I read in TEM #47 that there is interest in an analysis of the attitude of Sweden towards a Soviet occupation of Finland, and the probability of any Swedish military help to Finland.

All leading Swedes, both politicians and the military, were frightened of the thought of becoming a neighbor to the Soviet Union. In such a situation, the defense of Sweden would be very, very, problematic. Nevertheless I think it very unlikely that Sweden would have intervened in Finland even if Finland was seriously threatened. Some help in the form of equipment would probably have been given but not more. My reasons for this opinion are as follows:

During the war the overall goal of the Swedish government was to keep Sweden out of the war. In 1944 this policy had succeeded for the past five years, although from time to time Sweden had been forced to give up some of its neutrality. By then it was clear to everyone that Germany was going to lose the war. It's hard to believe that the Swedish government should change its policy at this time and enter the war on the losing side. Let us not forget that in 1940 Sweden had done nothing to help Norway or Denmark although a German occupation of Norway was an even bigger threat to Sweden's independence than a Soviet occupation of Finland.

In 1939-40, Sweden had sent a large number of volunteers and equipment to Finland when Finland was threatened during the Winter War. But by 1944 feelings in Sweden about Finland's war were much more negative. The biggest reason for this was that Finland now was allied with Germany.

As Lars Wistedt pointed out in his article "The Swedish Volunteer Corps in Finland" in TEM #46 it was much harder to find volunteers after June 1941, and the Swedish government wasn't willing to support the volunteers with as modern equipment as before.

When the situation at the Karelian front became more critical the Swedish government tried to convince the Finnish government that it should accept the harsh Soviet peace terms. The Finnish government didn't like this because they believed Sweden was only thinking of itself (true) and didn't understand Finland's difficulties. So there was a lot of tension between the two governments.

Leading Swedish politicians and military were afraid of as seeing Soviet troops at the other side of the Tornio river, and that Soviets would take control of the kiand islands. From here they could not only control the approaches to the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia, as well as the northern Baltic Sea, but they could also seriously threaten Swedens's capital, Stockholm, and the whole Swedish eastern coast. When the Finnish government offered a naval base at kland to the Soviets during their negotiations, instead of Porkkala as the Soviets demanded, Sweden protested strongly. Fortunately for Sweden, the Soviet Union insisted on Porkkala and got a base there.

The only action I think that Sweden might have taken if they believed the Soviets were about to conquer Finland would be to send troops to Aland to prevent the Soviets from doing so. There were no war plans in place for this eventuality, but this was the most likely action that the Swedes would have taken.

My best guess for an optional rule is something like this:

Every Axis turn there are any Soviet units within five hexes of Helsinki roll two dice. On a roll of four or less Sweden sends a force of 3 to 6 supported land strength points to the Aland islands.