Land Mines at Kalisz

[Legbreaker]

I can see a party which includes a thirsty vehicle such as a tank, provided they have the manpower available, will only move said vehicle(s) a kilometre or two at a time after an infantry scouting component has cleared the path. Each and every bound will be heavily thought over first and the engines shut down between bounds.

This could explain the relatively slow travel speeds given in the game.

On contact with an enemy this slow, careful and very deliberate movement plan goes right out the window. The small(ish) chance of hitting a mine becomes almost irrelevant compared to the definate chance of being shot at with a missile, rocket or enemy tank.

[pmulcahy11b]

I've often thought that at least NPCs would become extremely risk-averse in T2K, as proper medical aid is few and far between, and even good medical care in T2K would be considered primitive by today's standards.

[atiff]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I would think that minefields are unlikely to have a great impact on farming due to the greatly reduced population in northern Europe. I can't recall off hand how many civilians died in the warzones, or moved to safer areas, but I can say Silesia had 97% losses.

It might be a bit inaccurate due to prewar food importation, farming methods, heavy machinery, etc, but 97% population reduction would have a similarly large reduction in required farming area. What farmland is required would likely avoid the known minefields.

Hi Leg,

At the risk of taking things further off-topic - where did "97%" come from?

Further to this - I have been creating a simple population/farming model, based on others (Grae's, Antenna's) ideas plus some of my own. I will post some stuff from this soon, if it is of interest. My point in reference to the above being; the assumptions I have been using (~23% pre-war population, 100 people supported per square km) still give a large amount of land needing to be farmed. Hence my interest in your comment, and effects of mines on farming.

Andrew

[Legbreaker]

It comes from page 14 of The Black Madonna.

From a prewar population of 3,000,000, fewer than 100,000 survive, scattered throughout Silesia.

Therefore 3.3333% remains, or close enough to 97% losses. It's written to imply most, if not all were lost due to warfare, nukes, plague or famine.

[leonpoi]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

It comes from page 14 of The Black Madonna.

Therefore 3.3333% remains, or close enough to 97% losses. It's written to imply most, if not all were lost due to warfare, nukes, plague or famine.

I think Silesia was hit pretty hard though. I can't recall fully but I think the history at the start of the books gives some indication of loss by disease and loss by war - I think the final population was about 10% of pre-war, but could be wrong.

Remember also that (I think) the E. European sourcebook has pre and post war city populations, so you can get any idea of casualties in the large urban areas (though again these locations would have been the hardest hit)

[Legbreaker]

Yes, this area was hit particularly hard, but it was the only area I could remember the percentage of deaths off hand. Serves it's purpose though illustrating the lower requirement of arable land in 2000 compared to pre-war.

Although heavily nuked, I can see Silesia as a prime destination for resettlement once word got out that all you needed was a shovel to bury a few hundred bodies and you could call it home.

[atiff]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

It comes from page 14 of The Black Madonna.

From a prewar population of 3,000,000, fewer than 100,000 survive, scattered throughout Silesia.

Therefore 3.3333% remains, or close enough to 97% losses. It's written to imply most, if not all were lost due to warfare, nukes, plague or famine.

Ah, yep, I've seen that too. As suggested above, I have also seen the Eastern European Sourcebook, which has post-war pop figures for some cities - and in this it has some figures which don't match the scenario numbers. It also stated a post-war population of Poland of around 9 million, or about 23% of pre-war population, which is what I was working from. Take your pick from a range of figures, I would suggest.... Personally, I feel the level of death and destruction for your own campaign is up to you

[pmulcahy11b]

Maybe people have pulled in to the remaining reasonably-intact towns and cities, and the low population figures are for those remaining who haven't done so?

Are you going by current population figures of Poland when you are figuring the percentage? There may have been a baby boom since the late 1990s.

Or the ever-present designer errors?

Just guesses, I really don't know.

[Adm.Lee]

Ah, I'd forgotten about the slow movement of NATO across Poland in '97. A minefield in or adjacent to a forest could easily be ignored until 2000.

[atiff]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Maybe people have pulled in to the remaining reasonably-intact towns and cities, and the low population figures are for those remaining who haven't done so?

Are you going by current population figures of Poland when you are figuring the percentage? There may have been a baby boom since the late 1990s.

Or the ever-present designer errors?

Just guesses, I really don't know.

Hi Paul,

I started with 2006 population figures. Poland's population has been in slight decline since 1995, if I recall correctly (though not as much as in the T2K world ). I was using 2006 numbers since they are available for all of Poland down to the gmina (sub-unit of a county) level.

I'll put this all in another thread soon... a couple more hours of work to do to complete the first draft of the figures, etc.

Andrew

[Rockwolf66]

hehehe, well according to my Pogue the way to find a russian designed anti-tank mine is to look for the penlike fireing device that sticks up out of the ground. personally i disgard what he says half the time as he is full of shit.


Personally I prefer to simply pick up a demolitions disposal manual. Heck my local borders has a faily recent US Army guide to boobytraps.

[Gamer]

I'm not seeing the justification for the minefield in that wooded area myself.
Why?
No military just mines the crap out of an area for the hell of it, there has to be a reason for it, nobody on the planet has that many mines that they can just place minefields willy nilly and mining a forest in the middle of nowhere is not worth the resources and effort.

The recent mine concentration would have been the possible avenues of advance during the 1997 NATO offensives culminating at the siege of Warsaw and Czestochowa and those woods are not it.

Just don't see the reason for anything more than a small hasty minefield placed or artillery delivered during the battle of Kalisz and the area in front of the woods is where the smart commander places them as he then places his defenses inside the woods to take advantage of the cover and overall terrain advantage.

I can see the reasons in mining a forest, just not THAT forest.

[Webstral]

How willy is nilly depends a good deal on the context. We should bear some things in mind.

• The Soviets maintained by far the world’s largest stockpile of mines. Even on the attack, they planned to use them by the million. Soviet defenses rely heavily on the minefield.
• The primary purpose of the mine in mechanized warfare is not to destroy enemy vehicles, though obviously if the enemy loses a tank once in a while it’s a bonus. The primary purpose of the minefield in mechanized warfare is counter-mobility. The enemy is supposed to realize that mines are present and look for a bypass—preferably into a friendly kill sack.
• A bypassed obstacle is worse than useless. A bypassed obstacle has consumed manpower and resources for little or no gain.
• Therefore, after establishing the primary defensive position, the engineer scouts examine the possible bypasses and help the brigade/division/corps engineer devise a plan for dealing with them.
• Forests in populated areas of Europe are different creatures than forests in much of North America. European forests have seen a lot more human traffic for a lot longer (this is a generalization, not an identifier for each and every forest on the continent). There are paths, passages, and unimproved roads in many, many locations.
• If a defensive position were to be established in or around Kalisz in 1997, the engineers would go out looking for bypasses that would appeal to NATO.
• The woods, having concealment and muffling the noise of engines and tracks to some degree, would appeal to NATO.
• The Soviet engineers would know this.
• Although the primary purpose of mines in mechanized warfare is counter-mobility, they are also quite useful for establishing blocking obstacles in restricted terrain.
• Therefore, a small minefield in the woods south of Kalisz does not have the willy-nilly character that it appears to have at first glance.

I think folks who are claiming that the whole woods wouldn’t be mined with AT are quite correct. I’m not talking about mining the whole thing. I’m talking about putting down a few mines at selected points as part of a bigger plan.


Webstral

[dragoon500ly]

All good points, but the entire battle starts out as a meeting engagement. Any minefields in the area are going to be along the lines of hasty emplacement. I could see a series of FASCAM drops, even some roads being mined or bridges prepped for demo. But it would be far more likely for the Soviets to send out fighting patrols to round up survivors or detach companis to set up block positions then for widespread use of mines.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

… the entire battle starts out as a meeting engagement.

This is absolutely true for the July 2000 fight at Kalisz. I should have been more specific. The mines I talked about in my last post would date from 1997. While there would have been some meeting engagements during NATO’s eastward drive in 1997, the campaign as a whole was characterized by set piece battles, if the timeline given in the v1 chronology is any indication. The steady eastward progression of the fighting would have given the Pact time to establish new defensive lines as NATO advanced.


Webstral

[Legbreaker]

As I touched on earlier, a minefield laid in 1996-97 could by 2000 be overgrown by brush and small trees, especially if located close to a source of seed stock (aka another group of trees).

[dragoon500ly]

Ahhh, that makes more sense!

[headquarters]

I think people would stack a few bushels of fodder around an AP minefield and wait for the deer/boar to sizzle through.

I have seen that this is a way for poachers in Asia.

I like Horsesoldiers idea of travelling EOD gypsies,

disarming,arming,selling AND buying new and used munitions Gov`

As for economics -these types might even lay a few mines of their own to boost business...