The seventh battle in Finland was once more a delay, and many of the Soviet forces were beginning to doubt they'd live long enough to see another meeting engagement. Most of them were right.
Homer Jay's recce company had some horce races around the rear of the map, their task to protect the Soviet HQ from any Finnish breakthrough during what was sure to be a long battle.
Battleaxe's AA gun platoon was set up in ambush near the middle of the map and took out several Vickers tanks, their papier mache armor not up to the test of stopping even 37mm gun fire. In what was destined to be a much longer battle than the previous defense of the mountainside, a few men under Battleaxe's command suggested simply lobbing snowballs at the Vickers tanks to save their AP shells for real tanks that might show up, Finland having captured several Russian T-26 tanks.
von Mudra's AT gun battery was placed in tall grass towards the middle of the map and took out two Vickers tanks early in the fighting, working with Hjalrdgud's ski infantry company. And by "working with", I mean retreating at the first sign of trouble. Here you can see von Mudra's men, abandoning their guns and fleeing in terror:
Because of the dense woods and high morale of the enemy, flame tanks are often need to barbeque Finnish infantry. Here they worked hand-in-hand (and since none of the boys had been back to their wives and girlfriends in 4 months, occasionally hand-in-pants too) with LHeureux's conscripts company, the Meat Shield Division taking out with rifle fire and hand grenades any Finnish troops that had not been turned into ashes as the
Khimicheskiy tanks set the countryside on fire:
In classic piece of strategy, Finland concentrated the majority of their forces in the southern sector where there were the fewest objectives. Musti's BT company and Fuchs' paratroopers had been ordered to guard the high ground there and fighting here was the most fierce that took place anywhere in the battle. Musti lost two tanks to close assaults with molotovs and satchel charges and Fuchs' too lost a dozen men, but they were able to hold the line sufficiently to prevent the dirty Finns from taking any land claimed by the glorious Soviet Union.
Jimi Hendrix had the kill of the battle, knocking out a Finnish Vickers 6s tank at 950 meters not with the 45mm tank gun but with the big ol' 76mm KT-28, and with a HE shell, no less. Serzhant Tankbuster claimed no tanks but helped out Fuchs' paratroopers with heavy fire support.
Most surprisingly and most happily, the best part of the battle was that the Soviet artillery began to come into it's own. Although outnumbered by the amount of Finnish guns and mortars available, the lazy troopers under the command of Oberst's 76.2mm divisional gun battery, Graf Radetzky's 107mm howitzer battery and Afterdune's combo rifleman/mortar force rained down fire on the attack fins with devastating effect, and most notably, learned to relocate after firing. After repeatedly losing 10-20 field pieces each previous battle and sucking up most of the scrilla allocated for force repairs, the Soviet artillery lost just 3 pieces: 2 82mm mortars and one of Born2Kill's rocket battery.
Hot damn, a marginal victory!
The Soviets could not be too happy, though. The eighth battle they knew would be an advance to gain ground in preparation to capture a key part of the forest, and they knew they would be on the offensive for most of the next few days..
