mine clearing disaster...

[RoughRoad]

Night scenario, tight terrain, poor visibility: my Russian infantry and pioneers are assaulting the outer perimeter of a German fixed position. They run into an AP minefield right in the critical line of advance-- no good way around it, I have to clear it. A pioneer squad (plenty of demos), company CO, and rifle squad are all pinned in the minefield radius. I'm expecting the pioneer to clear it, but after waiting 3 turns (with pioneers pinned the first two of them), nothing happens.

All Germans in the immediate area are now kaputt-- I've really got to hurry up and clear this minefield and exploit, so I move a second pioneer (plenty of demos)to within about 15m of the marker. Another turn goes by (the fourth turn), minefield is still there, in spite of now 2 pioneer squads sitting next to it doing nothing.

Being a mine-clearing noobie, I pull out my manual, read on page 64 that "You can of course also target the minefied marker manually" Ah-hah! I now have both pioneers target the minefield.

On the next turn, disaster! One pioneer does nothing, but the other opens up with small arms on the minefield. Minefield is unhurt, but the fire wreaks havoc on the other units that are still in the minefield-- the CO is killed out-right, the other pioneer squad takes casualties and is pinned, and the infantry squad takes casualties, panics, and runs through the minefield and dies.

Note that at no time did either pioneer expend a demo.

Questions:

1) Is it typical for a minefield to be this hard to clear?

2) Why did my 2nd pioneer squad open up with small arms and put so much hurt on my own guys instead of just clearing the darn thing? I realize that you can accidentally target friendly units at night (which this was), but throughout the whole disaster, the pioneer's target line stayed on the minefield, so it seems like the devastating friendly fire was just collateral damage.

3) Is targetting a minefield with an engineer/pioneer ever a good idea? What does it do for you vs. just sitting next to the thing? (except cause collateral damage on friendlies nearby)

AND FINALLY,

4) This is obviously NOT the best way to clear a minefield-- how would you have done it?

Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom.

[Becket]

Try targeting the area around the minefield, as close as you can get while still having area fire. You should see text "use explosives." That should solve the problem.

Had a similar thing happen to me earlier in the day.

[Mud]

Hmmm. Just tossing out random thoughts, but

(a) Suppression can't be good for mine clearing, (which accounts for the first couple of turns)

( Nor could night, and

© Since removing AP mines requires a demo charge, and those cause rather significant explosions (*), I wonder if your pioneers refused to use the charges because of the presence of friendlies -- assuming that you hadn't had them crawl out of the field first.

(Did it even offer an explicit option to use demo charges when targeting the minefield?)

(*) Capable of severely damaging buildings and their occupants, for instance.

[RoughRoad]

Becket: I didn't notice the text "Use Explosives" (didn't actually realize this was a possibility), and hadn't tried targetting nearby. I'll have to look for this next time-- thanks!

Mud: Good point. I didn't try crawling the friendlies out of the field (guess I should have). Perhaps not have done so prevented the "Use Explosives" text from appearing-- or maybe I just didn't put the cursor in the right place.

Of course the irony is that whatever damage the pioneers might have done to friendlies with explosives, I can't imagine it being too much worse than what their small arms did. And at least the demo might have cleared the minefield!

[Bone_Vulture]

I'll vote friendly fire as the reason for not using explosives, too.

[imported_Wildman]

I've noticed that the 15m mark is around the borderline my engineers would NOT throw demo charges.

That and the fact they would blow up there comrades is probably the reason. Make a scenario and test it.

[Bruceov]

Is the demo charge the only way to clear the minefield. I thought engineers would manually clear the mine field by moving them to it?

[Duke of Earl]

Here is a Quick Battle recipe I used... take 1 platoon of German Pioneers... advance them up the friggin' road in HT'S until they get to the woods... then dismount... because.. behold!... 6 daisy-chain panzer minefields located sequentially on the road.... add woods on either side to provide cover and prevent detour by HT's... detail 1 squad to each minefield... and detail HT's to lay down cover fire until the MG barrels melt... then, place squads in nearest cover within 10-15m of each minefield... let squads rest about 5 minutes or so without being disturbed or shot at by the bad guys... observe some squads throw satchels... and some squads don't... result: minefields eliminated... advance squads to the next set of minefields.. repeat process... advance HT's and embark platoon... proceed up the friggin' road... do not area fire on the minefields... waste of SMG ammo...

Cordialement, Duke of Earl

[ February 17, 2003, 02:55 AM: Message edited by: Duke of Earl ]

[von Lucke]

Ensure that the engineers are outside the 20x20 tile that the minefield sign is occupying. They don't like using satchel charges in the same terrain square they, themselves, are occupying.

[MOS was 71331]

As a former engineer officer, I can assure you that you can't clear a mine field by hand in five or ten minutes. I was in the 2d Engr Bn of the 2d Inv Div in Korea in 1966-67, and my battalion had to clear a group of minefields in the DMZ. We had three full companies (27 squads) on the project, we worked five days a week, and it took us three or four weeks to clear the fields. [The fields were mixed AT and AP. We used metal detectors to find the AT mines and blew them in place. The plastic AP mines didn't contain enough metal to register, so we had to accept the casualties they caused -- three men experienced "traumatic amputation of the foot." After eliminating the AT mines, bulldozers scraped out the AP mines, all but four of them. One fellow stepped on an AP mine and heard the pin snap but the mine didn't explode. I think that AP mine was blown in place.]

I suppose a mine field could be "cleared" quickly with explosives, but not with friendly troops in the field (as in the described situation). Clearing a field by hand is unreasonable in a 30 minute scenario.

[Eden Smallwood]

IME they are most 'trigger' happy when within 20-25 meters, meaning not closer as well as not further. And of course, (someone said this already prol), no friendlies within blast radius.

Targetting the field, specifically, can be counterproductive as you've seen- I just move them within the magic distance and let them do it as they wish, and they haven't let me down. But it *can* take a couple turns.

Also, if the field is blown with satchels it can take out small buildings nearby. Take cover.

More than one pio squad in low vis, ready to chuck charges is recipe numero uno for friendly fire- don't use 'Follow Vehicle' with more than one pio squad at a time in night or fog.

Eden

[RoughRoad]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

For what it's worth,using a saved turn, I tried to "area fire" with the "use explosives" on a spot 1 meter away from the minefield-- this was with my pioneer who was 15m out. The pioneer did (surprisingly?) go ahead an throw all three of his demo charges (and took two casualties)-- but the minefield remained intact! My theory is that this particular minefield has gone fanatic.

I guess the way to clear the field is the old fashioned safe/slow way (though not slow compared to MOS's experience)

1) get all friendlies away from minefield (at least 20m)

2) park one engineer about 20m out.

3) WAIT PATIENTLY

4) DO NOT target the minefield unless you want to waste all of your ammo, possibily kill a lot of friendlies, and still have no guarantee that the mines will be cleared.

In my case, where I had to exploit quickly and couldn't afford waiting 4+ turns, I think I should have just advanced/crawled everybody through the minefield and accepted the casualties.

[demoss]

I haven't found friendlies in the minefield to be an impediment to clearance, but that was back in 1.0....

[ February 18, 2003, 02:28 PM: Message edited by: demoss ]

[TikiBob]

I think we definately need to experiment more and figure this one out... How to clear a minefield is obviously crucial to gameplay.

Ken

[RoughRoad]

I guess the way to clear the field is the old fashioned safe/slow way (though not slow compared to MOS's experience)

1) get all friendlies away from minefield (at least 20m)

2) park one engineer about 20m out.

3) WAIT PATIENTLY

4) DO NOT target the minefield unless you want to waste all of your ammo, possibily kill a lot of friendlies, and still have no guarantee that the mines will be cleared.

For what it's worth, I tried the this follow-up experiment. Starting from the aftermath of the situation described in the original post, I managed to move all infantry at least 15m or so away from the AP minefield. This left an unsuppressed pioneer 15m away from the field-- and I had him simply sit there (didn't give him any orders).

Low and behold, on the next turn, he *finally* tossed a single demo that cleared the field, with no additional side-effects on any friendlies that I could see. The Russian hordes were then at last able to run through the breach (singing and toasting one another as they went).

This leads me to believe that either:

1) the presence of friendly troops really close (< 15m) to a minefield can indeed interfere with clearing it, or

2) My pioneers in this instance were just exceptionally slow