Project Finland - Early War List Discussion

Hello readers. 

I thought I'd share my thoughts on how I'm looking to develop my Finnish for EW. 

I guess the first thing to say is that I have no experience of EW, other that a lot of people telling me it's pretty different to MW and LW. Oh and you need to be able to deal with FA7...

Well as mentioned I'm using Finns so let's look at how I'm thinking of building my army for this period. To start with I'm going for a Jääkärikomppania, FV and with decent support options.

So let's go with the compulsory choices, HQ and 2 platoons. I'm as always avoiding snipers as I find them too situational, but I will upgrade the platoon commanders to close defence teams - with mission tactics this gives me a magic Molotov!

My next option is smoke, for this I'm getting 3 mortars. I've mentioned how important I find smoke in every list I do, and I'm not changing this theory now! Another option in the weapons platoons, comes from HMG's - now traditionally I'm not a fan, but for this force I'm considering them, with my basic force only being armed with rifles, if I'm being charged by trained troops, and get pinned and smoked, I'm hitting on 5+ in defensive fire, so a full platoon may hit 3 times, a pair of HMG's will help me with another 3 hits if combat attached, enough to bounce an assault, so they are definitely in contention.

Next I want some anti tank - now I'm looking at these thinking that the 'better' gun really isn't that much better for the points, so I'm going with the cheaper option this time. The other option here are the tank hunter platoons, whilst they have goodish AT for defensive fire/tank assault, even with optional extra teams they are small, if the AT weapons could be combat attached I would take them.

Now I don't think this is enough direct anti tank, so taking a page out of history lets take some artillery. On the other hand having some artillery which can damage some top armour 2 tanks would be good. So the option to me is do I take a battery of the 76K/02 and some 114H/18 or 2 76K/02 The reason for the 114H/18 over the other artillery options in 'heavy' is that I think it's the best trade off, you're ok in direct, and AT4 3+ in bombardment should do the job - without breaking the points limit.

The next area to look at is mobility, now to me this is from two areas in this list, armour and recon. Armour you get a few options, you can have tanks like the BT-5/7 fast tanks, with no armour and little guns, or soviet captured tanks. I'm always keen to use the tanks as a potential assault unit, so 4-5 of them suits me well. I think that the t-26 offers the best value of weapon and protection, though being the only trained unit in a vet army makes them a artillery magnet, so deploying them on the defense behind the infantry has to be carefully done.

The other option are recon platoons, the basic recon platoon can be quite big, so a large platoon if them getting a recon move and then doubling could be in the enemies face early on. The other option is a sissi platoon, now the models (when finally released) look awesome! But the motti ambush rule and access to multiple close defense teams really appeals, not only could they properly surround and damage isolated tank units, but going hunting for rear units like artillery etc is another tempting option, the real disadvantages are points and pioneers...

The pioneers compete in the same slot as the sissi platoon, and whilst only CV not FV, they are all assault 4, for a defensive unit vs tanks that's awesome. They are still vulnerable vs infantry, but perhaps good support can mitigate that!

Anti air is another option, but bofors are expensive and hard to conceal, and the flak is too short ranged, personally for anti air I prefer air, yes intercepting isn't likely, but the option of an template to scare TA2 tanks is a great threat. 

So what does that leave me with well, as always all my choices massively exceed the points so...

I think this is a nice balanced list. I'm still unsure of the mixed artillery but I'm going with it for now. Likewise lacking any recon having the sissi platoon instead of the pioneers is a big decision.

Fearless    Veteran	Jääkärikomppania Infantry Company	Finnish Early-War
Infantry Company

Platoon	Qty	Unit	Points
Headquarters
Jääkärikomppania HQ  p.103	2	Cmd Rifle team	35
Combat Platoons
Jääkäri Platoon  p.103	1 8	Cmd Close-defence Rifle team Rifle team	175
Jääkäri Platoon  p.103	1 8	Cmd Close-defence Rifle team Rifle team	175
Weapons Platoons
Jääkäri Mortar Platoon  p.104	1 1 3	Cmd Rifle team Observer Rifle team Tampella M/35 81mm mortar	105
Jääkäri Anti-tank Platoon  p.105	1 2	Cmd Rifle team 45 PstK/37 (45mm obr 1937) gun	115
Divisional Support
Panssari Platoon  Confident  Trained   p.109	4	T-26	190
Pioneer Platoon  Confident  Veteran   p.111	1 9	Cmd Pioneer Rifle team Pioneer Rifle team	220
Artillery Battery  Confident  Veteran   p.110	1 1 1 4	Cmd Rifle team Staff team Observer Rifle team 76 K/02 gun	275
Heavy Artillery Battery  Confident  Veteran   p.110	1 1 1 4	Cmd Rifle team Staff team Observer Rifle team 114 H/18 (OQF 4.5") howitzer	260
Company Points:			1550

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Source document: Rising Sun book

Anyway test games are coming up so we'll see soon!