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RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:10 pm
by EUBanana
Wikipedia actually has an interesting article on naval mines...
Finally, in March 1945,
Operation Starvation began in earnest, using 160 of LeMay's
B-29 Superfortress bombers to attack Japan's inner zone. Almost half of the mines were the US-built Mark 25 model, carrying 1250 lbs of explosives and weighing about 2,000 lbs. Other mines used included the smaller 1,000 lb Mark 26.
[21] 15 B-29s were lost while 293 enemy merchant ships were sunk or damaged.
[22] 12,000 aerial mines were laid, a significant barrier to Japan's access to outside resources. Prince
Fumimaro Konoe said after the war that the aerial mining by B-29s had been "equally as effective as the B-29 attacks on Japanese industry at the closing stages of the war when all food supplies and critical material were prevented from reaching the Japanese home islands."
[23] The
United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific War) concluded that it would have been more efficient to combine the United States's effective
anti-shipping submarine effort with land- and carrier-based air power to strike harder against merchant shipping and begin a more extensive aerial mining campaign earlier in the war. Survey analysts projected that this would have starved Japan, forcing an earlier end to the war.
[24] After the war, Dr. Johnson looked at the Japan inner zone shipping results, comparing the total economic cost of submarine-delivered mines versus air-dropped mines and found that, though 1 in 12 submarine mines connected with the enemy as opposed to 1 in 21 for aircraft mines, the aerial mining operation was about ten times less expensive per enemy ton sunk.
[25]
1 in 12 sub mines scored a hit? thats far higher than I would have thought.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:14 pm
by Yamato hugger
ORIGINAL: EUBanana
1 in 12 sub mines scored a hit? thats far higher than I would have thought.
Not terribly surprising when you consider that the US ran less than 50 sub mine missions in the entire war (I dont know about Dutch and British boats) and therefore little to no effort would be wasted looking for them.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:51 pm
by JWE
Way over 70% of all the mines laid in the Pacific were laid in areas where game engine does not allow mines to be laid.
The game attempts to be as historical as possible, in those areas IN WHICH IT CAN.
In those areas in which it cannot, due to engine limitations, it must rely on a more simplistic approach. It is all well and good to hop on a high historical horse, but if the game cannot replicate every single historical factor, especially the most significant ones, then all of the historicity arguments become fun, informative, humorous, but in the main, irrelevant.
Please also not that, in accord with engine driven mine warfare, you get over 18,000 'free' mines, that are auto-generated at turn start, that can be maintained by intelligently deployed ACMs.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:54 pm
by EUBanana
ORIGINAL: JWE
Way over 70% of all the mines laid in the Pacific were laid in areas where game engine does not allow mines to be laid.
I get the impression that the majority are air dropped.
And air dropped naval mines have no limit at the moment, no?
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 4:17 pm
by Cap Mandrake
ORIGINAL: JWE
Way over 70% of all the mines laid in the Pacific were laid in areas where game engine does not allow mines to be laid.
The game attempts to be as historical as possible, in those areas IN WHICH IT CAN.
In those areas in which it cannot, due to engine limitations, it must rely on a more simplistic approach. It is all well and good to hop on a high historical horse, but if the game cannot replicate every single historical factor, especially the most significant ones, then all of the historicity arguments become fun, informative, humorous, but in the main, irrelevant.
Please also not that, in accord with engine driven mine warfare, you get over 18,000 'free' mines, that are auto-generated at turn start, that can be maintained by intelligently deployed ACMs.
That is a good point. There is no doubt that something needed to be done re. "Mines in the Pacific". How many times have you seen 10,000 mines protecting a 1/2 mile wide coral atoll sitting on top of a seamount where the water drops off to 5,000 ft 200 yds offhsore?
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 4:25 pm
by Sheytan
Bit too early isnt it to see the long term impact this may have, after all excluding the playtesters, does anyone know how reduced mines will play out over the duration of the campaign? Also it has been noted the Japanese didnt exactally seed the length and breadth of the Pacific with minefields.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:26 pm
by wworld7
Trusting Wiki is foolhardy.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:28 pm
by Terminus
ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
ORIGINAL: JWE
Way over 70% of all the mines laid in the Pacific were laid in areas where game engine does not allow mines to be laid.
The game attempts to be as historical as possible, in those areas IN WHICH IT CAN.
In those areas in which it cannot, due to engine limitations, it must rely on a more simplistic approach. It is all well and good to hop on a high historical horse, but if the game cannot replicate every single historical factor, especially the most significant ones, then all of the historicity arguments become fun, informative, humorous, but in the main, irrelevant.
Please also not that, in accord with engine driven mine warfare, you get over 18,000 'free' mines, that are auto-generated at turn start, that can be maintained by intelligently deployed ACMs.
That is a good point. There is no doubt that something needed to be done re. "Mines in the Pacific". How many times have you seen 10,000 mines protecting a 1/2 mile wide coral atoll sitting on top of a seamount where the water drops off to 5,000 ft 200 yds offhsore?
Plenty of times over the past 4 or 5 years, which is why we did what we did. It's not realistic.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:48 pm
by anarchyintheuk
ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger
I found some production figures once of Mk 6 mines, and in a 6 month period (in WW-I) they produced an average of 1500 mines a day.
That production was part of the idea to close the North Sea w/ a giant mine barrage (100-150k mines?). Wasn't one of the brightest or most economical ideas of the war. I know you're just using the figure as an example and I'm not saying that such production couldn't have been replicated or even approached in WW2 but there would have to have been a good reason to do so.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:59 pm
by Terminus
And there was none in WWII. WWI figures hardly apply in this case.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:18 pm
by JWE
ORIGINAL: Terminus
Plenty of times over the past 4 or 5 years, which is why we did what we did. It's not realistic.
I think Termie's comment is extremely well taken, but it needs to be expanded: "It's not realistic" needs to be expressed as "it cannot be realistic".
I know many people won't like this, but none of them were on the team, and none of them knew what we would have had to do to make it so.
Mines in the Pacific ain't a player. And that's a fact, Jack. Don't like it, it's Editor city.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:29 pm
by Speedysteve
FWIW I agree
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 8:26 pm
by wdolson
The vast majority of mines laid in the real world were defensive mine fields in extreme rear areas. Those minefields are laid automatically at the beginning of the game. Most of the mine production that is "missing" was used maintaining these fields.
The numbers a player gets in game is about what was available to use for offensive minefields or forward base defensive minefields.
As someone in this thread said, there is always the editor to change it if you don't like it. That's one of the strengths of this game, IMO. You get a powerful editor and the ability to change almost anything you want with devices and OOB.
Bill
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 8:29 pm
by pad152
That's what I did, I gave a production/replacement rate of 60 per month for each mine type. Thats only about two or three mine ops for each side each month.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 8:51 pm
by lostsm
ORIGINAL: Terminus
The idea was to turn the game away from Mines in the Pacific, like we used to have.
Not saying it absolutely, positively won't be changed, there's always room for tweaking, but let's see...
sounds good. i haven't been playing as long as many of you have, but it sounds like i won't have to deal with the mine laying micromanagement thing anymore; which i'm very happy about
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:02 pm
by Feltan
Well I won't say I am happy about this design decision.
I was hoping it would be toned down from WITP. Ideally, the Japanese player would be able to increase factory production of mines and take the HI hit -- essentially trading off mines for ships, planes, etc. I was hoping the remote Pacific Islands would be treated as deep water to prevent ubermining of areas that simply can't be effectively mined. However, I was assuming the design team would allow for the heavy defensive mining of the home islands and China/Formosa coast -- as actually happened.
I will withhold final judgement until I get a few years into the game, but I suspect the pendulum has swung too far into the anti-mine camp.
Regards,
Feltan
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:22 pm
by Yamato hugger
Well, let me say 2 things here. First of all, I didnt say that because of the WW-I figures that the WW-II figures were anything near that. I pointed out that mine production was cheap and fast and therefore in effect "unlimited".
Secondly, and perhaps more important and the point you all seem to be missing so I will say it again - slowly.
The point of mines isnt to cause casualties, it is to slow the other guys advance.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:32 pm
by Feltan
ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger
Well, let me say 2 things here. First of all, I didnt say that because of the WW-I figures that the WW-II figures were anything near that...
They didn't have to be, the mines and mine laying systems got better in inter-war years.
How many U-boats tried to run the channel or hug the east coast of England during WWII?
Regards,
Feltan
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 10:35 pm
by jimh009
I'm glad "Mines in the Pacific" is gone...and I can understand why Matrix dialed mine warfare back so dramatically. Perhaps in the next patch mine production can be somewhat increased for both sides. But, before doing that, all of us players need to see the impact of the new mine warefare levels first.
Additionally, perhaps another solution to the "mine problem" might be to keep the limited mine production in the game now(thus allowing players to create a few minefields where they want) while having a "semi-permanent" mine field in those locations that had them during the war. By semi-permanent, I mean the minefield stays at one level throughout the war until the opposing side clears it out. Thus, all the big Jap bases could have these semi-permanent mine fields (making things a bit hairy for allied submarines).
Anyways, just a thought.
RE: Ship mines too rare?
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:49 pm
by BrucePowers
Bill just told you you can use the editor to change mine production to whatever you want. You do not have to wait for a patch. Try it out, play with it, run a couple of test scenarios. You guys get to choose. The editor is there so you can do with your game whatever you want.