The Mines' problem

[Euri]

OK I have a scenario where the map is cut into half by a river with single bridge joining the two sides. In the briefing it says "the bridge will most probably be IEDed or mined".

What is the tactic to deal such an issue? Is it possible to disable or cause a controlled explosion of IEDs and mines with engineers or otherwise in CMSF?

[ZPB II]

Well, engineers can mark mines and you can use direct and indirect smoke to block the IED spotters view to the bridge.

[Euri]

For me the "Mark mines" order is faded. I mean there is no order (as far as I am aware) to have the engineers look for mines in an area.

A trick I did - and worked - is that I hit the bridge with a heavy artillery barrage and one round hit the mine (it was a huge one) which exploded. But this seems gamey

[Erwin]

Like Zeb said, smoke will prevent the IED trigger man from seeing the bridge and hence it won't blow up.

You can't locate mines or clear em without running something or someone over it and blowing em up. Maybe the arty barrage you used had a good effect(?)

[MikeyD]

If that's the scenario I think it is I ran my biggest and meanest piece of equipment over the suspected IED site while keeping everyone else back. Finding the IED triggerman first would be the more economical way of doing it. Most IEDs require their tigger men to be pretty close. Mine IEDS are trickier because they're presumed to be pressure plate activated so no triggerman is required.

[Erwin]

I suspect I know the scenario as well.

I ran my cheapest out of ammo supply unit over the bridge, hugging the edge, then another one at FAST. Nothing happened, then I tried that again later and it blowed up. So...?

I did recall killing a triggerman later in the scenario but he was a long way away. Not sure if he was the one or just one of many.

[abneo3sierra]

the manual states that engineers can mark mines also, but I am unable to as well. Is this something that was supposed to be done and just was missed? or perhaps like the panzerfausts, it was in and removed accidentally?

[Erwin]

IIRC you can only locate mines by getting blowed up. Only then, can the engineers mark it by staying real close for a number of turns.

It wouldn't be realistic, but the game would be greatly improved re "fun" if engineers could detect and remove mines.

The more "realistic" you make a game (trying to make a training sim), generally the more boring and non-fun it gets.

[abneo3sierra]

Allowing engineers to clear mines, or, better, allowing specific equipment to do this, is realistic, not sure why you said it would be unrealistic. Perhaps you were referring to "unrealistic" in regards to CMSF scale(one could assume that by the time you fight a tactical battle, the mines in your area have been cleared) but this is not a valid assumption either, particularly with regards to some specific national doctrines(the Germans come to mind, where the Bundeswehr by doctrine uses mines as a force of both offensive and defensive warfighting)

[Erwin]

Yes, it's the short time scale of the scenarios issue (they tell me).

None the less, it would make the game so much better if engineers had this specialized task. And we have seen that there are many new RL ways to clear mines fast - like a special charge that detonates everything for several hundreds of feet to clear a safe path.

Just add it to the list, I guess...