Mines cleared by artillery? Why not? Plus more...

[TeAcH]

A couple of quick questions:

1) Can arty clear a minefield in much the same way as an engineer tossing a satchel charge?

Logically it seems that a significant or prolonged arty barrage on a given area would clear a minefield to me. I have experimented with this several times (in case it was undocumented) and have yet to see it occur.

2) Are the satchel charges in the game modeled with enough power?

It seems that a satchel charge tossed at enemy infantry in close quarters are somewhat weaker than I imagined. They just don't cause the number of casualties I would have expected. Is there anyone out there who could comment one way or the other?

Thanks

[M Hofbauer]

I think no explosions clear minefields. Artillery doesn't, and I am pretty sure that satchel chrges don't, either. The engineers clear the mines in a silent, unnoticeable way.

I admit that realistically, close nearby high-blast explosions should set off at least the antipersonnel mines.

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"All i hear is the Iron Cross sucks etc. " (GAZ_NZ)

[Frenchy]

As the author of the unit history of the 270th Engineer Combat Battalion during WW2, (my grandfather's unit) I came across accounts of this very thing happening. Artillery can set of a chain reaction of explosions (Sympathetic explosions) and wreak havoc in an mine infested area. Some of these explosions tore up whole streets (Forbach).

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Webmaster

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[Frenchy]

As the author of the unit history of the 270th Engineer Combat Battalion during WW2, (my grandfather's unit) I came across accounts of this very thing happening. Artillery can set off a chain reaction of explosions (Sympathetic explosions) and wreak havoc in an mine infested area. Some of these explosions tore up whole streets (Forbach).

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Webmaster

http://www.trailblazersww2.org

http://www.vmfa251.org

[Topi]

While serving in the Finnish artillery, we were taught that, yes, in principle you can clear minefield by a concentrated artillery barrage, but you need such a heavy shelling that it is almost never worth the effort. (Sorry, I do not have the numbers here )Plus the resulting crater-ridden minefield is very hard for the pioneers to clear completely afterwards.

[Pham911]

On the subject of mine clearing:

I know (kampfgruppe)Peiper once decided to run through a minefield to save time, and lost a number of halftracks in the process reasoning that they could be repaired. Is this modeled in CM? If I run tanks/vehicles through a minefield, will it "weaken" the field? I have tried it, but I can't tell if it produces any results at all.

On satchel charges:

Since the squads in CM are abstracted with a 3-man graphic representation, the satchel charge may look like it's hitting all the men, but in reality(and I assume according to the CM engine), they're slightly dispersed beyond the squad icon you see. Consequently, the satchel charge probablly shouldn't do more damage than it currently does, as it shouldn't be hitting all your men when it explodes.

[PeterNZer]

Also they're a none-shrapnel device eh?

Just reminded me because I talked to this bomb disposal guy once who said he could be 1m away from a kilo of plastique and as long as he had his super duper suit on he'd probably only loose a hand or an eye or something ..however if the bomb had a shrapnel causing casing he'd be in serious trouble.

I guess satchel charges, without shrapnely bits are pretty lethal if you're close, but would only stun if you were further away and behind some kinda cover, (instead of the cover being ripped to shreds by shrapnel).

Someone care to comment on this civies understanding? :>

PeterNZ

[Slapdragon]

Satchel charges were not "really" antipersonal weapons, and I am not sure you could throw a satchel of composition 4 far enough to avoid becoming a statistic (anyone in the service who has actually thrown one of these things of course could say better than I, I have only seen a little peice of an M115 block on a commercial set -- I base this on the ounce we used had a safety range of a dozen meters that I had to keep crew back from).

Satchel charges were used for a dozen thing, but in infantry fighting they were one of the methods of street fighting discussed by Mcdonald. In town fighting, running from house to house is a good way to get killed, so they would use explosives to open a breach in a house wall and would "tunnel" from house to house. Bazookas were also used (and it was not a very safe practice) to blow and entrance into the next building.

They were also used to destroy tanks in city fighting, blow up barricades, clear wire, and all sorts of "terrain modification" tasks.

[tss]

Topi wrote:

While serving in the Finnish artillery, we were taught that, yes, in principle you can clear minefield by a concentrated artillery barrage, but you need such a heavy shelling that it is almost never worth the effort.

Thus far I have posted twice the figures for mine clearing from a Finnish artillery manual that was written in 1936. One link is http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/008993.html .

- Tommi