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How do I clear mines?


noxnoctum

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You 'locate' mines by stepping on them, unfortunately. Then the engineers (if they're close enough to the now-displayed mine marker) can activate the 'mark mines' movement command button. You place a waypoint on the mine sign, they will lay there for about 3 turns, the mine marker will go from red to yellow, and the engineers will begin moving about again, tending to their wounded etc. A yellow 'marked' mine sign means the spot's now about 80% safe. But don't try running new units over the spot, its still about 20% unsafe.

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Perhaps one suggestion to improve the role of minefields in the game would be to make them a wee bit more similar to terrain objective areas. That way, if the minefield is 'Known to Enemy' or both etc, the Engineers could locate and neutralise them. And if they're 'Known to Neither' etc, you only get to find them by walking into them.

However, to implement that would require a lot of coding work so I don't expect to see any change in the way the CMx2 engine handles mines in CMSF or the WW2 title. I'd rather that coding time was spent on flamethrowers, burnable terrain, heavy rain, etc...

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There can be some debate about how one comes to know about a minefield. I figure either the minefield has been well documented and mapped beforehand by intel (stolen Syrian maps, etc), or you've got zero intel on it at all, or an incident in the field the day before has alerted you to mines being out there somewhere.

Dealing with miinefields seems doable in a 'front line' type war where units have sat facing eachother across no-man's-land for three weeks before H-hour. But CMSF is more of a maneuver war, covering huge chunks of territory a day (when coming from the east). Minefields could be avoided as easily as population centers for much of the push west. The Syrians would have to know that you're coming beforehandand, and know you're coming to that particular spot to properly utilize minefields.

normandy is another matter entirely. I would like to see Sherman minerollers working in Normandy. Heck, I'd like to see mineploughs fitted in CMSF, though they'd be less tactically significant.

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There can be some debate about how one comes to know about a minefield. I figure either the minefield has been well documented and mapped beforehand by intel (stolen Syrian maps, etc), or you've got zero intel on it at all, or an incident in the field the day before has alerted you to mines being out there somewhere.

Dealing with miinefields seems doable in a 'front line' type war where units have sat facing eachother across no-man's-land for three weeks before H-hour. But CMSF is more of a maneuver war, covering huge chunks of territory a day (when coming from the east). Minefields could be avoided as easily as population centers for much of the push west. The Syrians would have to know that you're coming beforehandand, and know you're coming to that particular spot to properly utilize minefields.

normandy is another matter entirely. I would like to see Sherman minerollers working in Normandy. Heck, I'd like to see mineploughs fitted in CMSF, though they'd be less tactically significant.

Tactically deployed minefields shouldn't take that long to set up - [swag] maybe twelve hours for a crew of six for a quarter acre?[/swag]

Wire and mines need to be there for Normandy. This means wire and mine clearance, for preference. Any nibbles on these BF?

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red.jpgyellow.jpggreen.jpg

MikeyD, it seems the time you need to pass the sign from red to yellow depends of the number of engineers that are with the 'mark mines' command over this spot (and it should depend as well of the experience, but I'm not sure about this part). I've seen a complete squad of British pixelengineers doing that in the matter of a few seconds after giving them a 'mark mines' command (and with Elite level of difficulty). After they have done the "change of colour", they always start crawling towards the sign (the blue movement line becomes automatically a purple line), and as you have very well said, it's a really insane behaviour to do that as there still are many chances that they will still find a mine in the bad way when entering (for what?) and when you'll have to take them out of the minefield (yay!).

You can't give a 'mark mines' command on a yellow sign. The only way for a minefield to be completely safe (green sign) is by making all the mines go boom. Pretty mad, hey? The 'mark mines' command, marks the location of most mines for a safe passage (20%? well, safe, very safe... ehem) but it doesn't deactivate any mine.

Paper Tiger, I like your idea and even I would say that I'd prefer to make all the minefield signs visible to both sides but for the IED mines. It would end the problem of finding mines by stepping into them or having to implement code to make the 'hunt' order work as a let's look for mines, for example. Currently, even if you know that a minefield is there, it isn't an easy way to make it totally safe when it's an antipersonnel minefield (to run an Abrams tank back and forwards into the mines around the yellow sign for a few minutes?? nah!), and it's impossible to do it safely when AT mines are present. Another idea is to change the code to use the engineers and recce troops as mine spotters, so the minefields continue to be hidden but an engineer/recce unit can make them appear when walking towards them using the hunt order, as I said before.

Of course, the perfection would be reached having available in game some assets to reduce a minefield: bangalore torpedos, rocket-propelled Mine-Clearing Line Charges (MICLIC) and Antipersonnel Obstacle Breaching Systems (APOBS), and mine rollers for the tanks.

MikeyD,

There can be some debate about how one comes to know about a minefield. I figure either the minefield has been well documented and mapped beforehand by intel (stolen Syrian maps, etc), or you've got zero intel on it at all, or an incident in the field the day before has alerted you to mines being out there somewhere.

You don't need to steal the "Crown jewels", hehe (that would be great, though ;)). Aerial recce can tell you the rough location of minefields and say a lot about them. Ground-surveillance radar may provide useful information about the obstacle emplacement activity. And Reconnaissance land forces should have the capability to collect OBSTINTEL, too. On the ground detection of a minefield may be accomplished through four methods: visual, physical (probing), electronic, and mechanical (mine rollers) or it may be unintentional (in game it's always painfully unintentional). And after collecting the OBSTINTEL, you can use charts that will tell you all you need to know for effectively reducing the minefield: probable limits and depth, density, etc.

Dealing with miinefields seems doable in a 'front line' type war where units have sat facing eachother across no-man's-land for three weeks before H-hour. But CMSF is more of a maneuver war, covering huge chunks of territory a day (when coming from the east). Minefields could be avoided as easily as population centers for much of the push west. The Syrians would have to know that you're coming beforehandand, and know you're coming to that particular spot to properly utilize minefields.

I don't know the Syrian minefield-emplacement capability, MikeyD, but mines are cheap, and very easy and fast to lay when they are not buried. Even faster if you don't keep a track of every single location in a template as unfortunately use to happen when militias or uncon forces use them. But in a manoeuvre war you can expect to find a lot of minefields placed beforehand to defend valuable targets and the likely avenues of aproach. Just adding to the debate.

Pvt. Ryan,

I don't think mine clearing is a part of actual combat. It's usually done before or after the shooting.

With the first sentence I totally disagree with you if you mean reduction, breaching... name it. Obstacle reduction is fundamental in a breaching operation in open terrain against a well-equipped, well-prepared enemy defense, and it's critical in restricted terrain. You could even say that this is the real beginning of the combat. Second sentence: I agree with you. Clearing operations (the total elimination or neutralization of a minefield or a portion of the minefield) are not conducted under fire and are usually performed by follow-on engineer forces. I just wanted to point out that clearing is not a synonym for reduction.

Costard,

Tactically deployed minefields shouldn't take that long to set up - [swag] maybe twelve hours for a crew of six for a quarter acre?

A quarter acre is around 1000 square meters... around 32x32m. Twelve hours? Now you are kidding! Of course, it does depend if it's my grandma and her friends, hehe... :) No, seriously talking: it depends of the asset you use to lay the minefield, Costard (if you say crew, I understand some kind of vehicle), but I can assure you that definitely not twelve hours...

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  • 1 month later...

lomir,

I just wanted to reply to your post above. Thank you for taking the time to write that and also for including the pictures. For the first time ever, I saw the green minefield sign. I _assumed_ it meant all clear, but I could not find any BF.C documentation to support that assumption.

Thanks,

Ken

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  • 1 month later...
There can be some debate about how one comes to know about a minefield. I figure either the minefield has been well documented and mapped beforehand by intel (stolen Syrian maps, etc), or you've got zero intel on it at all, or an incident in the field the day before has alerted you to mines being out there somewhere.

Dealing with miinefields seems doable in a 'front line' type war where units have sat facing eachother across no-man's-land for three weeks before H-hour. But CMSF is more of a maneuver war, covering huge chunks of territory a day (when coming from the east). Minefields could be avoided as easily as population centers for much of the push west. The Syrians would have to know that you're coming beforehandand, and know you're coming to that particular spot to properly utilize minefields.

normandy is another matter entirely. I would like to see Sherman minerollers working in Normandy. Heck, I'd like to see mineploughs fitted in CMSF, though they'd be less tactically significant.

I disagree. :) Minefields can be located using today's technology through a variety of remote methods. IR imaging can show underground mines. There is a temperature differential between undisturbed earth and buried items (shallow, ~12" depth or less). Ground penetrating radar reveals mines. Photo recce shows units burying mines. Intel reveals minefields; map data being transferred through a military chain of command is vulnerable to intercept. There are, no doubt, more methods.

Ken

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