Scandinavian testers needed

[wulfir]

I guessed at the "Tank Battalion ÖN" and got pretty close. I figured on the Rail line taking iron ore south bringing back some armor so I replaced one Tank Co, with light tanks, thinking they could get more on the train.

During the Cold War Sweden practised a dispersed mobilisation of forces. Depots were established all over the country, most were camoflaged to look like farm buildings or other non-military installations. Those depots contained uniforms, weapons, vehicles and all the other gear neccessary.

Typically a soldier would have been instructed to rendezvous at some given location from where he would be transported to his mob depot. There he would slip on his uniform (probably an older type) zero his weapon and test the NBC protecitve gear. After that the unit would shake down and deploy to its wartime mission. Wartime units, contrary to the peacetime formations, did not mobilise at the regimental installations or other garrisons.

Because the north of Sweden is sparsly populated some of the manpower needed to man the units in the north had to be transported from the south. Likewise hospitals had to be emptied on patients and transported south to make hospital space availiable for wounded troops. To do this nearly every transport asset in society was conscripted - busses, trucks of trucking companies, trains, airplanes, even suitable private cars were assigned to the military. In the initial stages it would mostly be a question of transporting people as their gear was prepositioned, but in the later stages - in the counterattack phase - it would be neccessary to bring up the bulk of brigades from the south.