AP mines and the noobian...

[PeekingDuck]

Hi,

Noob here again. Hoping someone can give some good advice on AP Mines. Recently I was playing my brother in a QB where I had nothing but a few green/regular Inf's and a bunch of AP mines. The map was NA and very flat/open. Anyway, in the middle of the map was a row of houses, both large and small, I assumed he would advance toward them as they were the only cover available. Hence I place my AP mines on his side of those houses in hopes that his infantry would trigger them while looking for cover. The scenario was 23 turns and his infantry ran all over my mines, and I mean ALL over them. He went forward on them, backward, and then forward again. He might as well have danced on them. I had around 10 AP minefields(2 on the backside of each of 5 houses) and each were repeatedly trampled on throughout the course of the scenario. Needless to say, he crushed me pretty badly because not one of the mines went off.

What did I do wrong? I made sure that I had scale set to "realistic" when placing my mines. I did get one of his APC's to hit an AT Mine, but, the AP ones seemed to be duds. Any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks in advance,

-Peek

[Rabidbvr]

Hello peek new to the forum myself but have played the games for a while... from what i can see... when troops go into a minefield at run speed most of the time they set of a few.. i have seen troops run through not a scratch... and i have seen whole units mill around and get wasted... try to cover the mine field with MG fire as i noticed a panic unit seems to damage its self when trying to find cover.. or lay them two deep as i do seems to work well and i place a few daisy-chain mines in to stop the odd tank from doing a drive by as AP mines seem to have no effect on Soft skins or tanks

"Live every day as your last as one day you will be right"

[Guest Mike]

Mines need to be covered by fire to make them decently effective, but I'd certainly have expected a few casualties at least from your description.

[PeekingDuck]

Originally posted by Mike:

Mines need to be covered by fire to make them decently effective, but I'd certainly have expected a few casualties at least from your description.

Well that was the idea. I placed the mines in order to prevent him from using the only cover on the map. In other words, I thought the mines would deny him the use of the houses as cover, thus making his men easy targets for my mortars, MGs and Rifle peeps. His men never set off the mines even though they walked right over them in several places. After he realized the back side of each house was mined he made his men crawl over them. Does that affect the mine's trigger somehow? I don't recall seeing them run into the minefields and I never got them to break and run either. As soon as he found out he could traverse the minefield with impunity the game was basically over for me. I held out for a while, but the situation was untenable.

Again, did I miss something and possibly place the mines in a way as to prevent their being set off? I mean, he walked right over the signs that say "Achtung Minen" on several occasions. Or maybe he just got REALLY lucky (a bunch of times)?

Thanks for the responses guys.

-Peek

[Snarker]

Originally posted by PeekingDuck:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Mike:

Mines need to be covered by fire to make them decently effective, but I'd certainly have expected a few casualties at least from your description.

Well that was the idea. I placed the mines in order to prevent him from using the only cover on the map. In other words, I thought the mines would deny him the use of the houses as cover, thus making his men easy targets for my mortars, MGs and Rifle peeps. His men never set off the mines even though they walked right over them in several places. After he realized the back side of each house was mined he made his men crawl over them. Does that affect the mine's trigger somehow? I don't recall seeing them run into the minefields and I never got them to break and run either. As soon as he found out he could traverse the minefield with impunity the game was basically over for me. I held out for a while, but the situation was untenable.

Again, did I miss something and possibly place the mines in a way as to prevent their being set off? I mean, he walked right over the signs that say "Achtung Minen" on several occasions. Or maybe he just got REALLY lucky (a bunch of times)?

Thanks for the responses guys.

-Peek </font>

[PeekingDuck]

Originally posted by Snarker:

You don't find mines (daisy chain excluded) unless they go off at least once. How could he realize the minefield was there? Somebody must have lost a leg or your brother would never know about the minefields.

Hmm. ok. Then I guess he didn't know they were there. It sure seemed like it because he did start having his men crawl up to each house. However, that might've been to avoid the fire from the sides of each house? (We're both noobs obviously) Even so, that reinforces my point about him traveling right over the signs several times.

I just want to make sure I didn't do something wrong and repeat the same mistake again. Although, I'd hate to think he was THAT lucky, so I must've dome something wrong to prevent the mines from going off.

Anyway, thanks for the reply Snarker, I really appreciate the help.

-Peek

[Snarker]

Originally posted by PeekingDuck:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Snarker:

You don't find mines (daisy chain excluded) unless they go off at least once. How could he realize the minefield was there? Somebody must have lost a leg or your brother would never know about the minefields.

Hmm. ok. Then I guess he didn't know they were there. It sure seemed like it because he did start having his men crawl up to each house. However, that might've been to avoid the fire from the sides of each house? (We're both noobs obviously) Even so, that reinforces my point about him traveling right over the signs several times.

-Peek </font>

[Pvt. Ryan]

Originally posted by PeekingDuck:

Rifle peeps

This made me laugh, although silently, and not out loud.

[Seanachai]

Troops moving slowly can often avoid minefields altogether (troops at a 'walk' for example). The faster they move, the more likely they are to suffer casualties.

You aren't necessarily sent a telegram about every mine that someone steps on. (sometimes, if you go down to the number 1 view, and watch them, you can see someone catch it hot).

There is an element of the random. Sometimes twelve buggers moving like muskox over the tundra come to no harm, other times 4 sneaking buggers end up as one panicked soprano.

Mine fields are not the same as some Sci-Fi Tachyon Field of Doom.

I've had opponents hit my mine fields and seemingly just stroll on by. Later, of course, when the same units are checked, they're found to have suffered one or two casualties without otherwise having come under fire.

Again, entering a mine field isn't the same as plunging into the heart of a star.

Some few, some horribly scarred few, will always make it through. It may only be 10 out of 12 soldiers, though.

What? You thought a minefield was like some kind of 'unit elimination zone'?

[Pkunzipper]

You said you had some mortars. Did you used against him over the minefield? Artillery can damage a minefield (and once a mine explodes it become revealed, IMO).

[PeekingDuck]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

Troops moving slowly can often avoid minefields altogether (troops at a 'walk' for example). The faster they move, the more likely they are to suffer casualties.

You aren't necessarily sent a telegram about every mine that someone steps on. (sometimes, if you go down to the number 1 view, and watch them, you can see someone catch it hot).

Thank you. That's what I was wondering. I still think he may have been just a bit lucky, although his troops weren't running over the mines - always walking or crawling. Maybe I should have set up my kill zones to force him to run over the minefields? Is that it?

Originally posted by Seanachai:

Mine fields are not the same as some Sci-Fi Tachyon Field of Doom.

But, but, I saw this movie and...

Originally posted by Seanachai:

Again, entering a mine field isn't the same as plunging into the heart of a star...

Indeed, that's what I was hoping for. The idea being that he would find walking through/sitting on the minefields so unpleasant that it would force him into into my kill zones.

Originally posted by Seanachai:

What? You thought a minefield was like some kind of 'unit elimination zone'?

Yes. Can you please explain the proper use of minefields then, if they're not used to deny certain spaces/places to the enemy? This game is a blast to play, well, except when your mines aren't blasting your brother's men to bits! Seriously though, what would have been a better way to employ the mines on a map like the one I described?

Originally posted by Pkunzipper:

You said you had some mortars. Did you used against him over the minefield?

Well, he never really came into LOS for my mortar. The mines didn't have the desired effect and he was allowed to use the houses as cover, which bought him time for his 81mm mort and 105 arty(may have been 75 - I forget) to make my life miserable.

Thanks again to all who have responded. I really appreciate the input!

-Peek

[tar]

Well, one of the best uses of minefields that I was able to make was in a CMBB QB where there was one small stand of trees in the open about 30m in front of my troops, in woods by a flag.

I had computer picked forces, but among my resources were some barbed wire and AP mine fields. I set up the wire in the open in line with the small copse of trees, and placed the mines in the trees. When the AI-led forces (a bit more predictable than human troops), attacked, they went for the trees, hit the mines, attempted to go around, but were held up by the wire. The covering infantry shot them up in the open, so they panicked, broke and headed for cover. Right into the mines.

See the results, minefield at mid-upper right.

[tar]

Oh yeah, the main point is not to treat mines as a solution in isolation. What you need to do is use them in an integrated defense. You use mines to restrict mobility and deny certain terrain to the enemy. You then need to set up the remainder of your defense to take advantage of the channeling effect of the obstacles.

One of the combat aphorisms is "An obstacle not covered by fire isn't one."

[SgtMuhammed]

Remember, a mine obstical is just that, and obstical, not a wall. They are meant to delay and influence not completely deny. You have to use them as part of an integrated defense or you lose most of their effectivness.

One thing I have noticed is that troop behavior seems to have changed. In CMBO the AI would route units around known minefields while in BB they just marched right through. Anyone else notice this?

[Stalin's Organ]

Originally posted by PeekingDuck:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Mike:

Mines need to be covered by fire to make them decently effective, but I'd certainly have expected a few casualties at least from your description.

Well that was the idea. I placed the mines in order to prevent him from using the only cover on the map. In other words, I thought the mines would deny him the use of the houses as cover, thus making his men easy targets for my mortars, MGs and Rifle peeps. </font>

[SgtMuhammed]

Wow, you guys actually tear down what you put up. American engineers have the annoying tendency to put up an entire warehouse of wire and mines and then leave it to us grunts to clean up the mess.