Nuts! Winter War Campaign - background information

 

Winter War Campaign Introduction

 

My campaign follows a fictional Finnish Jääkäri platoon assigned to the Kuhmo sector - see map. I selected Kuhmo after viewing the web page from their Winter War museum. It has a lot of very good information on the Winter War in that area. The two maps below came from their web page. as you can see, there are all kinds of possibilities for scenarios.

Most of the scenarios were inspired Kuhmo Winter War Museum web page. This excellent site has a lot of really good information for wargamers: Kuhmo Winter War museum 

I also obtained some information from the magazine “White Death” by TreadHead Games as part of their WWII Campaigns in Miniature series.

  My “Star” starts out as an Alikersanti (under-sergeant, more or less a corporal) in the platoon’s first (SMG) squad. In addition to the main platoon, for variety, a Sissi squad may show up from time to time. As the Finns did not use any armor in this sector, any reinforcements resulting in armor will be the Sissi squad instead.

At this time, the paper strength of all Finnish infantry and Jääkäri platoons was four squads. Two of these were sub-machine gun (SMG) and two were light machine guns (LMG). Typically, the SMG squad consisted of ten men, two of whom were armed with the Suomi KP31 SMG. These were normally the best soldiers and were specially trained in its use. In game terms, they may or may not be the squad NCOs. The LMG squads consisted of seven men, only one of whom was armed with an LMG.

In this campaign, I decided I only wanted to bother keeping track of two squads, one SMG and one LMG. These two squads will have named characters with random reputation and attributes as outlined in the main rules. They are eligible for promotions and increased reputation after each battle as outlined in the normal rules. They are also vulnerable to being killed, wounded and replaced (replacements will be Rep3). The rest of the platoon will be rather generic using the ratios as found in the above charts. Except for the platoon HQ, they do not have attributes and will not have their reputation increased or decreased during the course of the campaign.

The Soviets are represented by a more or less typical rifle platoon of the 54^th (Mountain) Rifle Division. At the beginning of the war, a rifle platoon had four squads, each of 14 men and one LMG. Starting in late January, there was a change to smaller squads with two LMG, but I suspect that transition was more likely to happen with the units in the Karelian Isthmus as they reorganized for the final push on the Mannerheim Line rather than up north where my campaign takes place; consequently, for my campaign, the Soviets will stick to the larger squads.

Soviet amor that was available included T26, T37, T38 and a variety of BA armored cars. The T26 twin turrets and flame tanks, as well as the T28 was not used here, but since I have the models and I think they are cool….

Another unit that will appear, sooner or later, was Dolin’s ski brigade.  It was comparatively well-equipped and composed primarily of Siberians with skiing expertise; the brigade was considered an elite unit. It was formed from three ski battalions of the 9^th Army. It appears to have been armed with a significant number of SMG, as after its destruction by the Finns they claimed to have captured 400 such weapons. I will note that I read once that Finns considered Soviet skis so inferior they only used them as firewood. Also, the Soviet ski manual was laughable to the Finns; it included bayonet drills on skis, for example.

 I decided I wanted to make my own organizational charts, as the Winter War organization, for both armies, was different than later in the war. The information below is just what I was able to discover using the internet. I do not claim to be an expert in the field, just an enthusiast.

	Finns			Soviets
Org.	SMG Sqd	LMG Sqd	Sissi	Rifle	Dolin’s Ski	Tank Crews
# of sqds	2	2	1	4	4
Max #men	10	7	10	14	10
Dice Roll	4+D6	4+ 1/2D6	4+D6	8+D6	4+D6
Rep3	DR1	DR1	DR1-2	DR1-2	DR1-2	DR1-3
Rep4	DR2-4	DR2-4	DR3-4	DR3-5	DR3-5	DR4-6
Rep5	DR5	DR5	DR5-6	DR6	DR6
Rep6	DR6	DR6	-	-
NCO	SMG/ Rifle	SMG/Rifle	SMG/ Rifle	Rifle	SMG/Rifle
Jr NCO	SMG/ Rifle	SMG/Rifle	SMG/ Rifle	Rifle	SMG/Rifle
LMG	0	1	0	1	0
SMG	0-2	0	0-2	0	<=1/4
Riflemen	8	5	8	11	8

The SMG limits for both Finns & Soviets include those given to the NCOs.

Because I enjoy the roll-playing aspect of the game, I have created a back story for my main character (known as the “Star” in the rules). Someone on the forum once mentioned that their “star” was a common soldier. I thought that might be fun, though I didn’t quite want to go that far, so my “star” will start out as an assistant squad leader (Alikersantti or Aks). He was inspired by a combination of the character Antero Rokka, from the Finnish film “Tuntematon Sotilas” (The Unknown Soldier) and the real character Arne Juutilainen.

  Tapio Kalvela (born 1910) was raised in the forests outside Kemi, Finland. He worked as a logger like every other man in his family. Naturally athletic, he spent his summers playing pesäpallo; but his first love was the deep forests of northern Finland. Growing up in the far north, he became inured to the hardships of the cold northern winters, where he excelled at skiing, was a crack shot and expert hunter.

  Tapio completed his compulsory service in 1929. Seeking more adventure, and wanting to see more of the world, Tapio joined the French Foreign Legion in 1930, and gained a reputation as being an extremely tough fighter. Due to his exploits and upbringing, his mates gave him the nickname "Terror of the Forests" (Metsään Kauhu in Finish).