"Mine Fields: How to represent?" Topic

How do you model mine fields? Was thinking about how to do this and no appealing option presents itself to my brain. I need to be able to have them "attack" and for the to be "cleared" either by engineers or specific tech.

I found a way I am really happy with. I use those interlocking foam mats and unpainted foam hills under my game mat. This allows me to put needles on the bottoms of my trees and other tall standing scenic items (like signs, telephone poles, etc.) anywhere I like on the table (this makes for much more realistic looking trees IMO).

Since I do that for my terrain already, I started making pins with a small sign with a skull painted on it. I press these into the foam mat wherever the boundaries to my minefield lie. If you lay out all four corners with these signs, your minefield can be any size you like. If you want to add small counters to show revealed individual mines or lay down dental floss to mark a path cleared by engineers, you can do that as well.

Much easier and flexible than slabs of mine field pieces on the table that can't conform to contours.

Wow what a poorly worded OP.

My question is really "how do you handle them in you rules?"

I'm laughing so hard I'm speechless.

Is that some kind of twisted HOTT army?

- Ix

I do a tactical game so,

Mines cannot be lifted within the time frame of the game, which represents an hour or so of real time.

When units enter they roll a D6. On a 1-3 they are safe, on 4-6 foot take a pin and vehicles take a stun.

In my rules, a pin does what it suggests and is halfway to base removal i.e. A second pin removes the base from play.

A stun is anything from concussed crew, spall, track damage, tec. The vehicle cannot do anything until it passes a morale check, tested in each subsequent turn – so a vehicle can be stunned briefly or for the rest of the game, usually somewhere in between, but in relation to mines, the process represents something like a thrown track.

I used to run something more complicated that differentiated between vehicles, but in truth 'simple' works just as well.

Wee Sparky.

Very, very funny.

And very, very disturbing that you collect mimes.

The OP question needs a further clarification: tactical, grand tactical, or operational?

In really tactical games (skirmish, squad stands, maybe platoon stands), minefields need to be an ambush feature, and the only way I know to accomplish that is with secretly mapped minefields, which usually involves some kind of gridded terrain or careful notation of terrain features. The minefield itself can just be treated like a mortar attack (or bazooka/panzerfaust/PIAT attack if anti-tank mines) with randomized chance of suffering a mine attack based on movement speed and distance across the minefield. I never game at this level so I don't know if there's a "normal" way of doing this.

At higher levels of command the main effect of mines is to slow or disrupt movement and impact morale. Since losses in individual soldiers and vehicles aren't tracked, minefield effects can be reduced to a special kind of terrain that slows movement and has negative morale effects (negative DRMs if attacked while in minefield, must retreat if morale fails while in minefield, must move across minefield without stopping, etc.). Also at higher levels of command, minefields are likely to be known, strongly suspected, or just plain obvious, so can be marked in plain sight on the table.

You can safely ignore the laborious method of removing mines with careful human labor, since that would only occur in a secured rear area, so really only need rules for clearing paths with aimed artillery or man-placed explosives (e.g. bangalore torpedoes). Again, I don't have a clue how to do this at the tactical level, but at a higher level this amounts to a single "lane clearing" attempt with an adjacent engineer unit or a dedicated artillery unit.

- Ix

A mime is a terrible thing to taste.
I like how Blitzkrieg Commander/Cold war cmndr does mines on the company level. (Kind of long to explain)

The problem with minefields is they are big, like huge. They are defined by the frontage and the number of mines deep they are. For instance 4 mines per meter is blocking. It means that if you try to drive/walk through you will detonate one (about 99% certain). The trick is to spread the mines out a lot in depth. At 500m deep and 4 mines per meter hitting one is just as certain but it taks much longer to sweep with the Funnies of WWII or modern kit.

Hand sweeping is in timescales beyond norma game spans.

There is a US manual with a graph of proability of mines/m vs hit proability but MG just uses the appoximate definitions Dummy no mines, Nuicance 25% TACTICAL50% Blocking 99%. In reality and depending how far you want to take it you can add realism. I in reality the densities are correct but the maines are not placed fully random. They are typicaly placed in well marked (on a map) patches that are at a higer density with gaps for entry and egress to the field which are kept secret in some cases depending on the objective of the minefield. The overall density is kept correct is just they are in a complex pattern inside the marked field. Thre e some other tricks like putting a few more mines at the front to "sensitise" the attacket to the fact its a real filed. In reality you can get a long way through before yoy hit a mine.

Bangalores and line charges can clear a Mimefield quickly.

If a Mime in the woods steps on a Bouncing Betty does he make any noise?

She might. Nice girl. Lots of architecture.

I showed Lady Hussar the photo – she just rolled her eyes.

How did the British clear the mines in North Africa (I can't remember the battle ?El Alamein?) That was done in hours not days. Friend was talking to a RE who was on mine clearance. He ended up in the middle of the mine field during the battle, unable to move because he was on a uncleared area, and had to sit there for 6 hours while the battle raged across him!

How good were the flail tanks – obviously only the width of the tank, but didn't it get every thing in its path.

What about a good HE stonk?

Physically, they are only represented by a small crater marker, after a mine goes off (unless it is a really big mine, then a larger crater is used).

Mechanically, I simply note the area of effect in my mind and maybe on a master terrain map, if I make one. Every base/figure/vehicle that enters the area has a small chance of being "hit", depending on the type(s) of mines for each turn that they move in the mine field. Troops can "work" their way out of the field moving very slowly, with a much smaller chance to be hit by a mine.

The chance to be hit is a subjective number, usually a few percent, based on mine density and ground scale.

"Hit" means detonate a mine, damage is then resolved based on size and type of mine, i.e., a direction mine would be resolved differently than a non-directional type, etc.

The only rationale to place unmarked minefields into a miniatures game is to have all movement slow, and most likely to stop. Such is my experience. Players are freaked out by minefields and become completely cowed by them.

Now, if you simply wish to channelize an attack, for pity's sake, put out an Achtung Minen! sign on the game board. Players will get the idea NOT TO GO there.

Modeling minefields in a miniatures game is an oxymoron. duh. Mines are not visible. That's the whole point.
Everyone hates a surprise.

Just put out a sign Beware Mines! and get on with the game.
Most players will get it. Them that want to run over a minefield anyway, that's their business.

As above, put out marked minefields (which may be real, or not). If players wish to enter them, then of course they can and it is easy enough to figure out some sort of attack table against such units.

In higher level games you need rules for laying and claring mines, these sorts of things are covered in engineering task timings. In more modern periods, you need to deal with FASCAM, and they are frankly a pita.

The whole 'mines as an ambush' thing more comes under the category of booby traps. Minefields go exactly where you expect them to be, and are covered by fire.

Some armies differentiate between protective minefields (laid close around defended localities) and tactical minefields (linking defending localities). Terminology may differ, but they are all covered by fire and integrated into the defensive fireplan.

Infinity handles single mines by placing them as a camo marker. The opponent needs to get close and pass a discover roll to reveal whatever is under the camo marker (could be a mine, could be a trooper). The catch is that mines can have a longer ranged blast than the discover range of a model.

You should be able to breach even blocking minefields with a MCLC or plow on a tactical scale.

I recall reading that, during the Battle of the Bulge, US engineers would merely lay a daisy-chain of AT mines across a road, in plain sight, then place a MG to cover them. If a panzer crewman dismounted to remove the mines, he got shot, if he didn't, the road was blocked. Simple but effective.

Use a % roll when moving through a mined area ("oops, you rolled 15%, BOOM!") Obviously, the player that placed the minefield should know where it is (but not necessarily have free movement across it), so it should be marked on a separate map & the opponent gets to do all the work of finding the boundaries. And, unless a lane is 'cleared', the same chance of hitting a mine should stay in effect even if a unit is being run across single file (supposedly to clear a path.)

Shouldn't most tactical games handle minefields simply as area denial? As others have pointed out, clearing mines is beyond the scope of most skirmish games. Likewise no sane commander would order an attack into a known minefield. That leaves area denial … As simple as blocking terrain, perhaps, but you can draw LOS through it?

Most minefields in WW2 were marked.

A minefield that is not covered by fire is ineffective.

Shouldn't most tactical games handle minefields simply as area denial?

Minefields can be placed for several reasons. Area denial is just one on the list of why a minefield might be used.

Other reasons would include:
- economy of force: Don't have the troops to cover all avenues of approach with sufficient strength? Put a minefield across one of the less likely approaches, with a small covering force. You cover more area with fewer troops, allowing you to concentrate your forces where you think the attack will actually come.
- channelizing an attack: Put some nice big marked fields here and there, and concentrate your fields of fire in-between. The enemy walks straight into your guns.
- route denial: Similar to area denial, except that you don't want to keep your enemy out of an area, but rather keep him from using a particular path of advance. A roadway or culvert or bridge are examples.
- ambush: Perhaps you just want to inflict casualties and damage the enemy's morale. Surprises are very effective at this. No markings. Just 2 or 3 mines on a path he is likely to use. Boom, someone dies. Doesn't stop him, but shakes him up.
- mines might be placed simply because they are effective means of attacking particular types of targets: Most infantry formations had a lot more mines than AT guns. As mentioned, US combat engineers had strings of mines that could be placed across a road. The engineers were also trained to pull the string of mines across the road directly in front of advancing tanks, allowing a sort of close-assault weapon that could be used head-down in a ditch or behind cover.

Most minefields in WW2 were marked.

Probably not true.

It is probably true that a larger number of mines were placed in marked fields. Large fields were marked. But many small minefields were placed. How many? Hard to say, as they were generally small ad hoc affairs that were never recorded. But a platoon setting a final protective minefield in front of their fire holes, or setting a few mines in a gulch they could not cover with fire, probably did not have signs and wire, nor any interest in warning anyone about the mines. That probably happened many times for each well mapped and marked minefield laid by the engineers.

A minefield that is not covered by fire is ineffective.

Not at all true. Depends on what you want the minefield to do. If you want it to warn you if someone is down in the gulch, that first BOOM is all you need. There's no reason to cover it with fire (which you couldn't do anyway, which is why you put the mines there).

Likewise no sane commander would order an attack into a known minefield.

Again not at all true.

I could say that no sane commander would order his troops to make a frontal assault against a well-entrenched enemy, when there are other routes of advance that are thinly covered. You're so afraid of the mines you'd rather face concentrated machine gun and pre-registered artillery fire?

If the minefields are set as an economy-of-force tactic, attacking elsewhere means you face the majority of your enemy's forces and firepower. Spending the time to clear the minefields allows the covering force to attrite your valuable engineers while giving the enemy time to re-position his reserves and re-target his artillery.

Choose how you want your troops to die -- in a failed attack because their commander did exactly what the enemy wanted him to do, or in a successful attack that involved advancing through under-defended minefields as ordered by a heartless commander.

Mines are not magic. They don't deny area, and they are not necessarily any more lethal that indirect or direct fire. There are tactics for how they are used, and there are tactical responses to their use.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

And as to the original question …

In my wargames I use paper chits to represent all units until they are spotted under the rules. I also use some number of blank chits to allow bluffing and feints, and to keep some fog in the "God's eye view" of wargamers.

For minefields I simply write the radius of the field on a chit, and place it face down on the battlefield. You want to spot that chit? Oh I'm sorry, you failed in your spotting throw.

Some players will try repeatedly to spot a given chit. They might approach closer and closer as they do, to improve their odds. Others will just assume it is a blank, and role right upto and past it.

When they enter the radius of the field, we adjudicate for a mine attack. BOOM. Someone blew up! Now they are in a minefield, but they don't know where it starts and where it ends. So every unit in the area marked on the chit will be adjudicated for a mine attack every turn that it moves, until it clears the area of the field. Only by seeing where units are damaged, and where they are not will the player figure out the size of the field. And … if this is new to him he might well be a LOT more cautious about rolling past un-spotted chits!

All of which seems, to me, to be quite realistic. It makes mines highly effective against the emotionally/rationally un-prepared commander. But no more effective than other means of attack against the veteran commander. (And by commander I mean gamer … not some un-named figure who's morale is dictated by a die role on a table).

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

StarGrunt II handles mines in a way similar to the description of Infinity's approach. You put a blank counter (or numbered or lettered counter) down to represent the center of a minefield, which is usually a 6 inch diameter circle. There are rules for anti-personnel, anti-vehicle, and mixed minefields, as well as for command-detonated mines.

If a soldier or vehicle moves to a position within X inches (6, I think) of the counter, he, she, or it is attacked by the minefield. The counter is replaced with a counter to represent the type of minefield. The minefield remains on the table for the rest of the game; there are no rules for clearing a minefield (if I recall correctly).

Command-detonated mines are not minefields, but individual mines, and are removed from the table after use.

Attempts to find out what the counter represents may be made from any distance as long there is line of sight, but it gets easier to the closer your units are to the counter.

Physically, they are only represented by a small crater marker, after a mine goes off (unless it is a really big mine, then a larger crater is used).

Ordinary anti-personnel mine would not leave much of a crater when going off – instead you would notice it from the poor grunt laying near by, crying for medic and bleeding from his badly damaged leg.

Anti-tank mines, which plenty of explosive packed in, could leave a bit of a hole in the ground, but that would most likely have an immobilised tank covering most of it.

" Likewise no sane commander would order an attack into a known minefield."

Umm, well that isn't the case. Zhukovs approach to minefields is well known.

Less well known is that 51st Highland Divs deoctrine until late 1943 was to simply march through minefields, for similar reasons to Zhukov.

Although they official stopped doing it without clearance operations first, during the Battle of the Reichswald thye had to assault through uncleared minefields as there was no way of clearing them first.

No-one said war was fun.

"[A minefield that is not covered by fire is ineffective.] Not at all true. Depends on what you want the minefield to do. If you want it to warn you if someone is down in the gulch, that first BOOM is all you need. There's no reason to cover it with fire (which you couldn't do anyway, which is why you put the mines there)."

Your comments are pretty much the exact opposite of NATO military doctrine, based on U.S., and German military doctrine of WW2. Not at all what any responsible commander would do, either now or then.

From the U.S. War Department "Handbook on German Military Forces", March 1945: "The Germans emphasize that minefields must be covered by fire, although during a hasty retreat they often do not tend to follow this principle. It is common for a regular minefield to have a listening post with two men at the rearward edge; about 70 or 80 yards farther to the rear there usually is a covering party of four or five men armed with one or two light machine guns".

Shows that how gamers think war works, and how war works, are sometimes very far apart.

But not all minefields are the same – in the Rhodesian bush war it was calculated that it would take several divisions to adaquately police the eastern border after the Portuguese Colonial regime collapsed. Instead, a vast minefield was laid to interdict / hamper the movement of terrorists / freedom fighters (delete according to personal preference) trying to enter Rhodesia.
This minefield – or at least about 99% of it – was most certainly not covered by fire, and was put in place by one of the most skilled and practised armies of the era.

Greenleader, you're absolutely right, not all minefields are the same. You're talking about a low intensity colonial war, and at least the posts I have made are addressing WW2 in Europe. Very different situations.

Yes – agreed. I was merely showing that a minefield which is not covered by fire can still be a viable proposition / the least worst option by giving an example which came to mind quickly.

I'm also reminded of the "minefield" that was laid in a movie (I think it was Gene Hackman's "Debt of Honor," story was a guy recruiting some of his MIA son's old war buddies to rescue him from Vietnam). Was less a minefield than one hell of an extended booby trap. Each mine was placed such that the soldiers would jump away from the exploding mine into the next mine. And then the 'capper' was a claymore or two pointing back up the trail to catch all the survivors.

Pretty sure I've seen a similar layout used in real life (parts of Olympic National Forest aren't exactly safe…, home to Vietnam vets that are hit with PTSD bad)

=====
I should mention that mines in Infinity are also equipped with IFF, so a friendly model within the AOE will prevent the kaboom.

At higher scale games (platoon or greater per side), I think I'd handle them much as UshCha does. Roll %.

Your comments are pretty much the exact opposite of NATO military doctrine, based on U.S., and German military doctrine of WW2. Not at all what any responsible commander would do, either now or then.

And yet, putting 2 or 3 mines in an un-covered gulch was exactly what my long-time friend (and battery S2) was ordered to do to enhance the fire-base perimeter defenses during his tour in Vietnam.

Of course you could say that the battery CO was not a responsible commander. That it would have been better not to put mines in that gulch that could not be covered by direct fire. But then, I'd like to know what you think a better solution would have been.

Oh, and although the Vietnam conflict was not a NATO action, the US Army was a NATO member, and that battery commander was had seen multiple tours, which probably involved at least one stint in a NATO area.

Shows that how guys who create training curricula for armies think war works, and how war works, are not always the same.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

"Of course you could say that the battery CO was not a responsible commander. That it would have been better not to put mines in that gulch that could not be covered by direct fire. But then, I'd like to know what you think a better solution would have been."

That's not a minefield. There's a lot of crosstalk in this otherwise useful discussion about individual mines (essentially boobytraps) and minefields, and it's a different function and purpose.

And yes, any idiot who puts out 2/3 mines in an uncovered gulch as part of a perimeter defense, especially in a situation like Vietnam, is asking for a couple guys to come by late at night with prods, and dig them out at the worst, or move around them, through an area the base thinks is "safe" at best. So yeah, I would say putting a couple mines in an "uncovered" gulch is pointless.

And we could discuss firebase perimeter defenses, but my points were oriented more towards high intensity conflict, WW2 situation.

Thanks guys for the great discussion.

My rules already have a "booby trap" mechanic. They do not specify what it is just that it can wound the unlucky man who trips it. Might be a mine, grenade, punji pit. It slows movement and possibly kills/wounds one figure.

I was thinking of how to handle larger fields. I like the "radius" approach of Mark 1 – may try a version of that, especially as my rules already use hidden unit markers…

As additional info, both fleets were made up of plastic cruisers. As kalgaloth said, you could individualize the ships' loadouts to make different classes of this or that type cruiser.

As additional info, both fleets were made up of plastic cruisers. As kalgaloth said, you could individualize the ships' loadouts to make different classes of this or that type cruiser.

And the TMP edit bug bites me again!

No, I didn't post any comments about plastic cruisers, nor do I regularly comment on statements by kalgoloth (blessed be his name).

As it was, my comments weren't important enough to recreate. I wonder which thread they were teleported to … some naval gamers are probably trying to understand why someone brought NATO training and landmines into their conversation…

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I do it very simply.

I have a hex based system (large hexes 8" across). When you have a minefield you place a special card which says "minefield" in the hex. For each unit in the hex you roll one die. A two to a six is a hit. If a unit is hit it is eliminated OR it must retreat 1 hex and "slough off the hit".

Obstacles are handled in the same general way, however while you can enter the hex at will, you have to roll a 4,5, or 6 to leave the hex, otherwise you are stuck there for the next turn.

Yes you can put an obstacle on the same hex as a minefield.

It's the gift that keeps on giving and giving, and giving.

In the Hammer's Slammers: The Crucible rules, you have mine counters laid out to prescribed spacing and density of fakes to real ones. The mine counters simply represent the poibility of a mine or not (you flip them and it says "MINE-LIGHT"; "MINE-MEDIUM" or "MINE-HEAVY" or nothing at all on the reverse) and they do different dmage to differnt vehicles or infantry depending on what they are. Hits if the unit moves over them are automatic or, alternatively (and scenario dependent) they can be control detonated by the people planting them.

Detection and then clearing are based on the quality (and therefore training) of the troops employed plus the equipment they are packing.

John T

IIRC the Home Guard intended placing upside-down soup plates painted black on roads to act as mines. The intention was to bring enemy columns to a temporary halt in order that they could be attacked by other weapons.

Anybody play with more SF concepts in land mines, like ones that bury themselves or ones that chase? In an SF RPgame I run, I had a minefield that had these roving Claymore-like mines. They would hold still and detonate once an enemy got into lethal range, but if the enemy began to get out of the detection radius a few would follow after them. It led to some rather rude surprises when the party stopped.

IIRC the Home Guard intended placing upside-down soup plates painted black on roads to act as mines.

They eat soup from plates?

Landmine warfare was one of my specialties when I was a sapper in the Army, and I always enjoyed the various aspects of what you could do with them. They are primarily a psychological weapon, and we made good use of them in that capacity. For example:

We had to lay a minefield that required about 4 times the number of mines we had available. The mines all came with 30" long aluminum tilt rods that would set the mine off if depressed by 14º in any direction (to prevent vehicles from "bridging" over them). We laid the first two rows with a random mix of pressure-plate and tilt-rod activators, then went along where the rest of the rows should have been, piling up small piles of dirt and sticking the remaining tilt rods into the piles to make it look to the observer as if there was a full-sized block minefield in place.

On another occasion, we had to blow a bridge and then block the ford site just downstream from it. We took waterproof M19 plastic mines and lined the ford with them, so that if a vehicle tried to cross, it would die right there in the ford site, sending the rest of the enemy back to figure out what else to do. We, of course, pre-plotted target reference points along the only approach route so that we could call artillery in on them as they dealt with the bridge and ford issues.

In another instance, we were patrolling with light infantry and had to set up a linear ambush along a road. The sappers went forward and lined the ditches on either side of the engagement area with M14 "toe-popper" antipersonnel mines, so that anyone diving for cover into the ditches stood a good chance of landing on one.

So, I would definitely have the mines create a huge impact in your game's morale/panic system, along with whatever actual physical damage is done to the piece that moved into the minefield.