finland had

Though most of the fighting was conventional static frontline fighting in nature, what you say is particularly true for operations north of Lake Ladoga: There's currently no way to pull off great victories such as those that the Finns accomplished at Suomussalmi and the Raate Road, inflicting huge enemy casualties on forces far exceeding their own in men and materiel, or emulate holding off far greater odds with few forces due to limited infrastructure for the enemy to use.

There are some things we can do with mods, like blocking off provinces to represent the few avenues of attack the Russians had north of Lake Ladoga due to there being only a few roads in the region, but really we'd need realistic infrastructure to get somewhere.

Representing the small-unit flanking manoeuvres (in this case regiment-size or smaller) the Finns used in these areas to encircle the road-bound Russians is even harder to get right in a game like HoI4.

Another problem is Swedish aid, in the game Sweden gets the option of sending I think 500 or 1000 rifles, it doesn't help much. In real history so was it much more:

• 50,013,300 rounds of small arms ammunition
• 135,402 rifles
• 450 light machine guns
• 347 machine guns
• 301,846 artillery shells
• 144 field guns
• 92 anti-armor guns
• 100 anti-aircraft guns
• 300 sea mines
• 500 depth charges
• 83 motorcycles
• 83 cars
• 350 trucks
• 13 tractors
• 17 fighter aircraft
• 5 light bombers
• 1 transport aircraft
• 3 reconnaissance aircraft

Swedish intervention in the Winter War - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Those weapons would make the job far easier then it is right now. The problem is that there is pretty much noway for Sweden to have that much stuff in the game to give away.

Not to belittle the gesture, particularly that of ordinary Swedes, but the materiel from Sweden was generally antiquaited and arrived too late to make much of an impact. It did not "make the job far easier".

How charitable the Swedish government's aid truly was is also questionable: they weren't willing to send aid until Germany threatened to cut their arms trade with Sweden, lest the latter send Finland equipment, which prompted them to give the Finns some of their stock, mostly from the bottom of the barrel, so to speak. At the same time they were also selling Finland materiel at a high price. Internal politics also played a part in allowing aid to go to Finland: the pressure from the Swedish people and some of the political class was quite real, which prompted the government to lift the ban they had issued in early December 1939 on volunteer movements aiming to aid Finland; sadly they never picked up the same momentum they had pre-ban, and very few of the 8000 Swedish volunteers actually reached the front before the end of the war (2-3 battalions of Swedes arrived in the last two weeks of the war and were assigned to quiet sectors of the front).

Really the biggest impact of Swedish aid was the volunteer air wing Flying Regiment 19, that operated a handful of obsolete biplanes: 12 Gloster Gladiator Mk. Is, 5 Hawker Hart Mk. Is, two liaison biplanes and one transport/liaison monoplane. They took over covering the air space of Northern Finland for the second half of the war, and shot down 8 aircraft and destroyed/claimed another 4 on the ground, for the loss of 6 aircraft (4 from accidents, 2 from dogfights).

 

[I had a bad name 99]

I feel that HOI4 is still an extremely simplified military history game, because I am sure that there are other games out there that can emulate the operational and tactical aspects of WW2 better. It is meant to be a grand strategy game where diplomacy, economics (organisation of resources like population) and overall military strength plays a bigger role than the decisive military engagements you get at Suomussalmi. So if you cannot win the Soviets in a conventional war, perhaps you have to delay defeat, give concessions and wait for stronger allies to come.

Edit: The Fins eventually did lose, even though they bled the Soviets dry. Remember that Soviet Union is not the same as Imperial Russia. Stalin has the will to defeat the Finland, and people conveniently forget that under the subsequent reorganisation by Marshal Timoshenko, the Soviets eventually overcame the Mannerheim line. By combined arms warfare (planes, infantry, artillery)

Wikipedia
"
Although the Soviets refined their tactics and morale improved, the generals were still willing to accept massive losses to reach their objectives. Attacks were screened by smoke, heavy artillery, and armour support, but the infantry charged in the open and in dense formations.[159] Unlike their tactics in December, Soviet tanks advanced in smaller numbers. The Finns could not easily eliminate tanks if infantry troops protected them.[161] After 10 days of constant artillery barrage, the Soviets achieved a breakthrough on the Western Karelian Isthmus in the second battle of Summa.[162]"