Mine Clearing

TunnelRat · Post by **TunnelRat** » Sun Dec 24, 2000 2:39 am

SPWAW manual 4.0 states (page 77) that mine-clearing tanks, engineers and infantry may clear mines - tanks and engineers facing or inside mined hex and infantry inside. This is to happen automatically at end of a turn meeting the aforementioned specifications.

Is there a relative rate of clearance? Perhaps based upon the density of the mine field? I've noticed that my mine-rams and infantry aren't clearing mines completely at end of turn. Engineers seem to clear all at end of turn.

Can someone clarify this for me. Thanks.

kao16 · Post by **kao16** » Sun Dec 24, 2000 5:46 am

The best I have seen is an engineer clearing 4 mines in a turn. Having 3 engineer units clearing the same hex (3, 3, 4) can clear 10 mines from a hex per turn.

I know that when I buy mines they are deployed in groups of 5. Therefore, clearing <5 in a turn will not clear the hex no matter who does it.

Some nice people who shall remain nameless, when constructing senarios or campaigns cause mines to be deployed in 10's, 15's, 20's per hex.

IIRC mine clearing is a function of troop class (engineer vs non-engineer) and suppression. Numbers in the section may have an effect (e.g., full 10 man squad vs 4 surviving members)

Major Destruction · Post by **Major Destruction** » Sun Dec 24, 2000 7:41 am

I think you will find that the experience rating of the engineer unit plays an important role. The higher the experience, the higher the efficiency of the unit.
I expect that troop quality might also make some difference. Thus, minor nations might clear mines more slowly than the majors.

bravo.john · Post by **bravo.john** » Tue Dec 26, 2000 9:31 am

Originally posted by kao16:
I know that when I buy mines they are deployed in groups of 5. Therefore, clearing <5 in a turn will not clear the hex no matter who does it.

Do you realize that each mine point you buy is actually 10 mines? Putting 5 mines in a hex gives you a mine strength of 50. Takes quite a bit of time to clear 50 mines, especially when under enemy fire.

kao16 · Post by **kao16** » Tue Dec 26, 2000 11:00 am

Originally posted by bravo.john:
Do you realize that each mine point you buy is actually 10 mines? Putting 5 mines in a hex gives you a mine strength of 50. Takes quite a bit of time to clear 50 mines, especially when under enemy fire.

Incorrect (at least from a quick check). The message on the purchase page is "spend 10 pts to buy 5 mines" or some such.

Kluckenbill · Post by **Kluckenbill** » Tue Dec 26, 2000 7:32 pm

Here are some things I have experienced in Mine Clearing:

Engineers are the best clearing unit once they get there, but they are very slow on foot. Make sure you have them set to ckear and not to lay mines.

The mine clearing vehicles occasionaly hit a mine and blow up, this makes them somewhat less effecive than engineers.

Regular infantry, also special infantry such as Para's, SS etc. are much less effective than engineers, but better than nothing

MG and Snipers units don't clear mines, I think scouts do, but very poorly.

Motorcycles and jeeps usually find the mines when they hit them, scouts are reasonably good at finding mines without taking casualties.

Units clear mines much more quickly inside the hex than they do adjacent to it.

Stacking Engineers can clear a mined hex very quickly. In an assault, I like to find the mines with motorcycles or jeeps, smoke them for protection, shuttle my Engineers up in halftracks, then stack them 3 high to clear the mines.

Supressed units won't clear mines, also artillery can set off mines, so as a defender, you have a quandary: If you fire your artillery at the Engineers trying to clear the minefields, you may supress them into inactivity, but you may also clear your own mines with the explosions. Obviously it would be beter to suppress the Engineers with direct fire (MMG's are great for this) but if the attacker is using his smoke properly, this is unlikely.

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Target, Cease Fire !

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Tue Dec 26, 2000 8:13 pm

A couple of more notes here: You can set off a mine by "exiting" a hex known to have mines. Don't think you're safe just because you know absolutely that there is no mines in the hex to which you're moving to. "Crews" also clear mines, I have seen this personally, which, when you think about it, might be a good application outside of the tank that has entered the hex and blown a track. Yes, why not have the crews get out of the tank, who are not in a minehex, waiting, and join in on the mine clearing (assuming these units aren't spotted by the enemy)?

Daniel Oskar · Post by **Daniel Oskar** » Tue Dec 26, 2000 9:16 pm

Will a heavy volume of artillery directed at a mined hex reduce the mine density? I seem to remember that being the case in SP3.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Tue Dec 26, 2000 9:36 pm

Originally posted by Daniel Oskar:
Will a heavy volume of artillery directed at a mined hex reduce the mine density? I seem to remember that being the case in SP3.

I've seen comments that a feature of the later version of SPWAW is that heavy artillery will clear mines. My experience is that 150mm or larger will sometimes expose mines, that is a hex that I have not yet moved up to will now show the skull & bones of a minefield.

I have not done any extensive tests on actually clearing mines vice just exposing them. I am not sure how I would know the number of mines remaining after artillery fire to see if it had removed any.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

BlitzSS · Post by **BlitzSS** » Tue Dec 26, 2000 11:37 pm

I thought that regular (non Engineer) units had to be in the mined hex to attempt to clear mines, while Engineer units had to be in or adjacent but facing the mined hex.

The MSG · Post by **The MSG** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 12:04 am

Originally posted by kao16:

Incorrect (at least from a quick check). The message on the purchase page is "spend 10 pts to buy 5 mines" or some such.

No, you get 5 "construction" points for that price. Each of those points allows you to place mines, dragonteeth or wire in a single hex, and each placement gives you "10" mines, dragonteeth or wire there.

This is of course somewhat of an abstraction, since 10 dragonteeth in a 50 metre line wouldnt stop much unless theyre VERY large

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The MSG

Musashi · Post by **Musashi** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 12:42 am

I have not done any extensive tests on actually clearing mines vice just exposing them. I am not sure how I would know the number of mines remaining after artillery fire to see if it had removed any.

But this would explain some odd minefield arrangements I've seen after I've softened the enemy expected positions with lots of big guns. You'll turn up some mine hexes you are no where near. Also, I've found Isolated mines hexes that should logically be part of a larger "line". I've crept up on expected mine lines in Assaults and only found a few spots and major clear lanes. Ineffective placement or HE clearance? As mentioned need to experiment objectively.

Musashi

Major Destruction · Post by **Major Destruction** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 1:23 am

Originally posted by BlitzSS:
I thought that regular (non Engineer) units had to be in the mined hex to attempt to clear mines, while Engineer units had to be in or adjacent but facing the mined hex.

Correct

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 1:23 am

Musashi: It's also entirely possible that when you see lanes in a minefield, lanes which may not make sense, that either the craters have largely obscured them, or they just haven't been discovered and are in fact there. Sometimes, this, having to spin units around to see the harder to spot objects is annoying, and I've had unsuppressed engineers spun, and sit there for a turn, not see anything, and then spin it the next turn and then it spots the mines. I think that when we get an engineer adjacent to a mine we get the idea that the mine will always be spotted if the engineer hadn't moved that turn, but even after spinning the engineer AND being idle, I have seen that the minefield still wasn't spotted, and that's with experienced german engineers. I could be wrong, but that seems to be what I've observed.

Daniel Oskar · Post by **Daniel Oskar** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 1:28 am

I've seen the pre assault bombardment expose mines as well. I wonder if the big guns do reduce the density of the field, would big direct fire weapons like the SiG 33 do the same? It might be an express mine clearing method.

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 1:36 am

Originally posted by Daniel Oskar:
I've seen the pre assault bombardment expose mines as well. I wonder if the big guns do reduce the density of the field, would big direct fire weapons like the SiG 33 do the same? It might be an express mine clearing method.

I've done a lot of testing of the "Z" fire option - mostly main guns at hexes I know contain units, bunkers and I suppose mines, too. These were hexes I know contain the foregoing from playing the turn, so I went back and tried Z-fire on replay, when they are unspotted, or just plain not on the board.

Thus far, zero effect, the Z-fire neither exposes the units/bunkers/etc or has any effect whatsoever. I think that a bit odd, but there may be a perfectly valid reason for it.

Bing

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 1:47 am

Bing: What you say may be true, but then again you may not have suppressed the units enough. In any case, are you saying that it doesn't even suppress the enemy, not even one iota? Seems the manual states the contrary.

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 2:04 am

Originally posted by Charles22:
Bing: What you say may be true, but then again you may not have suppressed the units enough. In any case, are you saying that it doesn't even suppress the enemy, not even one iota? Seems the manual states the contrary.

Remember, these are units which are NOT visible.

My experience seems to indicate that firing at a blank hex - i.e. an unspotted unit/bunker/what have you - does absolutely nothing. Does not reveal the unit, does not affect the unit/et al in any way.

Others may have had different results, which I would like to hear about. I had thought that Z-fire WOULD at least reveal the unit, but that hasn't happened yet!

This is interesting to me, can we have more input?

Bing

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 2:37 am

Bing: I can prove you're wrong, at least in one respect. Opening bombardment, no units are seen and you find your units suprresed into oblivion. Now maybe regular guns firing direct are put into another class so that bombardment doesn't do anything, but I could swear that I've seen spotted units lose men for the bombardment, so why would the rules change if the unit were unspotted? You seem to be saying that direct-fire bombardment does nothing (at least against unspotted units), but if that were so, why have it as an option in the game? Perhaps when comparing a 75mm FH, to a 75mm Sherman, the Sherman direct-fire bombardment only has 1/2 the effect, but still there would be an effect.

[This message has been edited by Charles22 (edited December 26, 2000).]

Major Destruction · Post by **Major Destruction** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 2:44 am

Originally posted by Bing:

My experience seems to indicate that firing at a blank hex - i.e. an unspotted unit/bunker/what have you - does absolutely nothing. Does not reveal the unit, does not affect the unit/et al in any way.

Certain units do not provoke return fire from certain other units. You might get a concealed mmg to expose itself when you z-fire at it using your infantry. It is less likely to return fire if you z-fire at it using your tank.

If you suspect a unit in a hex, would you want to z-fire at it using your tank, only to find that the concealed unit is a 75mm ATG? Could prove expensive........

Always better to use your scouts to spot the unit visually. IMO.