Alright then, two weeks ago I posted a teaser image in my Epic IG thread. Now it is time to reveal my next project, Finnish forces in Flames of War! I am building this company as a late war jäger company, to be exact, as a company belonging to the Finnish armoured division's jäger brigade. The armoured division and it's men took part in several of the fierce and decisive battles in Karelian Isthmus in summer 1944 right before peace negotiations with USSR.

So, the first platoon for this company is one of it's combat platoons, the 1st jäger platoon.


The platoon is armed with good numbers of the famous Suomi submachine gun, so these are SMG teams, all of them.


The platoon leader is wearing a side cap m/39, no peaked caps here, we leave them to the Germans. The panzerfaust is made of a rifle, I just grinded it with Dremel and added some plasticard.



As you can see, there is lots of variation in the helmet colours. Finland had bought helmets from several different nations in 1920's and 1930's, and thus the colours are bit random.


In my forces, only few men are wearing the light grey summer blouse, as opposed to the images in FoW-site, where everyone wears it...


The box didn't come with enough SMG's to my liking, so i converted few riflemen to have SMG instead.


The green-yellow spot in the sleeves and hats of my jägers is a unit patch, known as the Arrows of Lagus. Men in the armoured division wore this. Even today the conscripts serving in the armoured brigade sew this to their walking out uniform's sleeve.

More coming soon.

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| Epic Imperial Guard | Flames of War Finland |

Respect your comrades,
obey your superiors,
and fear those commissars.

A nice clean paint job and some good base work too sir.

Nicely done. Patches at 15mm! Makes me want to pull out my Fallschirmjager and finish them off.

Thank you for comments. This late war jäger company list is excellent. All units are fearless veterans, and I have access to all the best equipment Finland had, most of it bought from Germany during the late war. Naturally I am going to add all kinds of heavy stuff in time, but first I need the build up the strength by infantry.

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| Epic Imperial Guard | Flames of War Finland |

Respect your comrades,
obey your superiors,
and fear those commissars.

Great looking force. Have fun with it.

Next up and painted is a mortar platoon. It is just a shame that jäger companies can't have those excellent 120mm Tampella mortars, but the 81mm will do. At least these are a bit cheaper in points.


After taking these pictures I have coated these with matt varnish, which dulled the shine in those dark green bits, and made them look better in all ways. Note that one of the loaders has Lapland boots instead of Army issue boots.


Platoon leader and his assistant's converted SMG.


The forward observers come from the artillery, so they have red collar patches and the officer has red stripe in his trousers.


The radio is made of some plastic scrap, the wire antenna is made of a copper strand taken from electrical wiring. I made the frequencymeter and selector dial larger than normal just for looks.



These have a tad more grass than the 1st jäger platoon, as mortars are kept back in woods or somewhere else, so that the enemy does not have a line of sight on them.

Comments?

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| Epic Imperial Guard | Flames of War Finland |

Respect your comrades,
obey your superiors,
and fear those commissars.

Very nicely done sir. The detail you've got in there is amazing.

I wish I could find someone in my area to play FoW with, then I might get round to finishing my LW Germans.

Excellent work Rudolf
very good detail
now we want some tanks

Grand looking army, keep it up! MOAR!

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Thanks for comments. Tanks will come later, quite likely much later. I currently have few platoons worth of infantry on my workbench, waiting to be painted. But perhaps after them.

_________________
| Epic Imperial Guard | Flames of War Finland |

Respect your comrades,
obey your superiors,
and fear those commissars.

Time for more. This time I present you with a machinegun platoon. These will sweep the fields clear of the enemies. I did some conversion to these, since they came with the heavy wheeled Sokolov-mount. That would be good enough for some normal line infantry, but not for offensive operations the jägers do. So I crafted tripods from steel wire. I also replaced the bulky Soviet rear sights with Finnish-made vertical bar sights. Other modifications I made are smoothening the barrel sleeves, and adding filling caps to them.


Note the silver birch log and a three coloured camo on one loader's helmet.


Due to lack of officers, this platoon is lead by a staff sergeant. Casualties among junior officers were quite high during the war and NCO's were used where necessary.


A better view of the log. Also the squad leader has unshaved beard.

_________________
| Epic Imperial Guard | Flames of War Finland |

Respect your comrades,
obey your superiors,
and fear those commissars.

A brief history of the Finnish Armoured Division

Unlike bigger nations like Germany or Great Britain, Finland was only able to field one armoured division. This division was however considered an elite unit. During it's existence, the Armoured Division (Finnish: Panssaridivisioona) was commanded by major general Ruben Lagus. Lagus was also the first recipient of the Mannerheim Cross. He was sometimes called Finland's Rommel, a moniker well deserved.


Major general Ruben Lagus. Mannerheim Cross is the middle one on the left pocket.

The division was founded 28th of June 1942 in Petrozavodsk (back then renamed Äänislinna by Finns). When founded the division consisted of the elite 1st jäger brigade, a newly formed armoured brigade and some supporting units. I could write long histories about these units, but let's concentrate on the division as a whole. In November 1942 the division was moved to the river Svir as a reserve. During the winter it was used as a support in several skirmishes and counter attacks. The Soviets started a spring offensive in February 1943, and as expected, the division made counter attacks and provided support to infantry divisions. All kinds of patrolling, support providing etc kept the division busy until 1944.

After Soviet Union broke the Leningrad siege, Finnish General HQ started reinforcing Karelian Isthmus. This also meant that the Armoured Division was moved there. The division marched to Lappeenranta region, from where it was later sent closer to the front as Marshal Govorov's offensive begun. Most notable battles the division took part were the battle of Kuuterselkä in June 1944, and short after that the battle of Tali-Ihantala. The division took heavy casualties at Kuuterselkä, which is one of the bloodiest battles of Finnish history. Battle of Tali-Ihantala was the biggest battle of whole Scandinavia, that put a stop to Soviet offensive for good. The division performed numerous counter attacks and blasted enemy tanks. Especially the division's Stugs wrecked havoc amongst enemy tanks.

After those massive battles parts of the division were sent to support Finnish 3rd Corps at Vuosalmi area in July 1944. After a week of fighting the Soviet forces were stopped and could not advance further for the rest of the war. The Äyräpää area near Vuosalmi could not be taken back from the Red Army, but they could not conduct a proper breakthrough from there, so it was just a minor drawback. After situation on Karelian Isthmus stabilized, and the division was able to rest and reinforce itself. The Continuation War ended 19th September 1944.


The Armoured Division's warpath.

When the division was transferred to Karelian Isthmus it consisted of the following units:


The armoured brigade was commanded by colonel Sven Björkman. It's tank battalions had outdated T-26 light tanks, some T-28 tanks, captured T-34 medium tanks and some KV heavy tanks. The assault gun battalion had Stugs bought from Germany. The armoured AA-battery was equipped with Swedish Landsverk Anti II tanks. The 1st jäger brigade was commanded by colonel Albert Puroma. As you can see, the brigade is made of jäger battalions 2 to 5. 1st jäger battalion was a separate unit fighting in Northern Finland, and was never part of this brigade. The armoured division was one of the first to get new 75mm German anti-tank guns and 150mm howitzers. The separate tank company was equipped with BT-42 self-propelled howitzers. These wacky little tanks were created using the hull of BT-7 light tanks, and 114mm British howitzer in a Finnish-made turret.

Today the Armoured Brigade in Parolannummi upholds the traditions of the Armoured Division.

This little piece of history I wrote should give you some information about the division my company is from, and where it fought. Also this gives some idea about the last events of Finland's war againist Soviet Union. The peace with Soviets required Finland to drive away the Germans. That is known as Lappland War. But that is a different story altogether.

_________________
| Epic Imperial Guard | Flames of War Finland |

Respect your comrades,
obey your superiors,
and fear those commissars.

cool stuff

Thank you.

The next thing for this force is the command platoon. An experienced captain will lead the company from the front, while his second-in-command, a 1st lieutenant, is taking care of things on one of the flanks. Perhaps in the future I will add another panzerschreck team to this, to keep enemy tanks at bay. With the addition of this platoon, the force now totals 650 points.



The captain is accompanied by the company's quartermaster. The map actually has some different coloured shapes in it to look like a real map. The captain has a small decoration ribbons on his chest.


1st lieutenant and a medical NCO.


A better view of the medical NCO, also a sniper. From his foxhole, this guy will wreck havoc at the enemy. He also has a camocloth on his helmet.


Panzerschrecks are made of plastic tube and some very thin plasticard. The other loader is holding a rocket, and one is lying on the grass.


The camo pattern in the panzerschrecks is tad lighter and brighter than it really was, but looks good in this scale.

Next time, the objectives.

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| Epic Imperial Guard | Flames of War Finland |

Respect your comrades,
obey your superiors,
and fear those commissars.

Here come the objectives. An ammo dump and a field sauna!


A real ammo dump would be a bit deeper, but there was only that much space on the base.



The sauna has a detachable roof, showing the inside.


The stove and the stones are glowing hot red, this is necessary for effective cleansing.


Some wooden boxes and a metal one, with a light dusting. The abbreviation JVA means Jalkaväen Ampumatarvike, that is Infantry Ammunition in English.



So there we have it. Coming next, clanking treads, oily fumes and thick steel.

_________________
| Epic Imperial Guard | Flames of War Finland |

Respect your comrades,
obey your superiors,
and fear those commissars.