Infantry Unit Tactics, Tasks, Weapons, and Organization

[PsJÄÄK Korte]

As for attacking and defending.
Finnish army is divided in to two parts: regional/territorial forces and operative forces.
Differences:
Operative:Newer equipment, more military grade motorvehicles, have most AFV, younger reservist, higher professional to reservist ratio, no specified area of operations.
Territorial:Older equipment, mostly civilian vehicles, have some AFVs, fewer carreer soldiers, defined area of operation.

Objective is to use territorial forces to deplete attackers formations, while operative formations are used in well timed (counter-)attacks to destroy or defeat weakened enemy, or atleast this how it is on the paper.

Btw, I remember having seen a basic Jaeger Bde TO&E on an official Finnish website about a year ago. At that time I was negatively surprised at the low survivability of arty/mortars and ATGWs (towed 120mm, TOW).

There are two jaeger brigade 90 left on wartime rosters.
I wonder where he got that information, because when I tried to find info in finnish for JGB90 with cats and dogs I found nothing whist there can be found organizations fo Infantry brigade 80, Jaeger brigade 05, armoured battlegroup, mechanized battlegroup and new territorial battlegroup

On survivability.
There are plans to replace towed mortar company with AMOS platoon in two southern jaeger brigade 05 and northern Jaeger brigade have their heavy mortars mounted in NA-122 all terrain vehicles.
Maybe it somewhat compensates their (indirect units) immobility and low survivability to use larger and dispersed formations.

Also finland has armoured artillery but not much. two armoured battlegroups have battalion of armoured howitzers and there are some separate selfpropelled artillery groups directly under corps.
At the moment only mounted ATGM system I know of is X number of TOWs mouted on NA-110 ATTV and they are used as corps level anti-tank unit.

[Pete]

It makes sense to me that the Finnish Army would use reserve or territorial units for defensive operations and the regular units for offensive ones. However, once the situation becomes "fluid" both components would need to be capable of both types of operations. The distinction between the two components of the Army would become blurred once a war really starts going on in earnest. The original assumptions of a war plan would fall all apart under the pressure of events. Adapt, adjust, improvise.

My family once lived near the Baltic Sea, Danzig and Stockholm, but it was two and three centuries ago, a long time ago.

[PsJÄÄK Korte]

It makes sense to me that the Finnish Army would use reserve or territorial units for defensive operations and the regular units for offensive ones. However, once the situation becomes "fluid" both components would need to be capable of both types of operations. The distinction between the two components of the Army would become blurred once a war really starts going on in earnest. The original assumptions of a war plan would fall all apart under the pressure of events.

My family once lived near the Baltic Sea, Danzig and Stockholm, but it was two and three centuries ago, a long time ago.

All most all of finnish wartime units of ground forces are mobilised from reserves. Peacetime units exist for purposes of training, and some other things.

Also. Yes it is inevitable that at some point regional force have to try counter-attack.

"Adapt, adjust, improvise." <-I hope that we heed this at event of war and make at least self propelled recoilless guns (if old blackies are still in rosters), selfpropelled mortars and selfpropelled ATGMs out of civilian tracktors, jeeps/land rovers, and light trucks for regional forces.

I glad though that we bought 147 mt-lbs from sweden and XA-series are going to through extensive maintenance to continue their service time.
FDFs mobilization strength has gone from 500000->250000, atleast one good thing I can think concercing it is that even if not all ground forces can be moved around in APCs maybe they can be given atleast military grade trucks instead of civilian tractors/vans/other cars, if amount of personel is lowered but equipment numbers stay same.

For the end as anectodish. I have heard that at beginning of nineties FDF mobilization plans still had horses on their equipment rosters and some second line (or would that be third) units would have been armed with WWII vintage small arms.

[ganulv]

Maybe it somewhat compensates their (indirect units) immobility and low survivability to use larger and dispersed formations.

I am a civilian with no military background so apologies if the answer to my question is too simple, but how is differing mobility during the three seasons (snow, mud, and other) dealt with vis-à-vis the organization of units? Does the organization of units optimize for one season, compromise for all three seasons, or are there changes in configuration as the seasons change?

[PsJÄÄK Korte]

I am a civilian with no military background so apologies if the answer to my question is too simple, but how is differing mobility during the three seasons (snow, mud, and other) dealt with vis-à-vis the organization of units? Does the organization of units optimize for one season, compromise for all three seasons, or are there changes in configuration as the seasons change?

I did my military service in southern Finland where winter snows have become thinner and thinner, only optimisation we did was to wear warmer clothes. and places we practiced warranted no skis because there was so little snow.
In northern parts of Finland you have to use skiis to move around and in north manouvre units use thisthis as motor transport to move around it has lower ground pressure than average human male. And mortars and arty need TNT for their firing positions
So cut long story short it is more about equipment than organisation.

PS.I would like to see someday IFV supported attack by ski troops, as finnish BMP-2s and CV90s have storage place for squad's skiis.

[Fuchs]

Snowmobiles as winter motorcycle of couriers is a neat thing, and a snow mobile can tow several Skijäger at once.

In hilly regions it also makes sense to combine ski with snow shoes.
Snow shoes also make sense in bogs; back when people were harvesting turf from bogs for heating houses, even the horses got snow shoe-like equipment. Another application for snow shoes is navigating very dense or uneven forests in winter or snowy terrain with lots of ditches.

[Pete]

Snow shoes also make sense in bogs ...

Herr Fuchs is reminding me of the errors of my feckless youth, when I was lost in a bog at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. My snowshoes got me out of it, though. It was in December of 1982.

Though I once was lost at Fort Wainwright, I found SWC and talked to Ken about METT-TC ...

[PsJÄÄK Korte]

Snowmobiles as winter motorcycle of couriers is a neat thing, and a snow mobile can tow several Skijäger at once.

In hilly regions it also makes sense to combine ski with snow shoes.
Snow shoes also make sense in bogs; back when people were harvesting turf from bogs for heating houses, even the horses got snow shoe-like equipment. Another application for snow shoes is navigating very dense or uneven forests in winter or snowy terrain with lots of ditches.

I have heard from finnish forums that if one had to choose between skis and snowshoes as combat equipmet, one would be better of with skis.
Also I don't know if we have used snow mobiles to tow people but in northern parts they use that finnish bandwagn variant to tow people.
Picture here.

[ganulv]

In hilly regions it also makes sense to combine ski with snow shoes.

Yes, I was curious as to what extent the Finnish military makes use of snowshoes. In the region of the U.S. where I live off track travel is impossible to accomplish at any speed without skis or snowshoes for at least three months of the year. Skis are the faster option when possible, but given the state of the land cover (mostly thick second-growth forest) and the relief (hilly to steep, with ice beginning before 4,000 ft.) ski travel is largely relegated to trails. In the U.S. the success of the ski-borne Finns during the Winter War is relatively well known but snowshoes are never mentioned in the context of the conflict. Are they simply left out of the narrative, or is the landscape of northern Finland so open as to be widely traversable by ski?

[Fuchs]

The Russians have developed many interesting / crazy vehicles for arctic warfare over time...

http://www.battlefield.ru/en/article...s.html?start=2

[Pete]

We had snow mobiles at Fort Wainwright in '82. Not lots of them, but some. We trained on both skis and snowshoes. I don't believe the snow mobiles were TO&E, perhaps MTOE.

The other thing I learned is that the personality conflicts between guys in a small Arctic tent in -20 F weather can become murderous. We had an active duty USMC ANGLICO team with us during our training there. Great guys, true professionals. With them was a Marine Lance-Corporal who was a reservist. The ANGLICO guys from Pendleton gave him so much crap at first about his rapid promotion to L-C that at first I felt sorry for him. After three days in an Arctic tent of listening to his snooty and wise-ass remarks I was ready to give the active-duty Marines my .45 and a loaded magazine.

[PsJÄÄK Korte]

the landscape of northern Finland so open as to be widely traversable by ski?

Northern Finland becomes more open after certain lattitude.
I just skimmed on finnish forum topic about skis vs snowshoes and found out following info:
Utti jaeger regiment once tested tested snow shoes, and while it was found by parajaegers of regiment.
Also it was concluded, both by parajaegers of regiment and reservist forum writers, That few are situtations in Fnland where snowshoes are better that skis.

[ganulv]

Also it was concluded, both by parajaegers of regiment and reservist forum writers, That few are situtations in Fnland where snowshoes are better that skis.

Thanks for checking up on this! I have been curious about it since moving up north and discovering that not all snow-covered terrain is suitable for cross-country skis. But when they are appropriate the user can make great time.

[PsJÄÄK Korte]

And on the other news:
Regional forces will have their old infantry bridage 80 replaced with new regional brigade/contigent/element/*suggest good english name*
Old infatry brigade had:
HQ&HQ-company
4xinfantry battalions
-4xinfantry companies
-HQ&HQ-company
-Mortar company
-anti-tank company
-service company
-forward observer and signals battery
recce company
engineering company
anti-tank company
field artillery regiment
-HQ&HQ and service-battery
-Forward observer battery
-light artillery battalion
-heavy artillery battalion
2xanti-aircraft battery
signals company
service company

New regional *good english term?*
Will have:
3-6 regional battlegoups with:
3-4 infantry companies
1 HQ&HQ-comapny
1 signals company
1 heavy mortar company
1 service company
1 engineering company
1 field artillery battalion.

New system seems atleast more flexibel while possessing more firepower (in indirect fire) than old infantry brigade.
There is no AA-battery, so I assume (hope) that headquarters company has either manpads or ZU-23-2 platoon for air defence, so battegroups wouldn't have to rely only on NSVs and corps level AA assets.
Also question is will NLAW be heaviest AT weapon or will some battelgoups be issued with TOWs or heavy recoilless cannons.

[PsJÄÄK Korte]

Btw. Reason why I was uncertain for translation for that new formation because in finnish word prikaati means brigade, but that new unit's name in finnish paikallinen taisteluosasto which component words mean, if translated directly
paikallinen=regional, territorial
taistelu=combat, battle
ryhmä=group, team, squad, section, plus many more translations which have nothing to do with military.