Finally Global War campaign is on with my friend. I play Axis and I'm a novice. My friend is a veteran. I went trough the strategy discussion and decided not to let USSR have Finnish borderlands. My friend was surprised and did not sound happy when he had a war with Finland
Now I'm going to transport 2 units (combat values 5 and 6) from Poland to make sure Finland wont fall... I have all my units defending capital in Finland. At the start of Nov/Dec 39 Poland has fallen and Yugoslavia (hopefully) falls very soon...
And the questions: USSR usually gives peace at some point if they cannot conquer Finland? And after that I transport those winterized units to Poland to get ready for Barbarossa? Anybody ever seen USSR leaving units to Finland (and USSR borders to prevent attack) so that there is no peace? I guess that would also be a good thing for me as they have less units against my Barbarossa?
From Froonp's reply: It is generaly a bad idea to attack Finland before Barbarossa. There is close to no advantages and nearly only drawbacks.
I wish that comes true now...
If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush.
Just make sure the logistics work out. Probably the best way to ship your men over is to have both the TRS and the amph in the same port, with your peacekeepers, take a combined, ship them out laden, move the Finns out and then disembark at sea the news guys into Helsinki.
Now, the German player can force a peace during the peace phase (end of turn) if the Soviets haven't gotten out of the area marked as the Finnish Borderlands. If you can do this, you probably ought to, he's then given up 1.7 USE chits for basically nothing, and if any Finnish units die, they're instantly re-built when you re-align the country. OTOH, keeping the war going increases the likelihood of the Soviets taking losses, which they really can't afford.
And I disagree with Froonp, even though I regard him highly as a player. Attacking Finland gives you the possibility of knocking the Finns out, which makes Leningrad far more secure. It also allows the British to land up in Petsamo (I think the USSR has to be active to be be able to do that, but I'm not 100% sure), and guard the arctic convoys with real land based airpower, making that route far more secure; it also doubles your capacity for LL when the major port is iced in.
You sure he didn't mean Bessarabia? I mean, I thought a lot of people went after the Finns in 1940, but it's the Romanians who are the low-hanging fruit. I almost always demand the Finnish borderlands in JA 40, and I'm quite ready to kick their asses if they refuse to hand over my turf; and that's before the wider map that MWiF uses. I haven't done the calculations myself, but generally, adopting the European mapscale lets you use your larger army more effectively.
Edit: But to answer your questions, it's the German player, not the Soviet player, who decides if the war ends. And if the Soviets take the borderlands, they'll almost always leave 2 units in Vyborg, at least in the old map. On the new one, that might not be a good idea anymore. But that won't change the peace prospects. And don't forget, once the real war starts, you'll be aligning Finland anyway, so all those units he has up there guard against your attack on his northern flank, they're not completely wasted.
"When beset by danger,
When in deadly doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout."
I am looking forward to seeing how this works on the new map. (About six more weeks of 70 hour weeks for me yet before I get a new laptop).
As the Germans, I would always keep the Konigsberg MIL and another GARR or MIL in Konigsberg. And I wouldn't land them in Helsinki, I would put them directly in front of the Russians. Repeatedly, as in when the first two German units are killed, I would send more. The Germans' ultimate opponent is nearly always the USSR, so the sooner you start fighting them the better. Perhaps if the Russians look really, really prepared to blitzkrieg Finland on the first impulse of May/Jun 40 with a good weather roll, I might give them the Borderlands, if all the other areas of possible Russian activity from the Far East Maritime province to the Chinese Eastern Railway to Si-An / Lanchow to the Persian borders are all very quiet.
As the Russians, I have swung around to an operation in Finland in 1940. It risks a US Entry hit of course, but this is one of the few Allied decisions where I would do this. I would prepare strong for that opportunity in M/J 40, being careful to have a couple motorized divisions on hand as loss takers while Zhukov blitzes his way forward on the narrow front, as well as leg infantry divisions to land elsewhere on the Finnish coast, and Cavalry at multiple points north, probably with Timoshenko hovering on a rail line somewhere.
But I wouldn't care what the Axis response is. If the Germans come in strong as I described, that would be fine. My goals would be to 1) not take casualties. 2) secure the rail link to Murmansk on the first 2 impulses of Barbarossa. So two factories could be railed there, which is the best place to put them, far better than Siberia, Archangel, or the Trans-Caucasus. And the Axis would probably think my goal is to take Helsinki, which isn't necessary to meet those first two goals. The Finns would likely huddle up around their capital and indeed would have little choice in that regard, while the Russian cavalry secured the few things they would want in the north while maintaining a minimal ZoC lock garrison to keep Finnish PARTisans from causing too much trouble. The Red Air Force could also be used profitably in keeping the Finns from causing any problems while the main event is awaited, as the Luftwaffe couldn't fly over Russian units.