finnish soldiers

[iksu]

if ur going mod all units in the game, mod panzer elite to be finnish.
it would be great change.  (just an idea)

[vengefulnoob]

the mod isn't general: the red army and ostheer will be compatible with all vcoh forces

Nice idea about Finns though: ostheer hasn't been started, when it is, suggest it to the team (I'm not a dev)

[Dominic 'Dragon' Cassidy]

Like Vengeful said, we will not be editing the base sides or game. The mod will be acting like and expansion, and adding sides.

[Tim270]

Having the Fins is actually a nice suggestion I think we should discuss this in the in-house maybe.

[luz777]

Its a good idea and would fit with the historical side of things, but what could the fins add that the Germans didn't have?

Men on skis...

 

[BurroDiablo]

The Finns would basically be a mish-mash of captured Russian weapons and German help. Late tier games may prove to be unfairly balanced since the Finns had nothing to counter heavy Russian weaponry, unless they called in a formation of Panthers like the PE.

[Flippis]

I wouldnt go as far and saying finns didnt have _anything_.

Finns bought a ton of equipment from germany which were then used against the russians in the later battles of the Continuation War in the summer of 1944. Finns had captured russian tanks aswell. Panzerfausts and Panzershrecks were used effectively in the most crucial moments of the heated battles.

But I wouldnt vote for finns being in the mod because they might become hard to balance out as most cases the finns would always be out-armored. Unless of course you make the stug's and captured russian tanks better than the tanks used by the russians themselfs... It's a bit tricky to balance out infantry vs tanks.

Surely, you could implemend heavy artillery support ability for the finns, Kuhlmey Stuka strike, Kuhlmey jabo strike, Messerschmitt strafe run and what not, but the fact that it would be unrealistic to allow finns "produce" vehicles en masse like it is in COH.

Of course, you could have a special "Call in" doctrine where you call in Lagus' sturm's which are highly effective against the russian tanks. Overall, finnish infantry should be better against russian infantry so it would balance out the later game where it would turn into infantry vs tanks.

I say no to the finns, even thought I am a finn myself.

[iksu]

they could be like panzer elite. they have heavy anti-panzer infantry and only small amount of vehicles which are capable of destroying enemy tank. lagus troops would be a great idea

[Gerrit 'Lord Rommel' G.]

I think that it does not make any sense to build up an finnish army because finnish troups were not so important for the eastern front. The finnish army just helped to lay siege to Leningrad and they help the german ambush against the railway from Murmansk to Moscow.
Two operations of tousends? Not enought for an own faction

[iksu]

i see u dont know anything about winter- and continuation wars. there were many battles, like tali-ihantala, all the motti battles, karelia kannas ( i dont know whats that in english)was attacked twice or even more with 3x russian forces than finns had. i understand that u havent heard almost nothing about those colflicts. there almost forgotten by other countries. i hate when someone says that "finns didnt do anything, they only supported germans." we defeated 30x bigger army or as some say we were defeated, but we kept our independence.

[BurroDiablo]

The Finns won the Winter War, but were defeated at the end of the continuation war. Of course, despite the massive Soviet Army, the Finns pulled off an almost impossible feat of keeping the Red Army back and were only really defeated in the sense that, they were and Axis nation (almost against their will) and the Axis lost the war.

I wouldnt go as far and saying finns didnt have _anything_.

You know, I tried to refrain from saying they had "nothing", but totally forgot to word it correctly. What I meant to say was "Hardly anything"; their Heavy weapons we're limited mainly to German hand-me-downs, but Hitler kept supplying them with Panzerfausts, Shreks and Air support as long as they promised not to treaty with the Soviets.

[Flippis]

During the crucial moments in the summer -44 battles, President Ryti signed a contract with Hitler which even further tied the finns under the protection of the german wings. This meant that not only grain and other food supply were being transported to finland in massive amounts, but also the flow of new weapons and even fighting units were brought up to not only assist but to win a defensive victory on all karelian fronts.

Soviet Union started the war the same way germans started the war against the polish. They barraged a garrison of soldiers with their artillery near the fin-russo borders on the karelian isthmus. This of course led to the ridiculous claims that it was us finns who shot the russians with the artillery, ironically, we had barely no artillery units at the time, but also none of them were even remotely close to the place of incident.

Finns _lost_ the Winter War, we were forced to peace (what other options would we have had?), but we kept our independence because we gave the russians the lands they demanded from Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and more areas around the finnish borders for bases, such as Hanko for russian naval base.

Continuation War was started by the finns. With the new ally, the germans, finns launched a massive attack towards Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, just some time after the germans had started their attacks on northern finland and all over the eastern front. Finns first approached Ladoga's Karelia and from there they reached towards the city of Petroskoi and Olonets Karelia at river Svir. From Petroskoi, they moved towards Maaselkä Isthmus. During the time finns were advancing towards Petroskoi, another army group retook the city of Viipuri, which was lost after the peace-treaty agreements of Winter War. This army group also pushed all the way to the close vicinity of Leningrad and established their main defensive line on Karelian Isthmus. After 1941 and early 1942, all finnish attacks had been stalled and the soldiers dug in to their positions, in which they would stay until the summer of 1944.

Summer came and as the western allies had conducted the Operation Overlord in Normandy, Red Army started to fullfill it's part of this massive operation. Couple of days after Overlord, Red Army launched a massive assault on Karelian Isthmus, breaking through the main defensive line and within couple of weeks, pushing the finns all the way back to north to Viipuri-Kuparsaari-Taipale line. Red Army also launched two other massive assaults in Olonets Karelia and in Maaselkä Isthmus, and all these fronts saw intense battles of both defensive victories and devastating defeats for the finns.

After the battle of Ilomantsi, Red Army was stopped for the last time. It was the last defensive victory for the finns, but as in case of Winter War, peace negotiations ended to our surrender. Finland had lost its second war but kept its independence, yet again.

[Gerrit 'Lord Rommel' G.]

Okay. Finns had to fight a lot of battles, but this battels were not so critical like a tankbattle of kursk or the winterbattle of moscow. And i think it is a porblem fot coh to simulate this winter battles and this heavy differenc between finnish army and red army - one side tousends of tanks, guns and soldiers and on the other side some hundrets of battaillon and some caputred tanks support by two german StuG-Abteilungen and so on. i think finnish war does not have enought "material" for a game like CoH. Perhaps more for other games

[Flippis]

It all depends really how you make them. If you for example give them few vehicle and gun units, but make them better than the soviet counterparts (even if it means unrealistic measures), then you would have only couple of vehicles and guns to play around... and as we all know COH, whats the fun in playing with just couple of whatever you can produce?

I would see Continuation War a lot more potential than Winter War because in Continuation War the odds were more balanced, meaning we had something to take out the Red Army tanks. I would imagine the game would work better in a single player campaign with the finns, rather than in a skirmish or multiplay, because in the campaign you could simulate some of the situations of real life battles with scripts. In multiplayer, that is quite hard, unless of course the map design is so nazi it wont allow maneuvers that werent there irl. If the battles would only involve the -44 battles, which are one of my favorite subjects, it would perhaps become quite good gameplay wise, given some unrealistic liberties to the coding of the finnish vehicles.

I personally would imagine the finns being normally equipped, no matter which doctrine, with at least little artillery and tank support, but all doctrines would mostly play out as infantry, never the less.

"Artillery Doctrine" would allow the player to use the ridiculously effective and precise finnish artillery system which at the time was the best artillery system in the world. We perfected the effective use of minimal amount of barrels. This would mean quick offmap artillery in the forms of peite (cover) which moves forward as a creeping barrage, allowing attacking finns move safely behind the barrage. Sectorial defense, one could set a number of locations to be watched over. Lets say the area A and area B. When enemy attacks on area A, all guns could be targeted to only that area, but if the enemy attacked both areas, same function would let all barrels fire on both areas the same time. A lot like the british artillery doctrine, except you would have the artillery offmap, it would be more effective but more expensive to use. Also, there could be a finnish Messerschmitt strafe runs available. Finns would normally also have some in-map artillery units, which could be moved and dug in. But their range would be more limited. This would be the basic artillery unit for all doctrines.

"Kuhlmey Doctrine" would create a mixture of available call-in troops which ultimately ends up to the ability to call in Kuhlmey Stuka's and Fockewulfs to strafe targets, such as those important bridges or enemy artillery. Kuhlmey doctrines first abilities would involve anti-tank infantry units which you could call in from off-map. These would be bigger squads armed with couple of panzerfausts per soldier and even one panzershreck. Armed with Suomi submachineguns and rifles. While the normal finnish squad would carry rifles, they could be upgraded to have Suomi's, DP's and Panzerfausts.
Kuhlmey doctrine would also grand you the ability to use recon runs with the fast fockewulfs.

"Lagus Doctrine" on the other hand focuses to the tank warfare which would be costly to use, but effective when used correctly. Losing these units would make it feel like a knife through heart because they would be so valuable. Lagus infantry ability would let you call in squads of infantry who are specialized in combat and may use the FireUp ability, making them hard to suppress by MG/tank fire. Ferocious fighters. Then next tier ability would be call in tanks, a group of three fast moving BT-42 self-propelled howitzers for the infantry support role (StuH replacement more or less). An ability called Lagus-Group could consist of the legendary Mikkola' Squad which would involve Two T-34/76, two T-28, one KV-1 and one T-50 command tank. Highly effective to counterattacks as they have a mixed group of tanks. The KV-1's ability to absord heavy damage, the swift T-34's to knock out enemy tanks, T-28's for infantry support  and T-50 for commander ability such as improved moral to all units effected in the radius of his vicinity , rush-command and binoculars. The ultimate ability on the last tier would of course be the Lagus Sturms. A group of four Stug3G's available to counter the enemy tanks in either fierce counterattacks or simply setting up ambushes on defensive lines. The finnish Sturm would be one of the most feared units of the Red Army players.

Just my wild imaginative 2 cents.

[ludov]

Okay. Finns had to fight a lot of battles, but this battels were not so critical like a tankbattle of kursk or the winterbattle of moscow. And i think it is a porblem fot coh to simulate this winter battles and this heavy differenc between finnish army and red army - one side tousends of tanks, guns and soldiers and on the other side some hundrets of battaillon and some caputred tanks support by two german StuG-Abteilungen and so on. i think finnish war does not have enought "material" for a game like CoH. Perhaps more for other games

Actually, the eastern european RTS, Men of War, would probably be very well suited to such a job. It does a lot on trying to approach realism(even simulating not only the thickness but also angle of plating when calculating it's hit-location system that it makes uses of for vehicles, as opposed to a CoH-like "health" system for vehicles), but also it's campaign itself is centered a lot around the idea of a small force tackling a much larger force of opponent(the second russian mission itself put you in charge of roughly one hundred soldiers tasked with defending a train station against a much larger german force with no reinforcement options on your side. You litterally have to use all you have to hold long enough for the train to finish being loaded... which, without reinforcements or unit production makes for one hell of a mission ^^;

Heck, if I recalls well, the /devs/ themselves are holding a poll to know which nation people wants to see added in the game, either for multiplayer, single player campaign or both. So far, Italy and Japan are leading(with Japan already confirmed for a free content patch next month), but I think the finns were a possible choice for single player action.

Edit: just realized mentionning a game that has nothing to do with CoH might be out of place here, so feel free to move the post elsewhere or just plain delete it. I'll probably make a post about Men of War elsewhere on the forums though as I feel it's high focus on the eastern front might be of interest to some of the other RTSes fans here.