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Just a general question on your thoughts of the general use of sea mines..where when how often with what etc...

ORIGINAL: Blue Water Navy

Just a general question on your thoughts of the general use of sea mines..where when how often with what etc...

not often, because you run out of mines in very short time.

You don't get many so you need to think about where they go.  I've only played the AI, so my suggestions have limited use if you are in a PBEM game. 
 
You can only reload mines at certain places.  Early on, think of Soerabaja and Pearl Harbor as your ports with mine stockpiles.  Use all the Dutch minelaying assets you have and deplete their stock of mines before Java is overrun.  I like to dump them in Palembang and Soerabaja mainly but it might be better to spread them out a little more {Batavia, Balikpappan}.  Once the stockpile is gone you can withdraw the Dutch minelayers.  Don't know how much use they will be later in the war, but you need to save some if only for orange pride.
 
Use the minelayers at Pearl to lay minefields at Midway.  You might want to send them to Wake,  but if Wake falls to the initial attack or you arrive the same time the IJN follow up invasion force arrives, you'll loose the minelayers.

Where ever your opponent is expecting them- but will be going- with limited minesweeping capacity.
Harrassment in his occupied ports (small ones, sub laid) or newly captured ports (surface/sub layed), defensive in areas he looks like taking (good potential bases along expected Jap lines of advance), defensive in major bases.
 
I've had some success in my PBEM dropping them in smaller bases either unoccupied by me but where I expect him to land or dropping them in a base he has just captured- but has only put a token combat force in- then you catch the next convoy bringing in the base forces. Of course now that he's wise to that (and may read this) I'll do something else..................or will I?
 
 

Well, at the beginning of war, you roughly know, where Japan have to land, and you have subs with faulty torpedoes. It is not hard to guess, what to do [8D]

I like to try and mine the tenuous supply chain from Pearl to Australia. It can disrupt a small easy grab assault on those weakly held islands, as well as discourage sub & bombardment visits. Then I park the myriad AMs at each in the chain to maintain them (I'm not sure if I'm seeing that work or not, but the islands still show mined after 6 months at least).

AM sweep mines.  They do not maintain a minefield.  An ACM will maintain a minefield.  Up to 150 mines.  They also carry 20 mines and can act like a minelayer.  I think they can still maintain a minefield after using these mines to lay minefield but I do not know for sure. 

yeah, that's what i meant, thanks.

Just remember that the ACMs need to have fuel to operate. No fuel, mines disappear.

After the Dutch mines are depleted in the first month of laying, do any more come back there should you hold those ports?

Also, can the Dutch minelayers use mines from other ports? Should all level 8 ports have mines if they are in the stockpiles?

Yes, CM's can reload from any port that is large enough, generally over size 7 I believe.  The big limiter is a very slow production rate for replacement mines.  I think the version the Dutch CM's use is produced throughout '42 at about 12-15 per month.  Most of the Allied mine replacement rates are this low early on.  There are later versions that start producing more useful numbers, but of course by then the Allies are no longer on the defensive.  The mines will still be useful, but not as useful as planting them ahead of invading Jap ships.  

Great. That will help the planning. Now to figure out which ships take which mines and how many of those there are in the pools.
Thanks

While you are looking at the pools, don't forget to look at the build rates and dates.  For instance, I believe the British CM's get no "refills" at all until the end of '42 or so.  Early US mine production is a little better than the Dutch, but not great.

BTW, the overall scarcity of mines in AE was done by design to relieve some of the "Minesweeper in the Pacific" aspects of vanilla WitP. 

ORIGINAL: USS America

BTW, the overall scarcity of mines in AE was done by design to relieve some of the "Minesweeper in the Pacific" aspects of vanilla WitP. 

And I'm VERY happy with that.[&o] In my last invasion at WitP ( one month ago ), japanese didn't do nothing but let the mines do their job. I've been sweeping mines for 30 days....I've lost like 40 AKs.... [:(]

The only problem with changing the availability of mines was the fact that every mission by aircraft is still spotted and mines are swept too easily. Overall a reduction of mines was needed though and there´s still the editor if it strikes someone to wait 6 weeks to have enough mines to send out Argonaut ONCE. Biggest problem still the fact that every mine laying mission of bombers is reported in the combat report/replay.

The number of mines you got might have been stripped but the number of minesweepers has not, and it just takes one minesweeper to make a minefield useless 75% of the time, so mines are only going to be useful if you can discourage the sweepers from showing up. Therefore I suggest minefields are generally best used when the field is in range of antishipping bombers, to make minesweepers nervous. Or they'll just be immediately detected and swept.

Combining defensive minefields with CD guns is also quite effective.  [;)]

Mines can be effective against enemy subs. In fact, that's about their only real use in the game, given their scarcity and the ability of enemy minesweepers to clear what few you are able to deploy. I was a big proponent of "Festung Minefield" in WitP, but mining was almost totally neutered in AE.

ORIGINAL: Nomad

Just remember that the ACMs need to have fuel to operate. No fuel, mines disappear.

Nomad -

Thank You for clarifying. What an awesomely detailed game!

Mac