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I'm wearing out my test dudes and need 2 more.
Scandinavian would be good because both battles are set in the Land of the midnight sun and you would spot something that would slip by me.
First battle is a Soviet Motor Rifle Regiment Trying to sneak around the flank of NATO.
They are seen by a Finnish Doctor piloting his own plane back from a house call. He sees Helicopters with what look like giant balloons. Curious he follows and discovers they are Soviet heliocopters, those balloons are fuel bladders and there is a Soviet division waiting for them. Dodging back into the clouds, he radios for help.
High Command figures thy have a drunk pilot on their hands but they send a Recon plane. He reports many Soviet vehicles and they are shooting SAMs at him. Then he goes off the air. A proper panic sets in at headquarters since the Finnish Army is dug in on the border with Russia. So they scream for help and send the closest Coast Defense company to Sodankylae (War village). War village is home to a Jaeger battalion but they are at the front. It does have the normal military stores so it is designated the assembly point. The Swedes can get some S-tanks there in time to support the very lonely feeling Coast Defense Coy. AFNORTH has Marines off shore but they are short on lift. So a line company plus the all the Battalion Weapons platoons are loaded in their choppers and sent to War Village.

NATO has no chance in a straight up fight. But this isn't a straight up fight. The Soviets could care less about War Village. They are headed for the Norwegian Coast to set up air bases for their interdiction campaign in the Atlantic. That is represented by 40 vehicles full of technicians and supplies. The Soviet has to get that convoy across the map by end of game. Game is 31 turns long but your convoy doesn't enter until late. Soviets have one extra turn beyond what it would take to just drive across the map.

Second battle is a special operations mission.
The gentlemen's agreement to not use nukes is holding. But GRU has an agent in SACEUR and he says the Americans are trying to cheat. An experimental Anti-Ballistic Missile System is being deployed at Lakselv Norway.
NATO thinks it is safe enough there and within range of 70% of the CCCP's ICBM's during boost phase A game changer if they can get it up. Poltiburo sees it as an opportunity to get their hands on some beyond state of the art technology.
So the ready Para Battalion for the Soviet reserve is tasked with a quick raid. A special ops company is assigned. A helicopter flight is laid on to get the techs and as much gear as possible back to Russia.

Correct translation of Sodankylä is Village of War, War village would be Sotakylä.

Interesting scenarios, I wish I had time to play.

See, that is why I need somebody familiar with the area to final test. Lt. Fjun is helping but I think he is in Southern Germany slaughtering Canadians at the moment. Or hiding from Leos.

Nice little ideas sounds good unfortunatly I am pre occupied at the moment

I may just press onwards and let the players figure it out. I sorta hate sticking them with my mistakes though. My theory is the drop rates on tourneys is directly related to how well prepared the tourney is. Since high drop rates make the tourney organiser regret the time spent, it becomes a negative feedback loop.
That is why I'm running the whole thing thru Bablefish to produce a Russian version of the write ups. Russian players tend to drop off the Radar. I think that is due to the language barrier being too high. So I will try and lower it a bit to accommodate our Russian friends. At least they will get a few laughs from Bablefish.

That is exactly the correct approach.
The better you set it up, the less hassles you'll have...amen to that.
Good luck.

It just isn't going as fast as I want. Every solution creates 2 new problems. I thought I could finish by April, now It's looking like May is slipping away. Annoying.

(02-14-2011, 11:19 AM)low_bidder Wrote: [ -> ]Scandinavian would be good because both battles are set in the Land of the midnight sun and you would spot something that would slip by me.

low_bidder - I live in the land of the midnight sun, just above the Arctic circle in fact - is there anything in particular you need help with...?

Not sure exactly yet. To a dumb Ami 'War Village' and 'Village of War' are the same thing. Something I would never know. I set the dates for July-August. I assumed there is a normal amount of daylight that time of the year and there is no snow. I am trying to avoid making new maps, having a to-do list that's already longer then I like. I'm in a position of not knowing what I don't know.
I knocked about Europe enough in my youth to know what I don't know and look it up. The closest I've come to Scandinavia is Copenhagen, which a Norwegian once assured me, isn't Scandinavian. I have no idea why he would say that. It might have been I was buying rounds or maybe his girlfriend ran off with a Dane or some war fought 1200 years ago.
In an Emergency would Sweden send military help to Finland? IF they knew they were next? KNEW it, not just suspected it?

(02-24-2011, 05:01 AM)low_bidder Wrote: [ -> ]I set the dates for July-August. I assumed there is a normal amount of daylight that time of the year and there is no snow.

There is no snow, except maybe for some patches of ice in some of the high altitude areas mainly in the Norwegian-Swedish border region..., northern Finland is less mountainous. Daylight is probably not quite normal though around June-July because the sun does not set in the arctic region during high summer, i.e. daylight around the clock basically. By August you will start having some hours of darkness again...

(02-24-2011, 05:01 AM)low_bidder Wrote: [ -> ]In an Emergency would Sweden send military help to Finland? IF they knew they were next? KNEW it, not just suspected it?

Probably. During the Winter War Swedish aid to Finland was substansial, not least in military equipment something there was a major shortage of in Sweden after years of neglect of the armed forces. Nobody, certianly not the Soviets, were ever fooled by the so called Swedish neutrality - though it is likely that in the event of war the Soviets would want to encircle Sweden similar to what the Germans did in WWII.

During the cold war large sums had been invested in the armed forces, with special priority to the Air Force which was larger than all other Nordic countries combined. In an emergency it is likely the Swedish air force would have been the only branch capable of any major action in Finland.

Swedish plans for meeting a Soviet invasion in the north was known as "Krigsfall II N" (War Case II N") was made up of three phases, meeting the invasion, stalling it and finally a counterattack phase aiming at the destruction of the invading force. It would be in the interest of Sweden to aid Finland if Finland was attacked becasue what the Finns would be doing in practice was fighting a delaying action against the marshalling of Soviet forces on the Swedish border - the question is however if any preparations had been made, if not it would be very hard to deploy and sustain any large number of forces inside Finland.

Sweden expected to face an invading force of about 8-10 divisions (inlcuding paratroop etc forces) in the north. One problematic factor for the Soviets would be the lack of roads - there are five major roads running on an east-west axis in the immediate (and best defended) border region between Sweden and Finland - past the border region and in the direction of Norway there are three roads - all prepared for extensive demolition. Meanwhile there are plenty of roads running north-south. For the Soviets lack of roads would limit their ability to deploy, especially thier armour heavy units, as the terrain is in most cases heavily wooded. It would also be hard to relive spearhead divsions expected to have attack strength for about 100 km. The worst case scenario would have been if the Soviets attacked in a slower, more traditional infantry based manner with heavy tank and artillery support similar to what the Soviet 21st Army did at Tali-Ihantala 1944. Sweden expected the Finns to delay a Soviet attack for at least to weeks, if the Finns let the Soviets through without fighting it would take three days for them to march up to the Swedish border...

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Regarding the "S-tanks" (Strv 103) the Swedish armour officers were not entirely happy with the model - considering it not to be a propper tank because it had a limited offensive capability and during the later stages of the cold war a limited defensive capability as it lacked punch to penetrate the most modern Soviet tanks frontal armour.

The OOB of a Swedish tank battalion was also diffrent from that of most other nations, including:

HQ
Staff Company with command elements and 3 Armoured Recce Platoons (none however carried in armoured vehicles).
2 Tank Companies
2 Armoured Infantry Companies (APCs)
1 Artillery Company (with 105mm towed guns).
Supply Company (inlcuding a pioneer platoon caried in trucks).

The idea of this "Kampfgruppe" approach was to give the battalion commander more options and stress the need for combinded arms at lower levels as the limitations of the terrain would often limit the force deployable to battalion size..., there was not enough cash to make the battalion truly mechanisised though. Swedish Bkan 1 SP artillery were all deployed in the north as a higher level assets and operated dispersed with traling ammo carriers.

In the north there was a type formation known as Stridsvagnsbataljon ÖN ("Tank Battalion ÖN) with
HQ
Staff Company
2 Tank Companies (Strv 103)
1 Norrlandsskyttekompani ("Arctic Rifle Company) basically a rifle company carried in Bv 206s, unarmoured.
1 Artillery Battery (105mm, towed)
Supply company

(Three of these were established, but was reduced to two when the S-tanks were introduced).