Mines and IEDs

[hcrof]

I had my first real experience on the wrong end of a minfield the other day and I can't say I enjoyed it! There has been a bit of discussion of landmines in the past but nothing very specific so I would like to set out how I feel mines could be improved sometime in the future.

Right now, if a fireteam runs into a minefield, you will lose most, if not all of your team. I tried crawling into possible minefields and it just got worse as they bunched up even more. This is made worse by the fact that currently there is no way to detect mines, even if you suspect a minefield. Here are a couple of suggestions to improve this aspect of the game:

1. Reduce the power of the AP mines explosion: I have been lucky enough to hang around a de-mining organisation for a week in the field, in Angola. From this experience, I can say the vast majority of mines will only actually kill children or old people, soldiers will just be injured with a broken or missing leg. Those nearby can suffer minor injuries or be blinded by debris. When one person in the fireteam gets hit by a mine, the team should immediately cancel all move orders and drop to the ground. Even in WeGo, the maximum one minute delay before new orders could be seen as everyone going "sh!t, Jonnys hit, we're in a minefield!" and working out what to do.

2. Allow anyone to spot any type of landmine if moving with a SLOW command: Recently laid mines are always spottable if you look hard enough. A lot of mines, especially AP mines are just tossed on the ground. Vegitation such as long grass or forest cover hide the mines until someone enters the field. The mines should then be covered by direct or indirect fires which do the most damage. Even if the mines are dug in, the disturbed ground usually will give an indication of a minefield.

When searching for the minefield, there should be a chance that someone blows themselves up, higher for concripts and very low for veterin engineers. Once the mines are spotted, the information should go around the chain of command as with all spotting information unless engineers MARK the minefield. Bear in mind that digging around, trying to find the edges of the minefield is a VERY slow process but I think it would be already modelled by the slowness of the SLOW command and the fact that your troops would get exhausted quickly (Definately realistic!)

3. IEDs should also be spottable: I have heard of a lot of stories of people spotting IEDs and blowing them up at a safe distance. I think that they should be easiest to spot when the population density is set to HIGH. This would reflect a combination of Human Intelligence as well as the fact that the spotting troops would have been patrolling the area before and know what to look for. (I doubt the population of a recently invaded city is ever that high). On the other hand, an IED ambush in the middle of nowhere would be harder to spot (But less likely).

Once spotted, it should be possible to attempt to destroy the IED with direct fire.

I am a defensively minded player and would love to see more engineering work but right now I just feel sorry for my opponent when I place a minefield as there is nothing he can do about it. By expanding minefields in this way, they can be used more often and new mission types can become available (find a path through the minefield?). I could go on for ages about different types of mines and nasty 'combo' effects you can use, but my suggestions above would be enough to cover ~90% of the real world situations

Just my $0.02 but I would be interested to hear what people think

[Sergei]

I think that they should be easiest to spot when the population density is set to HIGH. This would reflect a combination of Human Intelligence as well as the fact that the spotting troops would have been patrolling the area before and know what to look for. (I doubt the population of a recently invaded city is ever that high).

This would be significant if CMSF was a counter-insurgency game, but it isn't, so having it that way would cause problems in the frontline type scenarios.

However your point about IED's being spottable is valid. But there would also need to be a chance for false positives, as troops would be inclined to shoot at any piece of junk that looked at them weirdly... maybe according to population density, as citys have more trash. In my wicked imagination, both suspected real IED's and false suspects would be shown as special ?'s and it would be up to player to shoot it, go around or take the risk.

[Secondbrooks]

I am a defensively minded player and would love to see more engineering work but right now I just feel sorry for my opponent when I place a minefield as there is nothing he can do about it.

Yes i agree. Few times experimenting with minefields they have caused just terrible loses to enemy when it comes blindly charging across minefield.

It would be nice that AI will evade suspected minefields, create forexample 50-100 meters big no-go zone around tank/infantry which got hit by mine. By that i think we are close to how minefields should be used and what effect they have in opponent. They should halt enemy and force it to seek alternative routes, not kill it in huge numbers (which sure looks good).

[MikeyD]

I think that they should be easiest to spot when the population density is set to HIGH.

This sounds a bit counter-intuitive to me. High pop. density means more background clutter. Perhaps it would be appropriate for a "5th year partoling Mosul" game but in CMSF the U.S. is sweeping through Syrian towns like a sythe. And the chance that a friendly Syrian citizen would warn a U.S. partol of an ambush up ahead is pretty near zero in those circumstances.