White Death - Red Terror

This weeks scenario will be from the 1940 Winter War campaign in Finland.  You may recall that the Germans invaded Poland in 1939 once they had signed an alliance with the Soviet Union.  This allowed Hitler to occupy Poland and then reorganise before concentrating all his power against Britain and France.  However, it also allowed Stalin a free hand in eastern Europe, and so the Russians were able to take territory from Rumania, occupy the Baltic States and absorb the eastern half of Poland.  By late 1939 Stalin demanded territory from Finland which would improve the Soviet Navy's position in the Baltic.  For the first time, Stalin's demands were refused and the Soviet Army attacked Finland.  To everyone's surprise the Finns repulsed every attack through their better training and knowledge of the terrain.  In addition, the Soviet's were poorly equipped to fight in the severe winter conditions and their overwhelming strength was set to naught against the snow and ice of Finland.

Again, it was Zhukov that engineered the final Soviet victory but Hitler was encouraged to see the Soviet military as weak and inept and was encouraged to bring forward his plans to attack the Soviet Union.

This is our chance to try out Phil's winter board and push the envelope with some new terrain rules and troop types.

The town sector will be a fortification (as in the WW1 rules).  Much of the fighting in Finland involved the Soviets attempting to take fortified Finnish positions.

The roads or tracks are fine for wheeled and armoured vehicles.  Open terrain will be half speed for all units except ski troops and impassable for wheeled units.  Tracked vehicles will become suppressed on a 5 or 6.  Woods are impassable for vehicles, quarter speed for foot and half for ski troops.  The cultivated areas will count as light woods in which movement will be the same as open but visibility will count as woods.

In addition, we will be experimenting with the following sniper rule; at the start of the game the Finns place a sniper counter anywhere on the table.  If the Finns win the initiative then the sniper is played before any other firing but after movement.  Roll for direction and a D6 for number of inches.  The counter is then moved onto the nearest soviet unit and on a 4,5 or 6 the unit is supressed.  This should reflect the random nature of independent snipers operating independently of the main forces.

Victory will go to whoever holds the fortified position at the end of the game.

Russ and Phil will be the Finns and Mark and Jon will be the Russians.  As usual I shall send you each the OOB.