FORMATIONS (TO&E), PART 3

World War II, Infantry

 

This page contains information about Finnish World War 2 era (infantry) divisions, infantry regiments and their sub-units. During World War 2 infantry division was the most typical large formation type for practically all countries - Finland included. The grand majority of Finnish infantry served in infantry regiments, which belonged to some certain division. Finnish Winter War era division and infantry regiment were much lighter and more weakly equipped armament-wise than their Soviet equivalents, hence the major improvement made by starting of Continuation War was giving them additional units, which gave them reasonable antitank- and antiaircraft-capacity, that they had been earlier lacking. Since the Soviets at the same time downsized their own divisions, in 1941 Finnish division actually ended up being larger than their Soviet equivalent. Around 1942 - 1943 Finnish Army downsized its divisions, but this was to release more manpower to home front, which was struggling to keep the military provided with weapons, food, ammunition and other equipment. While necessary, from purely military point of view this downsizing proved very poor idea, since it basically ruined the system in which way infantry regiments of division were used. After this downsizing divisions had only two infantry regiments, which made impossible the previous system of division typically using two of its regiments in frontline while keeping the third regiment as reserve. For all practical purposes this meant leaving divisions without their own reserves of useful size. At the same time Soviet infantry divisions developed to what could be described being close to brigade concept and relied more to firepower than manpower. During World War 2 Finnish Army also noted, that division was so large, that it was often difficult to command effectively. One solution for this problem was creating new (infantry) brigades around 1943 - 1944. These were units about size of infantry regiment, but with support units usually provided to Division. But the transition was not completed to many to of the designed brigades and this new formation type didn't replace divisions in Finnish Army until after World War 2. Compared to their Soviet equivalents Finnish divisions and infantry regiments were motorised in much lesser extent, even if the number of trucks in their use was considerably increased after Winter War (1939 - 1940).

During World War 2 notable changes were also in squad and platoon level to increase infantry firepower. The most important of these grass-root level improvement was replacing Winter War (1939 - 1940) era rifle squads and light machinegun squads for Continuation War (1941 - 1944) with rifle squad, which had both light machinegun and submachinegun. The reason for this was that during Winter War Finnish infantry platoons had typically found themselves with less firepower than their Soviet equivalent. Later during Continuation War the number of submachineguns in each rifle squad was also increased two and by this war ended orders for increasing their number to three per rifle squad had already been issued. According official organisation charts starting year 1941 each rifle squad was also officially to have one sniper, but since there was very small number of scoped sniper rifles available, they were not issued in this manner and this part of the official organisation was purely theoretical. As a compensation these "dedicated marksmen" (they did not usually have any real sniper training either) were issued a normal M/39 military rifle and served as normal infantry soldiers.

Finnish system for distributing fire support units to infantry was relatively flexible, but the fire support assets were rather light when compared to Soviet ones. While the Soviets had 76-mm regimental guns (infantry guns) and commonly used their antitank-guns as direct-fire support in the frontline, Finnish infantry did not usually have constant access to fire-support assets of this sort. Captured regimental guns were issued to field artillery and fortification artillery units and were therefore not part of "own" fire-support assets of infantry regiments or divisions. Antitank-guns were also concentrated for antitank-use and commonly using them also as direct-fire support became usual only during trench war period (1/1942 - 5/1944) of Continuation War. However when needed antitank-guns, anti-aircraft guns or field guns/howitzers could be used as fire-support in the frontline as operational basis. Most typical fire support assets to Finnish infantry included medium machineguns (mostly water-cooled 7.62-mm Maxim) and mortars. Battalion-level had machinegun company usually equipped with 12 medium machineguns, this company was almost never used in battle as a whole unit. The usual way of using Machinegun Company was temporarily subordinating its platoons and/or half-platoons to some specific rifle company or rifle platoon. In the similar manner FO (forward observation) team of mortar company or mortar platoon could be temporarily subordinated to some specific battalion or rifle company. Forward observation teams of field artillery units were temporarily subordinated to infantry units in similar manner and were usually the ones to call in artillery support. Since Finnish infantry had radios usually available only for Battalion HQ and higher, Finnish infantry units were poorly equipped to call in mortar or artillery support on their own while on the move. Only when field telephone lines had been set up (and they were working, since they were vulnerable to artillery fire and aerial bombardment) could even rifle platoons call in mortar and artillery support - and usually to only pre-plotted targets. If there was no field artillery forward observation team nearby and field telephone connection did not exist or was not in working condition for gaining artillery support the usual alternative was sending a messenger (runner) to reach either Battalion HQ or closest artillery FO-team. Another method often used in such situation was using pre-agreed combination of flares to call in artillery fire to certain pre-plotted targets. One could note that this lack radios in infantry platoons and companies also shows as messenger teams, which were very common in these levels.

 

PICTURE: Finnish infantry wearing snow camo taking a break. Badge with crossed rifles was a uniform marking for Finnish infantry. (SA-kuva photo archive, photo number 75727).

 

 

Division, 1939 - 1940:

Division Commander

Division HQ

Supplies Company

3 Infantry Regiments

Light Detachment

Field artillery Regiment

(Mortar Company) (*)

2 Engineer Companies

2 Signal Companies

(Detached Antitank-gun Company - 4 or 6 antitank-guns) (**)

 

(*) Notice: Included to some but not all organisation charts, so it is unclear how many divisions actually had a mortar company of this type. At least in theory this unit was supposed to have two mortar platoons each equipped with two long-range (long barrel) 81-mm mortars.

(**) Notice: Each division received one of these Detached Antitank-gun Companies by February of 1940, so many divisions didn't have this company before that.

 

Infantry Regiment, 1939 - 1940:

Regimental Commander

Regimental HQ (12 men)

Supplies Company (169 men)

3 Infantry Battalions

Mortar Company (83 men, 4 x 81 mm or 82 mm mortars)

Regimental Column

 

Rifle Company, 1939 - 1940:

Company Commander (pistol)

Command Squad

4 Rifle Platoons, in each platoon:

 

PICTURE: Finnish Army infantry platoon. Photo is probably from year 1941. (SA-kuva photo archive, photo number 39027).

 

Division, 1941:

Division Commander

Division HQ

Supplies Company

3 Infantry Regiments

Light Detachment

Field artillery Regiment (= 3 artillery battalions = 36 field guns/howitzers)

Heavy Artillery Battalion (= 12 field guns or howitzers)

Engineer Battalion

Signal Battalion

Antitank-gun Company (6 x antitank-gun)

Military Police Platoon

Anti-aircraft Machinegun Company (typically: 6 x 20-mm anti-aircraft gun + 6 x 7.62-mm anti-aircraft machinegun)

Field Kitchen Company

Ambulance Platoon

Field post office

Clothing depot

Field hospital

Ammunition supply Company

Vehicle repair shop for horse vehicles

Field hospital for horses

Truck Company

Motor vehicle repair shop

Fuel supply unit

 

Infantry Regiment, 1941:

Regimental Commander

Regimental HQ

Mortar Company

Antitank-gun Company (6 x antitank-gun)

Regimental (horse) vehicle column

3 Infantry Battalions

Regimental strength:

Regimental weaponry:

Notice: Weaponry changed a lot from 1941 to 1944, the largest change happened in amount of submachineguns, in which the average number climbed to over 500 in summer of 1944. At the same time amount of rifles decreased as submachineguns replaced them.

 

Rifle Company, 1941 - 1942:

Company Commander (pistol)

Command Squad

3 Rifle Platoons (4th Platoon usually only on paper), in each rifle platoon:

 

Division, 1942 - 1943:

Division Commander

Division HQ

Supplies Company

3 Infantry Regiments

Field artillery Regiment (=3 artillery battalions = 36 guns)

Heavy Artillery Battalion (= 12 guns)

Engineer Battalion

Signal Battalion

Antitank-gun Company (6 x antitank-gun)

Military Police Platoon

Anti-aircraft Machinegun Company

Field Kitchen Company

Ambulance Platoon

Field post office

Clothing depot

Field hospital

Ammunition supply Company

Vehicle repair shop for horse vehicles

Field hospital for horses

Truck Company

Motor vehicle repair shop

Fuel supply unit

 

Infantry Regiment, 1942 - 1943:

Regimental Commander

Regimental HQ

Mortar Company (6 - 9 x 120mm mortars)

Antitank-gun Company (6 x antitank-gun)

Regimental (horse) vehicle column

2 or 3 Infantry Battalions

 

Infantry Company, 1943 - 1944:

Company Commander (pistol)

Command Squad

3 Rifle Platoons (4th Platoon usually only on paper), in each rifle platoon

 

 

Division, 1944:

Division Commander

Division HQ

Supplies Company

2 Infantry Regiments

Detached (infantry) Battalion

Field artillery Regiment (= 3 artillery battalions = 36 guns/howitzers)

Heavy Artillery Battalion (= 12 guns/howitzers)

Heavy Mortar Company (120 mm mortars)

Engineer Battalion

Signal Battalion

2 AT-Gun Companies (6 x antitank-gun in each company)

Military Police Platoon

AAMG Company

Field Kitchen Company

Ambulance Platoon

Field post office

Clothing depot

Field hospital

Ammunition supply Company

Vehicle repair shop for horse vehicles

Field hospital for horses

Truck Company

Motor vehicle repair shop

Fuel supply unit

 

Infantry Regiment, 1944:

Regimental Commander

Regimental HQ

Mortar Company (6 - 9 x 120mm mortars)

AT-Gun Company (6 x antitank-gun)

Regimental (horse) vehicle column

3 Infantry Battalions

 

Mortar Company of Infantry Regiment, 1939 - 1940:

Company Commander (pistol)

Command Squad

2 Mortar Platoons, in each Mortar Platoon:

Supplies Platoon

 

Mortar Platoon of Infantry Battalion belonging to Infantry Regiment, 1941:

Command Squad

3 Mortar Squads (One 81mm mortar / Squad)

 

PICTURE: Infantry also has its heavy weapons, which were crew served. Maxim machinegun was the most common heavy machinegun of Finnish Army during World War 2. (SA-kuva photo archive, photo number 27892).

 

 

Machinegun Company, 1939 - 1940:

Company commander (pistol)

HQ Squad

3 Machinegun Platoons, in each MG-platoon:

Supplies Platoon

 

Machinegun Company, August 1942:

Command Squad

3 Machinegun Platoons, in each MG-platoon:

Antitank Platoon

 

Machinegun Company, 1944:

Command Squad

3 Machinegun Platoons, in each MG-platoon:

Antitank Platoon

 

 

Brigade, 1943 - 1944:

(TO&E of 15th, 19th, 20th and 21st Brigade)

Brigade HQ

4 Infantry Battalions

AT-Gun Company (6 x at-gun)

Mortar Company (4 - 9 x 120 mm mortars)

Light Artillery Battalion (typically: 12 light field guns or light howitzers)

Heavy Artillery Battalion (typically: 12 heavy howitzers)

Signal Company

Engineer Company

Supply Column

2 Field Hospital Units

 

Last updated 5th of November 2016
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Copyrights (text and graphics): Jaeger Platoon Website. Copyrights of photographs vary on case to case basis and are marked along each picture.