Minelaying Issues

[Gainful]

Greetings. My first post here, so forgive me for any mistakes.

Using latest build. There seems to be a problem with aircraft assigned to mining missions. I discovered this during a scenario where I was tasked to mine the entrance to a naval base to prevent ships from leaving. F/A-18Cs armed with Mk63 quickstrike mines were provided for the job. I created a mining mission and assigned them to it. Aircraft depart the carrier and head for the mission area as normal, but when they reach the area they don't properly drop the mines. They descend to low altitude, but then just buzz around the area like flies for a long period of time. They will either not drop the mines at all, or if they do, they'll drop them randomly at the edges of or outside the assigned area.

Just to make sure this wasn't an issue with that particular scenario, I created a new scenario in the editor, placed an airfield with F/A-18s, P-3s and S-3s all loaded with quickstrike and CAPTOR mines and assigned them to a mining mission. Same outcome. Seems to occur with all types of air dropped mines.

Also, how do you create a minelaying ship? I tried copying the ship in the mining tutorial, gave it the same mine weapon mounts and a mine magazine, but the ship doesn't lay mines like it does in the tutorial.

[BDukes]

Hi seeing the issue here, sort off.

Okay launched a pair or hornets on a mining mission. 4 mines are dropped but outside the designated zone while in descent. They then hit 200 ft and don't drop at all.

Maybe the loadout out alt doesn't = the mines minimum drop altitude so no chance to drop. IIRC there was something about sonobuoy and distance logic as well.

Save files attached a before and after attached. So no heckling the OP. He doesn't have enough posts yet anyways.

[Gainful]

ORIGINAL: BDukes

Maybe the loadout out alt doesn't = the mines minimum drop altitude so no chance to drop.

Yeah it says the Mk63 can't be dropped below 500ft so I changed the mission settings and entered 600ft as the station altitude. Doesn't work. Sometimes one plane will drop its mines but the rest don't. Interestingly, the P-3s in the mining tutorial work fine, yet I can't see any major differences in the mission doctrine.

[Dimitris]

Without opening the scenario, my first guess would be that the local water depth is too shallow / too deep for the selected mine type.

We may need a way to "validate mining area for selected mine type(s)" in the mission editor...

[Swant]

The water depth is ok (at least in part of the area). There is only one aircraft that drop its mines in a fligth of two. If you split the flight into single aircrafts they will both drop so that might be part of the problem

[Gainful]

ORIGINAL: Swant

The water depth is ok (at least in part of the area). There is only one aircraft that drop its mines in a fligth of two. If you split the flight into single aircrafts they will both drop so that might be part of the problem

I tried that. It works for the P-3s in the tutorial, but doesn't seem to work on any other occasion.

[BDukes]

ORIGINAL: Swant

The water depth is ok. There is only one aircraft that drop its mines in a flight of two. If you split the flight into single aircraft, they will both drop.

Yeah, thanks. I changed the flight size to 1, and both drop, although for some reason 1 drops 1 mine outside the designated area. The good news is that this is most end up where they're supposed to be.

Changing the weapon WRA did not work for flights of 2 either.

Mike

[michaelm75au]

It seems that only the group lead is dropping the mines (the other group members aren't dropping them).
And that there is a mission buffer area involved (which explains the 'outside' mission area).

[BDukes]

Ok thanks Michael!

Mike