"VSF Aerial Mines " Topic

I am working on a scenario game set in the Space 1889 where a Martian city is under attack by aerial gunboats. As part of the city defenses, I want to have floating mines to keep the ships out of the city. I had in mind something like the spikey ball look of old World War I naval mines. Does anyone have an idea on where to get or how to make something like this? The game will be 28mm. Thanks.

May I suggest jacks that kids use in the game of bouncing the ball and picking up jacks?

A normal jack comes to roughly waist height on a 25mm mini. Epoxy them to a thin wire and base at varying heights and bingo- aerial mine! I saw some at either wal-mart or target for like $2 USD or $3 USD for 15 or so with a rubber ball.

They would also look slightly wierd enough to be a Martian mine as opposed to an out-of-water WWII contact mine.

50 cents for 10 jacks:
link

The "ball ends" can be described as containers of hydrogen that not only floats the mine but when contacted explodes in a fireball…

Sorry… bad link above. here it is:

link

They are probably way too small but BW made a pack of spiky mines for the Battlefleet gothic sapceship game. think they still sell them on the specialist games website… of course they are probably $15.00….

Even before I read down the links I was going to suggest Jacks – saw some just today in a cheap newsagents for 99p for a pack of about ten and a selection of plastic sticks -'pick-up-sticks' game.

Other obvious suggestons are Christmas tree decorations – I have seen baubles in all sorts of sizes and styles that could be used, If they were polystyrene you could push cocktail sticks in to them!

Secondly – what about going away from round balls and use blank dice? or even use wedding veil material and build a mine fence a bit like a normal fence but with small balls on top and based with bamboo skewers.

I hope that these ideas help.

Tony

or try a specialty bead.. (get the first catlog)

link

Some great suggestions here. I like the wedding veil suggestion – sort of like having aerial submarine nets. Thanks all.

May I suggest jacks that kids use in the game of bouncing the ball and picking up jacks?

I'd never thought of these I'll have to get some they even make plastic ones now.
Thanks

Ping-pong balls on a stick? A lot of real Victorian era mines were remote detonated, not contact.

Small rubber bounchy balls with pins stuck in

Bouncy balls would work even better.

This post has got me thinking (allways a bad thing!)

I model in 1/300th and will try to model a set of mines for my Aeronef/Space 1889 games. I'm thinking of a plastic bead on top of a flying base.

My initial idea was contact mines, but further reading this thread – I now beleive that it will be a remote detonation with the suggestion of a 'blast template'.

Thanks for the idea and I would hope that I could get something operational within a month.

Tony

Bouncy balls would work even better.

You could bounce them across the table – any direct hits causing damage – actual damage or statistical/gaming damage!!!!!

A bit like firing matchsticks from toy cannons at Britains Lead soldiers.

Tony

Most remote detonation and contact mines of the ACW were made from barrels.

You could suspend barrels from ping pong ball, barrage balloons.

Or evern just have drift wood barrels attached to the ground by cables.

Also.. just a thot.. give the remotes a fairly decent chance of not going off..

Looking to history might help. Civil war mines.
home.triad.rr.com/aom/civil.htm
Hope that helps.
Snitchy sends.

Wow. Those sunburst beads out of that bead catalog would make really wild flying mines. Assuming you are using liftwood to float them.

The wedding veil idea is also a good one, or barrage balloons/steel cables to prevent overflight.

The sunburst ones are nifty, as would the faceted tri-petal shaped ones.

My advice would be to get the faceted round ones. Mount a small round bead on the bottom, whole thing stands on wire. Spray a nice canvas grey, then drybrush lighter to give the edges some definition, loking like a sort of mini-airship, with rigid frame, holding a charge beneath.

Made to order, exactly what you are looking for, I think. Made by Warrior Miniatures.

(ran across them this morning)

Look all the way at the bottom of the page. Click on the camera to get the picture of the mines.

link

Picked up some beads this week, but the construction will have to wait as I've run out of bases!

Drat.

Tony

Just ordered bases from GW, so on plan to have the mines operational within the week!

Tony
dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com

I have just modelled a test mine;

I model to a scale of 1/300th or 1mm = 1ft.

The mine is an 8mm facetted bead on top of a 80mm metal rod which in turn is mounted on a 40mm round base. I have added a small mast and flag to the top and painted the mine red with a white strip (I can remember seeing a mine at Mumbles in South Wales painted the same colour and converted to be a money collection point for the RNLI).

The flag is painted bright yellow with a black skull decal or transfer.

I will try to get a photo up-loaded soon.

I would expect to model 6 or 10 and have them used as obstacles in my Aeronef/Space 1889 games.

Tony
dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com

I have added a photo of my 1/300th scale aerial mines to me Blog -

dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com

Tony

Very nice! Photos are a little blurry, but it's hard taking a picture of something that fiddly.

But I like the idea of the rigid frame mines. Gas bags are nice, but the frame would allow the mounting of pressure sensors. Slightly more durable than a single-skin balloon, since it may be exposed to the elements for a while. Plus, it's less likely to leak. Main charge would be relatively small, but with a good amount of shot. Framework might not add signifigant shrapnel as it would likely be balsawood, to cut down on costs and weight. The gas bags would produce a nice flame, and there's no reason the envelope can't be treated to provide chunks of flaming thermite raining upon the immediate area (burning out before hitting the ground, of course).

Ok, I'm overthinking this, but still an excellent design.

It screams "aerial mine" to me.

There's nothing worse than people looking at one's new scratch build asking "what is it?"

splendid job!

To Commodore Wells 1

Thanks for the comments. My intention is to make up between 6 and 10.

Once they are finished, I'll try for a better photo, but I took over 10 photos and because of the size, all the photos were blurred!

Tony
dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com

This isn't quite a Victorian aerial mine, but I believe it somewhat analogous. The wonderful book about WWI British aviators, The Airman's War 1914-1918, has an anecdote about a British observation balloon unit in Macedonia. A German pilot (nicknamed the "Eagle of the Aegean") had been on a bit of a streak (20 kills, including several balloons). So the Brits packed a balloon with explosives (500 pounds worth attached to some detonation cable), inserted a dummy dressed like an observer, and sent it up. The German pilot took the bait and as he closed in for the kill, the Brits detonated the balloon. The German's plane was crumpled in the blast wave and plummeted to the ground. There's a picture in the book of the Brit ground crew and members of the unit examining the wrecked plane and the body of the late "Eagle of the Aegean." Voila! A historical aerial mine.

Mulligan