Well it arrived a few weeks ago – the new rule set from Two Fat Lardies (well actually Reisswitz Press) and this morning I had a read through and watched some of the videos available on the internet (Look for . It seems really interesting – new in terms of scale and some of the mechanics but familiar in terms of some elements of the Lardies rule sets I have come to like. But more about that when I have actually played the game and know what I am talking about.

Here are a few good starting points if you want to know more before you buy or getting up to speed once you got the rules.

My current WW2 collection consist of a large number of different platoons in 15mm (varying between 1 and 2 per theatre and period), including Finnish and Soviets (Winter War and Continuation War), German (Early, Mid and Late), British (early war), French (early war), Greek (early war), Italian (early war) and of course two Swedish Platoons.

Well, it took me about two minutes to decide to make this as a Sweden 1943 project and in 15mm, as I already have all the tanks, etc I would need and in essence would only need to do some more infantry on bigger bases (than the individually based I have for my platoon) which is something as was planning to do upscaling the toys to be in used for IABSM (the Company Level game by Too Fat Lardies).

I thought I share this as an example on how you could take a rule set and its army lists as a basis for developing your own for nations or theatre specific situations that are not covered by a set of base rules and also in this this case very unlikely to show up in future supplements. If you are doing a ‘What-if project’ for a German invasion of Sweden in 1943, you are probably on your own. But to me this is a lot of fun in its own right. It would be interesting to see a Finnish Continuation War Organisation at some point too.

The Swedish Infantry Regiment

The Swedish infantry regiment in line with the 1943M organisation consisted of the following high level elements (from April 1943).

• Regimental HQ
• MG Company (consisting of 3 No. MG platoons, with 2 sections of two MGs (normally the m/36))
• Specialist company – heavy weapons company (AT Platoon with 6 No. Bofors m/AT guns). AAMG Platoon with 4 No. AAMG on Tripods, Pioneer Platoon (w. 5 flamethrowers), Heavy Mortar Platoon, 3 120mm m/41 mortars with FO, AA Gun Platoon, 4 No. 20mm Bofors m/40, on Tripod
• 1st Battalion – more detail on the battalion below, but basically, HQ, 1 No. Jager Platoon, 3 No. Rifle Company and 1 No. Heavy Company.
• 2nd Battalion – as above
• 3rd Battaltion – as above

An Infantry battalion

The infantry battalion, which will form the basis of the units you will have on the table consisted of.

• Battalion HQ
• 1 No. Jager Platoon – consisting of Platoon HQ and 3 sections
• 3 No. Rifle Company (Skyttekompani), each with
  • Company HQ
  • 4 No. Platoons, each with
    • Platoon HQ
    • 4 Rifle Sections
    • Specialist Section – 1 No. AT Rifle and 1 No. 47mm Mortar
  • Weapons Platoon
    • MG Section – 2 No. MGs (m/36 or m/42)
    • Mortar Section – 1 No. 80mm m/29 Mortar
• 1 No. Heavy Company (Tunga Kompaniet)
  • Company HQ
  • Mortar Platoon
    • 2 No. Sections of 2 No. 80mm m/29 Mortars
  • AA/AT Platoon
    • AA/AT Platoon with 4 No. Bofors m/40 Guns (Tripods)
  • MG Platoon (Kulsprutekompani)
    • MG Section – 2 No. m/36 MG

So how do we translate this into the O Group Framework, well studying how for example a typical German Infantry Battalion has been structured I have come up with a first framework enough to get some miniatures done. I will flesh this out with stats and costs later but I think this is a good start. Note that the There are no Artillery support at Regimental level, the extra punch is provided by the high number of mortars, including the 120mm Mortars. I believe this would have been effective and possibly used with the same devastating effect as the Finns used theirs. I need to do further research on the Divisional support list as currently I have limited information on the organisation and operations above regimental level, but this will get me started.

So, if you do have some further information or ideas, please do a comment for this post or use the contact form on the blog.

I am going to get myself some Battlefront Italians for this project right now.

/ Hope that is of some interest.

Sources

• Pictures above are from Krigsarkivet (Military Archives of Sweden, link here) and I have borrowed them from the eminent page Tornsvalan about Sweden during the war years, link here.

• ‘O’ Group – Wargames Rules for Battalion Size Actions in World War II (2021), by David C.R. Brown, Reisswitz Press. Link here.

• An Introduction to The Royal Swedish Army in WWII – really useful resource link here. I used their listing of the M1943 as a basis for the presentation above.

• Infanterireglemente (InfR) – Regemente I (InfR I) – 1945 – This shows the M1943 organisation and details some of the aspects that are not covered in the link above. Difficult to get hold off but occassionally some of the regulations do show up on https://www.bokborsen.se/.

• En svensk tiger : hårda fakta och siffror över svensk beredskap och upprustning 1939-1945 (2014) by Sven-Åke Bengtsson.
  
• For further information at Platoon level, I did a blog earlier here that may be of interest (Latest Swedish Infantry Platoon Lists 1940-45 for Chain of Command)