Poll- Favorite Light AT Weapon

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by HaplessOperator

Well, now I'm curious. Did you swing and miss?

During Desert Storm, I fired a Dragon at a BMP-1, aiming for the turret ring from the side. I hit down low on the side, blowing off a couple of roadwheels and breaking the track, but that and the engine took up most of the Dragon's impact. The BMP skidded wide, and a couple of guys finished it off with AT4 rockets.

I was standing in a ditch when I fired. That probably led to Unintentional Grounding -- when you're not in a solid seated firing position, the sudden loss of weight on your shoulder when the missile leaves the tube can cause your shoulder to suddenly rise a little -- and the missile flies into the ground, or into the suspension in my shot's case.

[kcdusk]

What about AT mines? Would they count as a light AT weapon?

Has anyone used them in their games? I imagine in real life they are fairy common?

[HaplessOperator]

Originally Posted by kcdusk

What about AT mines? Would they count as a light AT weapon?

Has anyone used them in their games? I imagine in real life they are fairy common?

They are, in a sense, but they fall into a distinctly different efferent use case than what's being implied in the post.

In real life, no, not so much. Mines aren't exactly common to begin with, and are generally handled by your brigade's or regiment's combat engineering component. They also don't get used all that often, since they're generally part of a fairly narrow use-case defensive policy, and if the brigade is functioning anywhere remotely normally, it's not exactly sitting in one spot and simply waiting for a hostile mechanized force to drive through them as they xlcede ground, mining the hell out of an area isn't going to do much more than create a hazard to your own forces and follow-on forces in addition to generating additional work and man-hours in de-mining the things.

We also don't really keep all that many manually-emplaced mines in inventory these days, on top of AT mines being heavy as hell; the M19s weigh almost as much as an AT4. Last bit is that the ou don't generally just want anti-tank mines; their placement generally requires its own field of anti-personnel measures to keep the anti-tank mines from being disturbed.

Closest thing to a mine that most infantry ever see are Claymores.

[Homer]

Originally Posted by kcdusk

What about AT mines? Would they count as a light AT weapon?

Has anyone used them in their games? I imagine in real life they are fairy common?

“A mine is a terrible thing to waste.”

I wouldn’t call mines, wire, and obstacles AT weapons so much as I’d call them effects multipliers. You can use them to enhance the effects of other weapons systems quite well, and use them to help create space and time when overwatched.

Some ways you can use mines,etc.

1. Place a tilt rod AT mine in a ford so the rod is below the water’s surface. First vehicle through runs over the mine, ford is blocked. If the enemy is doing their drills and clearing the fort with dismounts first, you’ve probably lost the mine, but they have to slow down and perform a dismounted clear. This gives an observer a fairly stationary troop target to call for fire on, and their force time to maneuver or reposition.

2. Put frat fencing or markers on every minefield you lay. Pretty soon the enemy starts to associate this as a signature of a minefield. With some barbed wire, pickets, and a few concrete dummies you can create a turning obstacle that will give you flank shots or force them to breach a dummy.

3. Bury a single magnetic AT mine in an elevated or ditched in section of road. You get a mine strike and a stationary, linear target stacked up behind it or the find it and dismount to clear. Hedge your bets on that with toe poppers or IEDs to the side where the infantry will move.

4. Use bounding type mines on the defense in ruins by mining the best passages for foot use. Put the mine on the enemy side of the passage to hit anyone bunched up waiting to go through the gap.

5. Put an AT mine or a dummy around the bend of a road so the lead vehicle won’t see it until they’re almost on it. Then, site a claymore to cover it. The enemy will likely try to blow it in place or grapnel it so as to avoid any anti handling devices. Use the claymore to remove those people.

6. The party is being pursued by a larger force. A pursuit deterrence mine, tripwire fused claymore, or even a hastily emplaned toepopper or Elsie mine will disrupt that pursuit and give time to get further away or set an ambush for the pursuers. Just one mine is usually enough to make people start looking for others.

Those are just a few ways your party could use mines in a small scale.

My take in things is that mines would see increasing use in T2K as mobile warfare slows down and cantonments and fortifications emerge. Mines offer a relatively low cost way to maximize the effectiveness of the remaining direct fire weapons and artillery.