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Операция "Ой морозь морозь" - Maintain a high operational tempo through the winter, attacking weak points as able

6 (60%)

Операция "Не морозь меня" - Slow things down, making a few major and considered attacks without wasting strength

4 (40%)

Total Members Voted: 10

[Fishbreath]

It could be some time before I can get the time together to play a good session. Hopefully I'll have something for you in a week or so.

[Hyo]

Er, by the way, a question: For what versions do the 1.07 support again? I have a 1.02 and I was wondering if patching would screw my game up or not.

[IHateOutside]

I don't think save compatability is kept through patches.

[Fishbreath]

I had a 1.05 save that worked in 1.07. Your mileage may vary.

[Hyo]

Meh, savegames can be replayed anyways. What I'm worried about is that the patch might be incomplete in some areas, as in, only supporting to a certain version back so I'll get a screwy game.

[Fishbreath]

If I can write three pages of solidly-researched paper by a reasonable hour tonight, I'll play until the start of the Winter War and update this afterward.

[Hyo]

Psh, I bet those Finns will just give those provinces to us and we'll be all happy and have fun together, .

[Fishbreath]

Very short update! I didn't realize how long I'd taken to clear out the Baltic countries.

Spoiler: 16 November, 1939 (click to show/hide)

26 October, 1939
All quiet. Preparations are in progress for taking Finland, and the army reorganization is going nicely. We have thirty or so motorized and armored divisions, and those are all being put into the same corps sans any regular infantry.

16 November, 1939
The Finns refuse to give in to our reasonable territorial demands. We are now at war. The standard peace event fires on the 13th of March, 1940.




Here is Finland. We need the red provinces to annex . The units shown on the map are roughly what we have to work with. There's a motor army in the middle province on the east, and all 15 units in Leningrad are motor armies. We have eight or ten transports in Leningrad suitable for naval invasions to the west coast of Finland. What are your ideas?

[EuchreJack]

Naval Invade Vassa, use blue-green territory's stack to claim the other red territories, use other stacks to push generally and specifically cut off the south from the north.  Go Go Go!

[Hyo]

Well, this all depends on whether we want to go through the Finnish surrender event or not. I personally prefer doing so then conquering taking "Let's bring them socialism!" option myself, for its +1 intervention bonus. And then annexing Finland .

As the Chief of Army I shall take this initiative to give out the following orders, as the seat of the General of the North-Western District is vacant. Comments and critiques are appreciated.

4 Mot (Leningrad) land on Vassa and head straight to Helsinki. If the Finns garrison Helsinki from Viipuri's forces, hit there and flank Helsinki; if not then take Helsinki and hit Viipuri with both forces; taking Sortavala can also be deemed a secondary objective if it is deemed that additional firepower is needed to take Viipuri. All other forces not being used or kept in reserve are to directly engage the enemy for some practical training.


But yeah, the Winter War becomes ridiculously easy once you have TPs. Wonder why the Red Army didn't use them in the real one.

[IHateOutside]

In OTL, the Finns held some islands in the Gulf of Finland that effectively meant they controlled who entered and exited the gulf. These islands were demanded by the SU in the peace.

[Fishbreath]

Spoiler: 26 January, 1940 (click to show/hide)

0400, 16 November
Zhukov's, Berzarin's, and Poluektov's corps are loaded and ready to go to Vaasa, Pori, and Turku. The Baltic Fleet will escort them.

0200, 17 November
Attacks in the north of Finland begin.


0100, 19 November
We have dislodged the Finns from Kajaani, losing about twice as many men as they did. The Baltic Sea Fleet has blockaded the Finnish fleet in Helsinki.

1800, 19 November
Troops are landing in Vaasa, Pori, and Turki. The goal is an encirclement of Helsinki.

2200, 19 November
The VVS is instructed to carry out strikes on the port at Helsinki for two days, trying to finish off some of the ships under blockade there.

2100, 21 November
Troops ashore. Snowstorms all over Finland, so we won't be attacking any provinces with units in them until the weather breaks. Zhukov's corps (from Pori) will attack to Mikkeli, and Berzarin's corps will wheel down to Tampere. That will give us a three-pronged attack on Helsinki, but we'll need to get a headquarters unit there to deal with the stacking penalties.


0800, 22 November
The VVS is grounded due to weather. They are, however, my first unit with enough experience to get these little stars on their unit cards.


0300, 23 November
Repairing provinces sure does take a long time. Also, I hadn't realized just how big the VVS is currently: it's bigger than the Luftwaffe, which is good. Hopefully our army will get there before it's too late.

2100, 23 November
Zhukov's corps moves into Tampere and engages a lone headquarters division in Mikkeli. Konev's motorized corps moves into Kajaani and rolls on toward Kuopio to divide the country in half (with the help of Berzarin's corps).


0400, 24 November
We already triggered the End of the Winter War event. I'm not settling for it.


1700, 24 November
The weather has broken enough to send the VVS to support Zhukov's advance, which has stalled against a unit of mountain infantry (also good in the winter) plus the aforementioned HQ. We have eight tactical bomber squadrons in the air, conducting interdiction missions.

0700, 27 November
You know, it's incredible how useful a good air campaign is. Thanks to support from the 1st and 3rd Aviation Corps, Zhukov's corps won a battle it shouldn't have been able to have won.

1200, 28 November
Konev's corps reaches Kuopio, trapping fourteen Finnish divisions in the southern part of the country.


1900, 29 November
The VVS takes a quick breather while we get into position for our attack on Helsinki. We'll launch it once Zhukov's corps is in place.

0100, 1 December
Konev, supported by Berzarin, attacks Jyväskylä. Snowstorms advancing across the Gulf of Bothnia may limit our offensive operations for the next little while.

2300, 2 December
Zhukov's corps, badly disorganized by its earlier battle, is repelled from Mikkeli. The attack on Helsinki will proceed without the full half-encirclement I had planned.

2300, 4 December
The defenders of Helsinki fall back. On the 12th we will attack Viipuri from Leningrad and Helsinki, using Volskiy's and Bogdanov's corps from Leningrad and Poluektov's from Helsinki, supported by Tyulen's headquarters. After that we'll be able to annex the country.

1200, 7 December
Attacks on Joensuu from Kem and Petrozavodsk begin.

2300, 8 December
The current political situation.


1000, 9 December
The attack on Joensuu is turned back.

0900, 10 December
The VVS begins night-bombing of AA installations in Viipuri. Tactical bombers really aren't cut out for that, though.

0500, 12 December
Attack orders go out. The Baltic Fleet bombards Viipuri, and the VVS sorties against it as well.

0700, 15 December
Several units from Viipuri have retreated. Finns counterattack from Mikkeli into the Helsinki, so Berzarin and Zhukov attack Mikkeli to relieve the Helsinki force.



1000, 16 December
Attack on Viipuri is probably going to fail now. Forces from Helsinki had to retreat.

0700, 18 December
Attack on Viipuri fails. We'll try to keep the pressure up with attacks on Petsamo in the north. A new motorized corps forms under General Cherevichenko, who will be joining the fight in early January.


2200, 21 December
Poluektov's corps falls back from Helsinki. I miscounted earlier; we're facing 17 divisions in the Viipuri pocket. For the time being, we're not attacking so much, although we do have an attack in progress on Viipuri from Leningrad to try and keep the Finns honest. We hve ten bomber squadrons flying day and night; hopefully, we'll be able to make some progress on the attack.


1200, 25 December
Nope. Another week and we'll have six fresh divisions; that could turn the tide. We'll keep the bombers flying, and hopefully keep the organization on enemy troops in Viipuri low.

1500, 28 December
A wonderful option the game provides that isn't in vanilla HoI2 (unless my memory is really bad) is artillery bombardment; for divisions with artillery brigades, this is a legitimately scary thing to do. It eats a lot of supplies, but it does quite a lot to foes in the targeted provinces.

0500, 6 January, 1940
I would about kill for some more headquarters units. No attacks in progress, as I need my units more organized than they are.

1400, 8 January
We try another attack on Viipuri. We'll make another attack into Helsinki before long whether it works nor not.

1000, 9 January
This attack might get through, actually.


1100, 11 January
It does! We'll have forces in Viipuri to secure our gains by the 14th. Attack on Helsinki will follow, using Cherevichenko's corps as the main striking unit. Zhukov's, Berzarin's and Konev's corps will attack Mikkeli as soon as a headquarters unit arrives from the north.

2100, 15 January
The plans for the next major series of attacks, to kick off on the 20th.

1500, 19 January
Attacks kick off a little early, thanks to our forces being in position.


2200, 21 January
Finns in Oulu attack Vaasa. Poluektov's corps rushes up the coast to stop them.


1700, 22 January
Finns make it to Vaasa before we can stop them. Poluektov's corps should be able to push them back.

2200, 23 January
Malinin's corps (supporting Cherevichenko's corps) occupies Helsinki. That's going to eliminate a lot of divisions trying to retreat there. On the 25th, Poluektov's corps retakes Vaasa, which is the last victory point province the Finns hold. It's almost over.

1400, 26 January
With the signing of the Vaasa Accords, Finland is annexed by the Soviet Union.


A somewhat more difficult fight looms on the horizon.

I'll have some thoughts on this one once I get back from fencing in a few hours.

[Taricus]

...Shit. That's a lot of germans.

[Burnt Pies]

Those aren't Germans. Most likely poles, what with that being Poland and all.

[Fishbreath]

It's already 1940. I got my slice of Poland in September of last year.