Seems like..poor finnish list.
Finnish infantry, especially jääkäri-units, are excelent when it comes hunting down infantry in midranges, jalkaväki-units in longer ranges. The main weaknesses of finns is lack of
AT-weapons (even thou, in
LW they have access to panzerfausts and -shrecks) and poor (=overpriced) armored units - the massed veteran T-26 can still do against historically accurant russian list, even thou its still gone with the blast wave in turn or three.
And I assume, you were playing
LW, so, for the post:
SpiritOfKantor wrote:Had a great little game on the spur of the moment last night. 1500 points Finns vs Ruskies.
Russians (mine) consisted of IS-2 Heavy Tankovy company, ISU - 122 Heavy assault guns, 45 mm OBRguns, Tankovy Rider company.
Should be noted that IS-2 is really pain in the arse for finnish player, allways -
IRL there were only two to three armored regiments equipped with them fighting in Finnish front. Mostly (when met) these were busted with mines and satchels, as the armor was rather thick and we were still suffering from the chronic lack of
AT weapons. Later stages of summer 1944 also panzerfausts were used with great succes.
SpiritOfKantor wrote:
The Finns consisted 2 SU - 152's, some T-26's, Some British captured tanks and 3 wheeled APCs armed with what seemed like pea shooters! Also Light mortars, artillery and HMG squads.
As mentioned earlier, finns have no acces to SU-152. You mean propably ISU-152, but still there should be only one of those (was used during the next 6 days, then lost back to the former owners).
Btw, there shouldnt even be the ISU-152V ARV in the whole goddamn game either, it wasnt deployed in the war, and at least not in front. Dunno what BFminis have been thinking about...
Allthou the finns list still lacks option for T-50 as a panssari-
HQ vehicle..
Shouldnt include "captured" british tanks, but might include 6 ton vickers tanks (which we bought just before winter war), which were pretty much equivalent to the russian T-26, as the soviets bought license to manufacture it on their own. Allthou I dont think this is likely, or your opponent was using a lot of alternative figures - QRF minis does produce these "Vickers" in 15mm for finns and polish, and during the interim-peace (Spring 1940- spring 1941) these were equipped with soviet 45mm guns, so they would be pretty much 1:1 when compared to performance of T-26.
Btw, seems like you have been fighting against Jääkäri-list rather than Panssari or Jalkaväki one, as it has separate selection available for ISU-152, so you can still include two armored elements and armored car platoon.
And there is no APCs either
They were (propably, as mentioned) armored car platoon, which can (at least in 2ed. they could) transport teams as tank riders - and totally agree with ancientsociety, light mortars are mostly bad choice, the medium upgrade aint that expensive and due to the finns specialized artillery rules in latest edition, they need every observer and gun/howitzer barrel they can get to call-in.
SpiritOfKantor wrote:
The poor Finnish forces didn't stand much of a chance as ok, they could wipe out my infantry but my tanks, being bunker busters, left his infantry with no saves. IS-2 with volley fire against his light and medium tanks meant at turn 3 he rolled battalion morale test and succeeded until turn 4 he failed and the Finnish dreggs ran away.
Was the playing table how realistic? At least 2/3 should be covered with forest/imiliar, if your not fighting in cropfield
SpiritOfKantor wrote:He did have tank hunter platoons and he was just unlucky with them in that they failed their tank assault rolls twice in a row. As far as the ISU 152's, what ever! If he wanted 2 then I was happy to let him have them, it was our game after all.
Not sure what book he was using TBH, could have been Ostfront, I used Hammer and Sickle.
Hmm? Ostfront is midwar book, hammer and sickle late war. In
MW they shouldnt have any ex-soviet assault guns in any sense.
Conclusion: You were facing inexperienced opponent with anti-infantry list lacking all the true strenghts of the
LW Finnish army
The artillery (prefer two!) battery is a must, and also the
BT-42 unit if you got spare points as these can be called indirectly too! Even thou expensive, these are, at least, mobile, and can vaporise infantry units from long distances in direct fie-mode -
IRL these were horrbile tanks, unreliable, overloaded, obsolete, paper thick armored, gun was obsolete and slow and hell no they did not fire artillery barrages as the got their artillery sights removed during the turret installation.
The lack of anti-tank (as mentioned) is finns weakness, but against experienced player leading veteran Sturmi-units you would be screwd
Sorry about my english, I speak it much better.
