Finnish Defence Forces in Twilight:2000

[Medic]

Since Finland has been rather minimally studied in the Twilight system in favor of U.S. and other larger contributors, I had the idea I would write up a small set of articles to correct that, should there be interest in that. So, this is kind of a poll about the whole thing. And anything I write is subject to discussion, should someone wish to do so.

I will be writing two different versions, one for the Twilight: 2000 and one for the Twilight: 2013, as the timelines differ from one another. And should someone wish to write a portion of it, I sure won't mind.

[Medic]

The Finnish Navy begun the Twilight War with an assortment of seaworthy vessels, of which some were close to the end of their natural lives. The battleplan for the Navy was to lay mines in to the archipelago on the coast, making it very difficult to advance to the coast, especially as coastal artillery units kept the only ways under constant supervision.

The long range capability of the Navy was restricted to the RBS-15 family of missiles, deployed on both a number of Fast Attack Crafts (Helsinki-class, pennants 60-63; Rauma-class, pennants 70-73; and the only Hamina-class vessel, FNS Hamina, completed before the war broke out) and by land-based platforms.

Mining capability was provided by the flagship FNS Pohjanmaa (01), Hämeenmaa-class (FNS Hämeenmaa 02 and FNS Uusimaa 05), as well as four remaining modified OSA-III -class missile boats that carried mines instead of their outdated missiles and the Pansio-class (FNS Pansio 876, FNS Pyhäranta 875 and FNS Porkkala 777). Also, the Navy owned two special vessels that had been used in Maritime Research and maintenance work, Hylje (799) and Halli (899) that had mine-laying capability.

General surveillance and protection of commercial vessels was provided by two Turunmaa-class Corvettes (FNS Turunmaa 03 and FNS Karjala 04), both quite outdated by the beginning of the war, being armed with only cannon armament. They were supported by newer two Kiisla-class (FCGS Kiisla 56 and FCGS Kurki 57) Patrol Craft the Finnish Coast Guard handed over to the Navy as well as five older Rymättylä-class (FNS Rymättylä 51, FNS Rihtniemi 52, FNS Ruissalo 53, FNS Raisio 54 and FNS Röyttä 55) Patrol Craft, also quite outdated.

There was also an assorted selection of minesweepers; Kuha-class (21-26) and Kiiski-class (521-527). The most interesting of the assorted ships was, however, the FNS Mursu (98), which was designated as Combat Diver Support Vessel and spent most of the time hiding in the Turku archipelago, training new combat divers.

The Navy suffered some losses in skirmishes with the Baltic Fleet, but also caused severe damage to the Baltic Fleet's capability of waging war. Actual sea battles in grand scale were not seen in the conflict, though fights between individual ships and some fights involving more than two ships did occur before the nuclear exchange.

The worst losses for Finnish Navy were FNS Karjala, when it was destroyed in late 1999 by a drift mine in the Baltic Sea while returning from an convoy escort mission to Gothenburg, Sweden, and three Helsinki-class boats, Helsinki, Turku and Kotka, lost in 1998 in series of skirmishes. The FCGS Kiisla was struck by a torpedo and destroyed protecting the FNS Pohjanmaa, fired by a Kilo-class diesel submarine before being destroyed itself by the Pohjanmaa taskforce.

Most of the ships did suffer damage in one form or another, but were salvageable. Lack of fuel, however, hampered the Navy activity since the late 1998. The Finnish refinery, Sköldvik, was left mostly intact, but as tankers stopped delivering crude oil, the refinery had little to process. This caused a decrease of activity on the Navy's part and increase of activity on the part of marauders, who rode the Baltic in the image of the pirates and vikings of the old.