Mines

[kato13]

Webstral 04-20-2004, 04:38 PM I got back from 11B MOSQ last week. One of the things I've been thinking about as a result of this and of reading up on the Soviet-Afghan War is the tremendous number of land mines that must litter North Central Europe. Germany, Poland, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, the former Jugoslavia, northern Norway, Finland, and the western Soviet Union must be just rotten with land mines. Have any GMs tried to work this into the campaign?


I've been thinking that huge numbers of mines must have gone into the ground during the 1996-1997 time frame. After this time, there would have been fewer mines going in the ground because there would have been fewer mines being made. Still, the surviving units would have done their best to locate the existing minefields and tie their new defenses into them.


Since the predominant type of warfare throughout much of 1998 and almost all of 1999 would have been light infantry patrols, raids, and reconnaissance, a high premium would have been placed on getting mines and other IED onto likely avenues of approach for the enemy infantry. One of the big problems facing XI Corps in its Summer 2000 operation would have been the existence of hundreds of minefield and other obstacles dating back to early 1997. Some of them would have been cleared and removed during the NATO offensive, but others would have been placed by NATO during the general retreat. The Pact forces would have cleared some, but then they would have put in others in 1998 and 1999. All in all, I would expect mines to be a huge problem for XI Corps during its attack. In some ways, it is probably just as well that fuel constraints slowed the offensive action of NATO forces, since coping with mines and other obstacles would have slowed things anyway.


For a party in the post-Kalisz environment, mines would represent an omnipresent threat. The roads probably wouldn't be too badly off, since merchants and others would have set off the mines already. However, off-road you never know what you're going to find. Every field could have a minefield or just a few strewn about. Every path through the woods might have a few mines or IED.


On the plus side, mines offer units and communities very effective ways around their manpower limitations. There was a discussion of how communities would defend themselves in 2000. Perhaps the best defense against enemy vehicles would be mines. A marauding tank can be undone by a ten-pound shaped charge positioned to penetrate the bottom armor. A robust anti-personnel mine presence can play havoc with marauders. The real trick is to have someone who can make them.


Just a few thoughts...


Webstral

********************

Jason Weiser 04-21-2004, 02:05 PM Well, land mines as a technology aren't that tough, all you need is a friction igniter and a blackpowder charge. Just have it rigged up to a pressure plate, friction igniter makes spark-BLAM! You can also rig up a crude precussion igniter to a shell or bomb, the VC used to do that, and the technique is as old as the Civil War. Then there is always the command detonated variety, train igniter connected to a few sticks of dynamite, say in a can full of rusty nails?

********************

Matt Wiser 04-23-2004, 12:34 AM Some of the V.2 stuff has descriptions of the mines that the Wojo Factory in Krakow was producing: homemade AP, AT, and Claymores. Fair to good chance they would be duds, though. I was reading in Walter Lord's Incredible Victory and in one of the chapters set on Midway Island proper had some of the first Marine Raiders assigned to the Island-everyone had a Thompson or BAR, and even the Navy corpsmen carried a Tommy gun and no red crosses on helmets or armbands. Anyway, they were producing homemade anti-tank/landing barge mines, and homemade anti-personnel mines. Basically boxes filled with TNT for the AT mines, and cigar boxes filled with nails, other pieces of metal, etc. for the AP mines. They were the only folks on-island disappointed the Japanese never tried a landing after the carrier battle.

********************