Mines

[SargeantTex]

what is the normal sive minefield a ship makes and if you assign a large amount of ships to the TF will it increase the size of the field there are several areas on my map I am planning to try and cut off from passage.

[Sardaukar]

Well, that depends how large and how many minelayers you have in TF. Each ship lays as many mines as specified in the ship data screen. In CHS scen there is some very large ML ships, laying up to 500 mines.

[Yamato hugger]

click on the ship. Its mine load with be listed with all the other weapon systems. Each class has its own unique number.

[Drex]

Each class of minelayer carries a certain number of mines. to lay large mainefields, group minelayers of the same or similar endurance together and send them out in a single TF. I believe each trip produces a separate minefield rather than a cumulative minelfield. At least this was what happened in UV.

[siRkid]

It doesn't matter if you use one ship or 20 the entire 60NM hex will be considered mined. However, the number of mines you have in a hex does affect the chance of a ship hitting one.

[Drex]

That's even better. then each hex is considered one minefield. Still, using 20 ships is better than one because quantity does matter.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Kid

It doesn't matter if you use one ship or 20 the entire 60NM hex will be considered mined. However, the number of mines you have in a hex does affect the chance of a ship hitting one.

That explains why my bombardments several miles off the coast hit mines! [:@] Isn´t that weird? Are there any historical facts where the minefield was e.g. 59 miles away from the harbour in the middle of the ocean? I don´t understand this! If I would set escorts to bombard, oh well, perhaps they would go too close in, but BBs and CAs should stay away far enough! And they surely should stay far enough away when they know that there´s a minefield!

For me is this rule, that 3600 square miles are mined, ridicoulos.

[AmiralLaurent]

I disagree. Minefields were usually laid to protect a base vs bombardment and may be miles off at sea. In my own experience I bombarded many bases covered by 1000+ mines for days with "escort off" and never saw any ship hitting one. BBs should run into minefields from time to time.
On the other hand one of my BB returning home hit a Mk10 mine laid by an Allied sub off my port. This hit the ammunition magazine and BOOOOOMMMMMMM.... no more BB.

[tabpub]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Kid

It doesn't matter if you use one ship or 20 the entire 60NM hex will be considered mined. However, the number of mines you have in a hex does affect the chance of a ship hitting one.

That explains why my bombardments several miles off the coast hit mines! [:@] Isn´t that weird? Are there any historical facts where the minefield was e.g. 59 miles away from the harbour in the middle of the ocean? I don´t understand this! If I would set escorts to bombard, oh well, perhaps they would go too close in, but BBs and CAs should stay away far enough! And they surely should stay far enough away when they know that there´s a minefield!

For me is this rule, that 3600 square miles are mined, ridicoulos.

First, the hex is unitary; there are no discrete points within a hex. You are either in it or not. There is no other way to handle it in the program; it just knows that there are ships there to be hit.
Second, <this is speculative on my part> different missions seem to have different "modifiers" to hit mines.
Transport type mission unloading is really high based on what I have seen and heard.
Bombardment would be high also, especially with escorts on.
On the other end, any sub mission or air combat seem less vulnerable to being hit.

Along those lines, the only effective mines are really dense; personally, I have had a 6000 mine field off Surabaya sink or damage 3 out of 3 DD's that entered the hex; I remember seeing an AAR type report (String, I think) that had 5000 off an island that had real success.

The methodology that the program uses is not known to me. One presumes it is a factor of amount of mines vs. the mission the TF is on with location (base vs. non-base) being a factor (base being moored variety and non-base are free floaters).

In closing, when thinking about a base hex, don't consider the entire hex as being in play. There is a point in the hex (base) and the mines are protecting it; the closer a mission has to be to the base---Transport<Bombardment<SurfCombat<AirTF just gives it a higher multiplier to the chance of striking a mine.

[testarossa]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

That explains why my bombardments several miles off the coast hit mines! [:@]

Chose option "escorts bombard-no". This will make only CLs, CAs, and BBs bombard and therefore greatly reduce the chance of hitting mine. The best way is to put only BBs (5-7) and DDs only. In this case BBs will bombard from 40 miles distance. I played two PBEMs with regular use of bombardments against heavily mined bases and haven't seen a single hit. Some people claim they hit mines sometimes. Still probability of BB hitting a mine while bombarding is close to zero.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: testarossa

ORIGINAL: castor troy

That explains why my bombardments several miles off the coast hit mines! [:@]

Chose option "escorts bombard-no". This will make only CLs, CAs, and BBs bombard and therefore greatly reduce the chance of hitting mine. The best way is to put only BBs (5-7) and DDs only. In this case BBs will bombard from 40 miles distance. I played two PBEMs with regular use of bombardments against heavily mined bases and haven't seen a single hit. Some people claim they hit mines sometimes. Still probability of BB hitting a mine while bombarding is close to zero.

Please reread my post again! I said I would perhaps understand it if I would set escorts to bombard. But I don´t set them to bombard and that´s why I couldn´t understand why my BBs or CAs hit mines doing bombardments far off the coast! Now I understand, because an area of 3600 square miles is mined!!!! [8|]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: testarossa

ORIGINAL: castor troy

That explains why my bombardments several miles off the coast hit mines! [:@]

Chose option "escorts bombard-no". This will make only CLs, CAs, and BBs bombard and therefore greatly reduce the chance of hitting mine. The best way is to put only BBs (5-7) and DDs only. In this case BBs will bombard from 40 miles distance. I played two PBEMs with regular use of bombardments against heavily mined bases and haven't seen a single hit. Some people claim they hit mines sometimes. Still probability of BB hitting a mine while bombarding is close to zero.

Please read my post again! I set escorts to NOT bombard!

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent

I disagree. Minefields were usually laid to protect a base vs bombardment and may be miles off at sea. In my own experience I bombarded many bases covered by 1000+ mines for days with "escort off" and never saw any ship hitting one. BBs should run into minefields from time to time.
On the other hand one of my BB returning home hit a Mk10 mine laid by an Allied sub off my port. This hit the ammunition magazine and BOOOOOMMMMMMM.... no more BB.

In my game against Wolfpack I had 2 BBs and 3 CAs hit mines when bombarding Baker. So 5 heavy ships damaged (some heavily) out of 4 bombardments! He said there are about 2000 mines! I set escorts to not bombard! Hey that´s realistic! Or historic? Oh we know there´s a minefield but we go right into it three times more. But is it possible that there´s a minefield 10 miles off the coast? All around the island?

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent

I disagree. Minefields were usually laid to protect a base vs bombardment and may be miles off at sea. In my own experience I bombarded many bases covered by 1000+ mines for days with "escort off" and never saw any ship hitting one. BBs should run into minefields from time to time.
On the other hand one of my BB returning home hit a Mk10 mine laid by an Allied sub off my port. This hit the ammunition magazine and BOOOOOMMMMMMM.... no more BB.

In my game against Wolfpack I had 2 BBs and 3 CAs hit mines when bombarding Baker. So 5 heavy ships damaged (some heavily) out of 4 bombardments! He said there are about 2000 mines! I set escorts to not bombard! Hey that´s realistic! Or historic? Oh we know there´s a minefield but we go right into it three times more. But is it possible that there´s a minefield 10 miles off the coast? All around the island?

Wolfpack is certainly lucky then. I have had opponents bombard bases with over 2000 mines over and over again with no hits at all. I know the mines were armed because I hit several DDs, APs and even MSWs when he came to invade, but by then it was too late to save the base since the defenses were pulp.

[anarchyintheuk]

If i understand what you're saying, you had a ship hit a mine on the first bombardment and you're blaming the system because when you sent in three more bombardment task forces into an area with mines they also hit mines? Do one of three things, clear the minefield, let it degrade or don't bombard at all.

Its unfortunate but ubermines are needed to help counter uberbombardments.

[Yamato hugger]

I have never seen a bombardment group hit a mine when escort is set to "off".

But then, I had never seen a sub hit a mine before, and then saw 3 in 3 consecutive days (in different games). All 3 were under 1.6

[tabpub]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent

I disagree. Minefields were usually laid to protect a base vs bombardment and may be miles off at sea. In my own experience I bombarded many bases covered by 1000+ mines for days with "escort off" and never saw any ship hitting one. BBs should run into minefields from time to time.
On the other hand one of my BB returning home hit a Mk10 mine laid by an Allied sub off my port. This hit the ammunition magazine and BOOOOOMMMMMMM.... no more BB.

In my game against Wolfpack I had 2 BBs and 3 CAs hit mines when bombarding Baker. So 5 heavy ships damaged (some heavily) out of 4 bombardments! He said there are about 2000 mines! I set escorts to not bombard! Hey that´s realistic! Or historic? Oh we know there´s a minefield but we go right into it three times more. But is it possible that there´s a minefield 10 miles off the coast? All around the island?

I have to do my math in English units, but I hope that you will bear with me.
10 miles off the coast and all around the island....ok, that gives you a perimeter or circumference of 62.8 miles, let's call it 60 for round numbers.
If the mines were laid in a single line at that distance, there would be 33 mines per mile of perimeter; basically 1 every 50 yards/meters or so. Sounds like a good chance to strike one on the way in.

Of course, that's a simple way to look at it. But, that is basically what the program is doing to some degree, with a random factor used in place of the old die roll(s).
Secondly, no one bombards shore targets from 10 miles out; inland shots of 10-15 miles, but that means standing in close to the beach. If the targets on the beach...5 miles or so for the heavy units down to 2-3 thousand yards (a mile or two) for the DD's. The DD's were liked as their fire could either be direct on the beach, or, if properly spotted, shot indirectly howitzer style to defilade areas that the heavy guns couldn't reach due to their flatter trajectory of shot.

So, reduce that circle down a bit, say to 7 miles and let's look at it as an area of the circle. A five mile circle has the area of 154 square miles, call it 150. But, lets take out the circle that represents the land, reef and lagoon....let's make it little 2x2 miles; 12.5 square miles, call it ten. Now you have 140 square miles of area covered by the 2000 mines that were mentioned. 14 mines to the square mile, which, if laid in a belt across that mile of water, would result in a mine every 125 yards (114 meters). Not really dense, but I wouldn't want to be sailing along at 24 knots in that water, especially at night.

Once again, this is just an illustration. I am sure that its all just numbers to the program.
Each mine has some % chance, like 1 in 10,000; 2000 mines would then be 1 in 5; then a modifier for mission type and settings, like transport times 2, air combat divided by 10 and so on; and then each ship in the TF rolls for an "encounter" and then the weapon data table is consulted...etc.

All this has gotten me all brain cramped....<makes a note to keep track of his MSW and DMS's better for the future>

[testarossa]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
Please read my post again! I set escorts to NOT bombard!

Please re-read my post too.

Having escorts to not bombard doesn't give you immunity because still bring your TF close to the shore because you have Cls and CAs (they have guns with shorter range than BBs), as tabpub explained the closer you to the shore the more chance you have to hit the minefield. Look at the guns data. Yamato has 45 miles range and so on.

BUT there is always a chance that you will hit a mine no matter what. It's just very small when you bombard from 40 miles.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: testarossa

ORIGINAL: castor troy
Please read my post again! I set escorts to NOT bombard!

Please re-read my post too.

Having escorts to not bombard doesn't give you immunity because still bring your TF close to the shore because you have Cls and CAs (they have guns with shorter range than BBs), as tabpub explained the closer you to the shore the more chance you have to hit the minefield. Look at the guns data. Yamato has 45 miles range and so on.

BUT there is always a chance that you will hit a mine no matter what. It's just very small when you bombard from 40 miles.

What in Gods name gives you the impression that you are bombarding from 40 miles out? Just because escorts arent bombarding, doesnt mean you are firing from the max range of your guns! Even with escort off, your BBs are using their 5 inchers, and that places them within 17,000 yards of the target MAXIMUM.

Get a grip. [:-]

With "escort off" your CLs still fire. Show me a WWII CL that can fire 40 miles please.

[String]

Bad luck on the players part which results in losses does not indicate bugs or game mechanic flaws