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I ran across a Rand study on the US aerial mining campaign from 1945 that was written in the 70s that found that a staggering tonnage of Japanese ships were sunk in the closing months of the war when the B-29s and other bombers started mining the home waters. I ran the numbers making some reasonable assumptions on the average size of the Japanese ship that was sunk and came up with a ratio of about 1 sunk ship per 300 mines laid based on the data in the Rand Study. I jacked up the mine production to provide historical quantities of the mines and tried it out.

I laid a few thousand mines and never found a Japanese ship sunk due to a mine hit or lost for no apparent reason. The mines were being laid based on the number of mines being used from the mine inventory. I started cranking up the effectiveness of the mines (accuracy), but still saw no hits. One port I mined was eventually captured and a small fraction of the laid mines at that port then showed up as a friendly minefield, but the count aligned with aggressive dispersal of offensive laid mines.

There is a discrepancy between the number of mines expended between the data provided at the NavWeapons web site and the Rand study. NavWeapons provides estimates for the whole war but did not carve out the aerial mining campaign. The Rand study indicates far more mines were deployed during the campaign based on the tonnages of mines dropped.

The Rand study was from about the same time that Nixon was mining Haiphong so there might have been some corporate happy talk to Pentagon, but I've seen Dunnigan and Nofi confirm the effectiveness of the US aerial mining campaign in their Victory at Sea (p 59, paperback edition).

Bottom line, I haven't seen aerial mining work at all for the Allies.

In the game, if one mine is located the enemy knows about the location of the entire minefield. IRL minesweepers would often be lost trying to ascertain the size and shape of the minefield and while sweeping it.
The game designers did not spend a lot of time on the mine warfare algorithm because of time, cost and game size considerations, but the designers also did not want it to become dominated by mines either. That would not sell many games.

BBfanboy wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 12:03 am In the game, if one mine is located the enemy knows about the location of the entire minefield. IRL minesweepers would often be lost trying to ascertain the size and shape of the minefield and while sweeping it.
The game designers did not spend a lot of time on the mine warfare algorithm because of time, cost and game size considerations, but the designers also did not want it to become dominated by mines either. That would not sell many games.

Indeed.

One of designers specifically said something that they didn't want "WitP: Mine Edition" or "Mines in the Pacific" and thus, effects are bit restricted. Though I have had used ship-laid ones with good effect.

Fair enough for a game play sake.

So the best advice to players is not to waste sorties on aerial mining operations, even to keep the other guy honest and diligent on conducting routine minesweeping operations.

Ship and sub-laid mines are definitely worth it. LST's Bottlenecks mod has increased mine production to the tune of several hundred per month and they are worth it.
I even managed to sunk my own IJN ship on a type 93 (I think) mine so there is that... do not lay them while your own TF's are passing through.

They appear to be best employed at protecting own ports (duh!) from sub incursions and bombardment TF's - IJN lacks fast DMS-type ships, as well as places like the Merak strait where enemy subs would traverse. If enemy DD's stop & try to sweep, your CD guns will engage, if you have them

I should be able to start using aerial mines in a few days so cannot really speak to how effective they are.