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Can engineers spot AT mines?


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Just want a little clarification.. maybe someone can help...

Are engineer squads able to spot (NOT MARK) Anti-Tank mines? I haven't been able to get them to do so. Is this on purpose? Are AT mines considered too difficult to spot? Do mixed mines have the same issue?

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According to page 195 of the manual 'yes'. Spotting mines apparently can be done by all troops although engineers are more likely to spot them, other factors in spotting success include unit experience and using slow or move command rather than quick or fast.

I presume this is for AT and AP mines, although troops can't set off AT mines by walking on them which is the most common way of spotting. :)

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So how do troops 'spot' mines? I'm assuming that they have to move through the tile where the mines are located rather than just stay beside it.

Probably they should jump up and down all over the place. Another good method is to roll a barrel of oil or gasoline over the suspected area. :P

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Possibly it is the old "move around and you lose situational awareness" thing like with scouts. If you place a unit in one spot for a few minutes without moving, it is more likely to spot enemy movements and - I suspect - mines or hidden defensive works. Passive observation has its merits in real life.

Try moving engineers close to known mine fields or those areas where you would expect to be a good place for them, leave them there for a few minutes with an unobstructed view and see if that works. I would think that this would allow for a few recursions of the sighting algorithms, possibly increasing your chances of spotting something out of place.

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Well - I've tested it...

Engineers can spot AP and Mixed mines but not AT mines. Of course they can mark AT mines, but only after some poor vehicle has exploded one of them.

This complete lack of AT mine detection normally wouldn't bother me, but I'd just designed a scenario based around the feature - DOH!

I suppose I could used mixed mines instead, but this means more infantry casualties.

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Granted I don't have Engineers, but in a recent game, I moved 2 squads through a gap ( on Quick ). They then sat 1 Action Spot away for 3 -4 turns and saw nothing, but when I moved a 3rd squad through the same gap, it proved to be mined ( last guy in the group trod on one ).

So mines are pretty hard to spot if you don't actually step on one. Engineers may get a bonus to spot them though ( one would hope ).

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Try moving engineers close to known mine fields or those areas where you would expect to be a good place for them, leave them there for a few minutes with an unobstructed view and see if that works.

This is really why I asked - I have done this and no mines have ever been spotted (in the School of Hard Knocks scenario), so I wondered what the conditions required for spotting (without walking over the mined area) are.

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Yes, engineers can spot mines (usually quite easily) by moving close to their square or through their square (move and slow are best). They spot them whilst on the move, so no need to stop.

That said - they never spot AT mines. This is good to know - vehicles are on their own when it comes to mines.

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The only reason I can think to justify that AT mines are not detected is that AT mines are often set deeper into the soil than AP mines; the latter often require their trip wire or fuze to be near the surface or exposed entirely in order to be set off, whereas the AT mine just needs a sufficiency of pressure applied to the earth above them.

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Yes, engineers can spot mines (usually quite easily) by moving close to their square...

I've just done some tests and have not been able to replicate this. My tests were preliminary and not exhaustive, but the impression I got was that troops (I was using engineers) have to be moving through a mined tile to have a chance to locate them. Indeed, if a unit stopped in a mined tile without detecting mines, it would then still not detect the mines over quite a few turns if it did not move. Perhaps this is why infantry don't detect AT mines - because they have no chance of triggering them?

This is in no way a criticism. I would just like to know how one should best use troops to look for mines. If being next to a mined tile is not sufficient to detect mines, then there is no point trying this.

One thing I found interesting was that it takes a full squad of 10 engineers around just 1 minute to fully mark a mined tile (when not in combat).

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Could someone explain to me how to mark mines right? I made a test with 3 mixed mine tiles, which were spotted by my crack engineers and I set made them mark them until they turned white. Then I drove two tanks through (slow), but both got immobilized, setting off 3 mines.

How do I turn the mine sign green?

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Could someone explain to me how to mark mines right? I made a test with 3 mixed mine tiles, which were spotted by my crack engineers and I set made them mark them until they turned white. Then I drove two tanks through (slow), but both got immobilized, setting off 3 mines.

How do I turn the mine sign green?

maybe they only marked the anti personell mines in the mix, try walking infantry through.

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