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  Battle Of Finland Manual



New:  Finnish version by LLv26_xxxx



 


  Registration



  Battle Of Finland campaign registration is independent from forum registration. Forum has completely 
different database.



  Battle Of Finland is an online campaign, and games are started from HyperLobby.
So the very first thing to do, is to get the hyperlobby client software and register a pilot name. Click
on Hyperlobby button to get appropriate software:

        
HyperLobby






  To register in Battle Of Finland as pilot you have to fill the "Pilot register" form. You need to provide
you name (HyperLobby callsign) and a personal password. Additionally you can submit
your email address and a avatar image link. When this is done, you can edit you profile, join a
squad, create a squad, etc. 



  Notice that if you have already flown a Battle Of Finland mission you are automatically registered
as a pilot. Then the personal password assigned to you is your hyperlobby callsign (exact case). 
If this is your case, skip pilot registration and go straight to "edit pilot" so you can change you 
password and complete you additional information. Then you can join or create squadron.



  Squadron registration  **: If you are the Commanding Officer (CO) of a squadron, go to "Squadrons -> Register" 
and fill up the form with the squadron information. Once the form is completed you will
automatically be incorporated to the squadron as a CO and your statistics are moved to the squadron stats.
Then you can go to "Squadrons -> Edit" and add a XO to your squadron. The CO and XO can
accept pilot applications to the squadron. Once the pilot is accepted, the new pilot stats
will be attached to the squadron stats.



  Authorization Code is not needed. Contact LLv26_Reinman and/or 
LLv26_Ozz if any problems in registration.











 

  Create missions



  To create a mission, each side have to make an attack request. When both requests are done the one who is going to
host need "combines" both parts and downloads mission. This are the steps:



    

  1.  Open Generation page.
    2. 

  2.  Click on the appropriate slot for requesting (RED/BLUE) and give your registered callsign and its password when asked.
    3. 

  3.  A new page will appear showing the current states of airfields, cities, a front map and a supply map. Decide your attack mission and select the target from the
pulldown menu. Then, select the distribution of the airplanes (defend, attack). If you make a mistake for example the amount of aircraft is wrong -
the system will show an error screen that tells what went wrong.
    4. 

  4.  When the request is ready - accept it and you will get confirmation message then you will be forwarded back to generation main page.
    5. 

  5.  Once your request is sent, you will see green "ready" text beside your callsign. When both requests are made host will get
green "download" text beside his callsign and the mission is ready to download.
    6. 





  Notes:



  Request last 30 minutes, after that unused old request will be erased automatically.



  The total amount of planes must be predefined by host before requests are made. On the request
there is a entry "planes" so the planner can verify at requesting moment that the total plane
amount match the predefined ones. (6x6 8x8 10x10 12x12 etc...)



  The host needs not to make a request. It can be done by any other pilot.






  The plane distribution will be splitted in Defence and Attack missions.





  Each group has a max amount of planes of 8. For this reason, if you make a mission 16x16 the only 
distribution possible is 8 defenders + 8 attackers. In case you have 12 fighters mission (12x12) you 
can set defend-attack combinations: 8-4, 7-5, 6-6 ,5-7 or 4-8. In case you have 8 fighters options are: 
8-0, 7-1, 6-2, 5-3, 4-4, 3-5, 2-6, 1-7 or 0-8.







 


  Report missions



    

  1.   Load "Send Report" page.
    2. 

  2.   Find your eventlog file (coop.txt) and fill the mission number you are reporting (ex: bof_30278)
    3. 

  3.   Enter your name and password.
    4. 

  4.   Press send, and wait for the report result. This can take several seconds, up
to a minute, depending on the mission result and server load. This step can take some time
because new front lines needs to be plotted.
    5. 





  Notes:



  In case of restarted mission you don´t need to edit your eventlog file. The parser will seek
for the last mission matching the mission number.



  Is important to wait an ERROR message or a success status from parser. If not, the
images can be broken, not updated or maybe the mission incorrectly reported.








 


  Battle Of Finland: Introduction



  Do You want to fly over the biggest and the most beautiful maps in the game ? 
Push the enemy out of your territory? Do You want to fly hard offensive missions by destroying
enemy´s cities, airfields and field bases and their agressive ground troops? 
To play "chess of war" by planning intelligent missions that offers lots of exitement for all
participating pilots ? Being brave and honourable pilot by rescuing friendly pilots ?
If You answered "yes" most of the questions - Battle Of Finland is the right campaign for You.



  In Battle Of Finland, territory is divided in 10km x 10km sectors. Who dominates a
sector, dominates everything what it is in this sector: Cities, airfields and field
bases. Advance is obtained by capturing enemy sectors.



  The objective of Battle Of Finland is the conquest of the territory. Each map begins with a
balanced position to both sides. Once the campaign begins each side tries to advance on the
territory that the enemy control, and in the advance is seized the cities and the
airfields.



  You must occupy all the enemy towns or cities with supplies or destroy all the enemy airfields to
be successful. If one side (red or blue) lose all their airfields that will mean they are
defeated because they can´t give any air support to their ground forces. At the same time
if one side lose all their towns or cities they will be defeated because they won´t be
able to supply their ground forces.



  In both cases the campaign map which is being played is finished and the next planned map will
be soon ready to play again, unless that map was the last one in the campaign, and in that case
means the end of the actual campaign.



  The cities have a strategic value: The capacity to keep strong friendly troops in sectors
near the city. Each city has a supply radius. All the friendly sectors within
this operational range will have strongly armed field bases, creating in this way a
harder work to the enemy to attack those supplyed sectors.



  Both sides have also a Headquarters. The HQ acts mostly like a normal city with supply range, 
target areas etc. It´s real meaning is to effect virtual day change and daily recovery of
airfields and cities. If HQ is badly damaged, the daily recovery is poor because there is no 
commanding staff, communications etc.



  As it is told the sectors, cities and field bases are related between themselves: 
The domination of the sector that contains a city allows that that city belongs to us. 
The supply radius of the city allows to maintain armed field bases that fortify the defence 
of the sectors around mentioned city.



  Considering this interaction in the Battle Of Finland is the possibility of "strategic
attacks", that is to say, the attack to the cities to reduce its operational range and
soon to be able to advance to a less defenced enemy sectors. Also we have the possibility
of being able to supply our cities, increasing the fortified range and to provide
extensive sectors as a defence for the attacks of the enemy.



  The airfields play a very important role. In the measurement that our operative airfields 
are far away from the zones of conflict, it is more difficult to be able to give aerial
support. For that reason there is possibility of attack the airfields trying to make them
inoperative. There is also chance to supply the bases, to return their operative status back 
or to reduce the damages caused by the enemy.



  This introduction is for understanding general operation of the campaign. Next section
will explain more detailly attack types, consequences, amount of damages that can be obtained 
and other data necessary to consider the strategy of the game.





 


  Battle Of Finland: How does it work:



  In every mission, both sides will be asked to choose an attack target from the campaign map.
There are two different ways to perform an attack: Tactical attack (TA) and Strategic attack (SA).



  If you're trying to capture a map sector near the frontline, the attack is called tactical attack,
in that case a group of ground forces is sent to conquest the area 



  Otherwise, if you are attacking a city, a headquarters, a town or an airfield directly, in order to decrease their supply radius 
or their operational status, the attack is called strategic attack.



  Capturing enemy map ground and sea sectors:



  When one side is trying to conquest an enemy ground sector, the attacked sector must be in the front line of
the war map, and the only thing that side needs is to perform a tactical attack on that sector. Sea sector can
be attacked a bit further.



  When a tactical attack is made, ground forces or navy units are sent to that sector. The attacked sector can be or 
not to be inside the supply radius. If it is, attacking units will engage more enemy troops during the assault 
to that sector as well as enemy ground or torpedo attack planes trying to stop their advance.



  It is better to attack sector where the enemy have not any kind of supplies from their main towns/cities. 
Even when the enemy sector have not any supplies, it is possible to make unsuccessful assault if the enemy 
air forces are effective in their duty. That's why it is important always give aerial support to attacking 
ground forces.
 


  If the sector that is going to be attacked have less defencing ground forces, we can choose the enemy 
airfields around that area as a target of our next strategic attack and if we are successful enough in damaging 
the enemy airfields, we will force them to fly from distant airfields, maybe far enough to prevent them giving 
the needed air cover to that sector. Such thing will help us a lot giving us more chances to win at the end.



  The ground attack will be done with 9 tanks and additional vehicles (convoys). The survival limit for ground forces to take a 
sector will be at first about 60% of the amount of attacking tanks/vehicles. At sea sectors the will be 5 attacking
ships: 2 gunboats or destroyers and 3 merchant ships. More exact information will be given in "Manual Add-Ons" -part.


 


  Supply missions:



  To make a supply mission you have to select the SUM-"city_name" target. A flight of max 6 planes 
will be arranged or 5 supply columns if ground supply is requested. Supply mission can be done by human players or by AI pilots 
depending what the mission planner has requested. If human supply mission is requested, the remaining AI transport planes will not be 
counted as supply planes - they are only targets for enemy. The transport planes has to take off and fly to the WP on the 
city to make virtual supply drops. When You are close to the target point, less than 5km, you turn ON your wingtip smokes for a few seconds, 
then turn off. You have 3 smoke shots and at least one have to be inside the 5 km radius from target. 
Then you have to land at any friendly airfield you like, and that airfield will be supplyed too.



  In order to get a valid supply you have to load default weapons and 100% fuel. The supply has to be done 
inside the time limit that is shown in the briefing.



  If you are interested to supply an airfield only, select a supply mission to a city very close to the 
airfield that you like to supply. Then do the normal supply mission to the city and land to the interested 
airfield.



  Supply success is variable, for each plane accomplishing a mission will give 2~4% supply to city and 5% 
to landing airfield.


 


  Capturing towns/cities or airfields:



  If captured sector has a town/city or an airfield in it, those will be captured with their actual 
operational status as well. That means, if we are successful capturing an enemy city and in that moment 
its supply radius was 30 Km, we will get it with the same radius or damage percentage. If that sector had 
an airfield in it, but this one was destroyed, then it will be non operational for us as well.



  To capture a sector where a city is placed, the city has to have a damage greater than 50%. This is 
not required when making isolative captures.



  If you are defending a sector, there is a time limit: You have 40 minutes from mission start to destroy 
the enemy tanks incoming to sector. After that time, the tanks are counted as ground objetives, but they 
do not count to mission result.



  Multiple conquests:



  In the next image, blue side could get a multiple sector capture:







Red side has a bridgehead which can be encircled if the blue side attacks 
as the arrow shows in the next map image. If blue side captures that sector, 
also they will successfully encircle marked sector so they will capture both 
sectors after only one move:






If there are chances for the blue side to do that, red side should make a 
counter attack against that encircling movement and open an alternate supply 
route immediately, as is shown in the next image:








 


  Rescues:



  One have to remember that pilots that can be rescued are only the ones that IL2 stats confirm as captured. 
That is when you see a message in chat box "--- XXX has been captured by enemy forces". 
If that happens, and XXX pilot is from your own army, you can rescue him.



  To rescue a captured pilot you only have to land close to him - stop plane - wait him to reach your plane - 
takeoff and return to friendly base. That simulates the process of loading a pilot into your plane and take him home.



  This is how parser handles what happened:



    

  1.   It seeks MIA pilots place (coordinates)from logfile
    2. 

  2.   It seeks coordinates for landing place of rescuer - the moment when his speed is 0 km/h.
    3. 
If he taxis here and there and his speed drops to zero in wrong place - that will be the calculating "point" for distance.

  3.   If distance between those 2 points is more than 5000 m - pilot can not be rescued. One have to takeoff and land again.
    4. 

  4.   It looks after takeoff point and determines 1500m circle around it - calculating "loading" point
    5. 

  5.   Next the bailed pilots health is checked and his "ground speed" is determined
    6. 

  6.   Using values above parser calculates how long the rescuing pilot have to stay on ground
    7. 

  7.   If distance and time are ok and the rescuing pilot landed safely to homebase the rescue is successful
    8. 




  In next image, the blue dot represents a place where a plane takes off (in air). The orange circle is 
a 1500 meters radius, and circle limits are places were a plane can start roll to take off. 
For example, points A,B and C are 3 places where a plane can start to move, so later is "in air" at the blue dot. 
Any of this places in circle limit can be the place where a the pilot to be rescued can be loaded. The parser will assume best 
fit direction, so the start roll point will be always 1500 meters from take off point in direction of rescued pilot.







  When you are trying to rescue a pilot, the distance from where a pilot is captured to this loading point 
is measured.



  The loading points are the landing place and the best approach to takeoff circle limit. 
The lower distance is considered as the distance to walk (or run).



  Lets see some examples in image:







  The landing place is the big blue X and the takeoff place is the red X.
 

Pilot 3 is outside 5Km range, so is not possible to rescue him.

Pilot 1 has to walk/run 700 meters to the landing point.

Pilot 2 is close to the takeoff circle, about 1200 meters to point "A". So parser will assume you landed at blue X, and then you taxi to the point marked as A, where you later start rolling to takeoff.



  Now, we know where are the places a pilot can be loaded into plane, and the distance to walk, lets see how the captured pilot reach the plane.



  The pilot stated as captured can be healty, wounded or heavily wounded. This will decide how fast can the pilot walk or run towards 
the rescuer plane. A healty pilot can run at a speed of 5 meters per second (18km/h), a wounded can only walk at a speed of 2m/s (7.2 km/h as fast walk) 
and a heavily wounded can not move. In this last case, the pilot just landed goes runining where pilot heavily wounded is, and carry him back slow 
walking to the plane. The total speed of going running and comming back carring the pilot is considered in average a normal walk, but the distance 
is double, so final average speed assumed is 1m/s (3.6 km/h).



  So, we have the distance to walk and the walk/run speed, so there is a "time to captured pilot reach plane". You can't know exactly this 
time, but closer you land, lower the time you need to wait. If you are in coms, you can ask if pilot is wounded or not to get a clue about waiting time. 
(At end i post a table with values distance/speed/wait time).



  To simulate rescue, we asume that pilot start running (or walking) one minute before rescue plane lands towards landing direction. The only exeption 
if captured pilot is heavily wounded, and the start walk time starts when plane lands. This is because the just landed pilot has to walk to pickup wounded 
pilot, and that can only happen after he lands. The "walk time" stops 20 seconds before plane take off (asuming 20 seconds takeoff time).



  The new rescue system allows you to land before pilot reach the ground. For example, you can land when you see the chute going down. 
Land, close to the place where the chute will land, wait for him touch down, wait him to walk to plane and finally take off. In this cases, 
the "start time to walk" will happen as soon the chute touchs ground. The only problem by landing before, is you cant now if IL2 will stat that 
pilot as captured or not.



  No matter how close the landing point or takeoff points are to the rescue pilot, it always asumed a minium of 50 meters to walk. So always 
you have to wait between 10 seconds up to 50 seconds to pilot reach plane. But remember that pilot start walking when see your plane in approach 
to land (1 minute before you land) so wait time is little or none. Execption if pilot to rescue is heavy wounded.



  You can think that wait times are too long, but they are not,  because parser asumes best fit take off direction , you have a handicap of 
1.5 kilometers. In most cases you will land about 3km or less from pilot, taxi close to him, lets say  1km or less,  and later take off. 
In worst case you take off in oposite direction where captured player was. In this worst case, distance to walk will be 500 meters or less, 
so waiting time is between 1.7 minutes  up to 8.3 minutes, depending on pilot health. If pilot is not heavy wounded, the time to wait is 1 minute 
less, because we walking to your direction before you land. Check table for other distances.







  Most often cases, if you taxy to close point where pilot is, the distance to wal will be the minium (50 meters) and because pilots start 
walking before you land, wait state is depreciable. Only exeption is the heavy wounded pilots, where you has to wait more time.



  Below you can see how events are handled by parser with an example taken from mission bof_54096 used for testing.



Distance are in meters. 

Seconds are time in seconds relative to day start (hour 00:00:00)




14:18:48 LeLv69_Masi captured at [ 91828.68 , 22845.912 ]
14:20:18 LeLv28_Lana landed at   [ 90949.62 , 22897.652 ] inside 5km limit
14:23:06 LeLv28_Lana take off at [ 90016.07 , 22906.1   ] 
- distance to land place: 880  meters
- distance to toff place: 313  meters
- distance used: 313 meters
- captured_secs:51528   
- land_secs:51618   
- toff_secs:51786
- start_walk_secs:51558 (land secs - 60)
- stop_walk_secs=51766  (toff secs - 20)
- walk_time=208 ( stop_walk_secs - start_walk_secs )
- wounded=0   walk_speed=5  walk_distance=1040 meters
- Looking for LeLv28_Lana return to base: Found!

*** LeLv69_Masi rescued by LeLv28_Lana




  The 3 first lines are the 3 points coordinates (and times) involved in rescue. Later distances are measured, and the lower is taking 
into account. In this example, the takeoff point (-1500 meters) was at 313 meters. The walk time was 208 seconds (little more than 3 minutes). 
LeLv69_Masi walk speed was set to 5 meters/sec because he is not wounded, and that is  enought to cover a distance of 1040 meters. Since distance 
to load point is 313 meters ans it is lower than 1040 meters, is considered that LeLv69_Masi reach the plane. Later LeLv28_Lana returned to base 
the rescued is accomplished.



  Day Game time:



  There is a day-system in this game. Every single virtual day corresponds to a determined amount of missions. 
Now, the virtual day is 30 missions.



  Cities/towns and airfields recover defined percentage of damage by themselves every day changes in the game. The health of each team´s HQ
affects straightly to virtual day recovery - if HQ has 50% damage, daily recovery will be decreased 50%. Taking care of your own cities/towns 
or airfields, and stopping the enemy attacks to them is one of the most important tasks in the game. In the other hand, if you want to defeat the enemy 
definitely, you will have to do the opposite with their cities or airfields.



  Airfields:



  Airfields will be operational if their damage is LESS than 80% damage. Once this amount of damage is reached, that airfield will be non operational 
and no flights will have their departure point from that airfield but any friendly flight will be able to land there after the mission. The more damaged 
is the airfield, you will find less amount of AAA guns, artillery and objects.



  Cities/towns/headquarters:



  Cities, towns and headquarters work in the same way as the airfields. The more damaged they are, the less AAA guns, artillery or objectives you 
will find there.



  Each city/town has a maximum supply radius which depends of how important or big is that city or town. Any damaged to the cities will modify that 
radius in a percentage. Cities/towns are the ones in charge of supplying of food, ammo etc. to the ground troops, so the supply radius determines if 
one sector of the map is covered or defended by ground troops or not. Headquarters will give orders to make everything happen, if HQ is badly damaged
communications are lost, commanding staff have lots of casualties etc and daily recovery will be reduced.



  Flights:



  Any flight will have a defined minimum/maximum distance to the target zone, even if it is a defence or an attack flight. Sometimes you will find 
the target area is quite far away from the departure point so you will find at the same time that the landing airfield will be the closest possible 
to the selected attack or defence zone. With this feature, we try to simulate the real thought of looking for the closest landing airfield in order 
to end the mission as soon as possible.



  No flights will start from two enemy airfields too close to each other nor finish in an airfield too close to the target area because that 
is considered a high risk situation.



  Attack combinations & plane organization:



  Because of each side can choose their own kind of attack and their target, there are several mission possibilities:









Red armyBlue army



TacticalTactical



TacticalStrategic



StrategicTactical



StrategicStrategic








  
    
    
  1.   Tactical Vs. Tactical:
    
      
      In this case, both sides are trying to capture enemy sectors. The mission setup will be as follows:
    
      
      RED: A ground attack or torpedobomber group will try to destroy enemy troops/tanks/ships invading the Red army sector with or without
      escort fighters. This kind of mission is known as DEFENCE FLIGHT. In addition to it, there could be a fighter group
      trying to give aerial support to the Red army or navy attack in another sector (known as ATTACK FLIGHT).
    

      
      BLUE: A ground attack or torpedobomber group will try to destroy enemy troops/tanks/ships invading the Blue army sector with or without
      escort fighters. This kind of mission is known as DEFENCE FLIGHT. Also there could be a group of fighters giving
      aerial support to the Blue army or navy attack at the chosen sector (know as ATTACK FLIGHT).
    
    
    2. 

    
  2.   Red side: Tactical Vs. Blue side: Strategic
    
      
      In this case, red side troops are trying to conquest an enemy sector of the map, and in the other hand, blue army troops
      are attacking an red side town/city or airfield.
    
      
      RED: An interception group will be deployed near the town/city or airfield being attacked by the Blue army (DEFENCE FLIGHT), 
      and another fighter group will be deployed on the Red army attacked target sector, giving support to their own ground troops or navy (ATTACK
      FLIGHT).
    

      
      BLUE: A bomber group to perform the strategic attack (town/city/headquarters or airfield) with their fighter escorts (ATTACK FLIGHT) 
      and another ground attack or torpedobomber group and their fighter escorts too, trying to stop the Red army advancing troops or navy.
      (DEFENCE FLIGHT).
    
    
    3. 
    
  3.   Red side: Strategic Vs. Blue side: Tactical
    
      
      This kind of attack is quite similar to the previous one, but with each side's mission is upside down. Now, RED pilots will have two 
      bomber groups, each one with their own escort fighter group, being one whole flight an attack flight and the other one a defence flight. 
      BLUE side will be supplied with two fighter groups.
    
    
    4. 
    
  4.   Red side: Strategic Vs. Blue side: Strategic
    
    
      This is the last war situation possible in the game. In this case, both sides are trying to attack an area quite far away from their base airfields.
    
    
      Flights setup is as follows:
    
    
      RED: a bomber group with their escort fighter group (ATTACK FLIGHT) , and an interception fighter group (DEFENCE FLIGHT).
    
    
      BLUE: a bomber group with their escort fighter group (ATTACK FLIGHT) , and an interception fighter group(DEFENCE FLIGHT).
    
    
    5. 
  





 


  Rules:



  Pilots Rights:




  Pilot Obligations:




  Recommendations:




 


  Host Procedures:




 


  Host Settings recommendations:




 





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