FoW Finnish NCOs weapons

[Sarmor]

I'm planning to make a small Finnish force for Chain of Command and I've decided to use Battlefront's older minis in summer uniforms. However, I need a good selection of rifles, LMGs and SMGs, and I'm not sure whether any of the packs contains all three of these weapons. So...

...could anyone tell me what kind of weapons are carried by NCO figures in these three sets:
FI702 Jalkaväki Platoon
FI703 Jääkari Platoon
FI706 Pioneer Platoon ?

[Dobbie71064]

NCOs in the basic infantry sets will likely have Soumi SMGs, the pioneers dont really have any obvious NCO models iirc. they might have a few with SMGs but i dont recall.

If you want a mix your best bet is FI702 Jalkaväki Platoon as it will have a officer with a pistol, LMGs, rifles and a model or two with satchel charges.

[NTM]

The NCO figs have a mix of SMG and rifle IIRC
FI703 has 8 SMG figs in addition to any NCO so armed but you don't get any LMG
FSO101 Command Pack is useful for additional NCO & SMG figs

[Sarmor]

Thanks guys.
I decided to go with Jalkavaki and Jaakari, that should give me enough SMGs and LMGs for 2 platoons (as per current Finnish CoC rules for Winter War) and for later platoons for the Continuation War.

[Nysse]

Not sure about the FoW blister contents, but here's just my two sents regarding Finnish equipment etc

During the war Finland didn't really use any theoretically "correct" equipment lists. SMG's and LMG's were handed out according to the needs and missions at hand. So SMG's might be given to anyone in the platoon according to what the leaders saw fit and it wasn't really a weapon handed automatically to the NCO's. At some points all the SMG's of a company might be given to a small group of men to perform some prisoner grabbing raid or what-not or then they might be spread evenly between the platoons. Adapting to situations is really the key and as such there aren't really any "correct" platoon equipment rosters.

Anyway on average during the Winter War a Finnish rifle platoon had around 2 SMG's and 2 LMG's. In the beginning the SMG's were used as a substitute for LMG's, but this changed when the men found out better ways to utilize it.

During the continuation war the amount of SMG's per platoon steadily increased from 3-4 in the beginning to having 1-2 per squad by the end of the war.

Officers usually only carried a pistol during Winter War and the start of the Continuation War. Especially the junior officers might have had their own rifles with them too, but they usually didn't have a rifle issued to them. By the end of the Continuation War Officers started to receive SMG's too.

[Sarmor]

Thanks for the info - it'll certainly be useful for designing rules for 1941+ Finns (unless TFL make them soon).

[Sarmor]

So I've bought the two platoons (plus an MG platoon for support) and I'm quite relieved, cause the minis look much better in real life than in the photos on Battlefront's site.

My only issue is the amount of poses of NCOs (2), SMG gunners (2) and LMG gunners (1). I know that there's a limited number of these in the units, but come on, they could've made at least one more sculpt of each! Especially that there are 4 different officer figures (counting the "special character")!

I've also noticed, that the special character from the Jääkari, capt. Törni, has a much larger base with some kind of a cross on it - does anyone have any idea what it is? Some kind of "hero emblem" in FoW or just a small base decoration?

[CaptainHaddonCollider]

The small medal is a medium of distinction in the game. But you can of course just remove it and use him as a normal officer.

Good luck with the Finns, I'm starting an army myself sometime when I get the money and the time for it! A gripping history - and an easy paintscheme to boot!

[Sarmor]

One last question before I start painting - the light gray summer tunic was usually worn by the whole platoon or could it be mixed with the darker one?

[Nysse]

The Finnish army was and still is quite lenient regarding uniforms. So both could easily be worn at the same time by different members. Also when you take into account the fact that there was never an abundance of equipment there were large variations on the shades of the tunics due to wear and tear.

[Verderer]

As far as I know, the summer tunic (which was more like a shirt) was a bit different from the cold weather wool tunic. Not only in colour, but if I recall correctly the summer tunic didn't have any hip pockets? But even if this was so, you be struggling to spot this in 15mm or 20mm minis, I bet? Especially if you have ammo pouches on top?

[Sarmor]

Thanks for pointing that out, I often forget about stuff like pockets etc, and concentrate on colours only.

[Dobbie71064]

The finnish army was very linante on uniform, especially earily on. For example in the Winter War it wasn't uncommon for soldiers to bring their winter snow suits from home or to bring jackets and what not from home.

It wouldnt be uncommon for you to vary the colour of your uniforms, im not sure how many soldiers would wear the wool uniform during the summer as it would just be too hot but each dye batch would be a slightly different colour.