Mines and Minelayer

[AndreE]

Hi,

while exploring the game, I came across the idea on how the game handles mines, mine laying or clearing sea mines. I hope there is no rule topic in the forums that I missed, but so far I couldn´t find any rules in the book or any discussion about mines in the forum.

Beside the idea of simply having a ship that would be classified as a minelayer, I think it would be nice to employ minefields or mine-laying/mine-clearing missions within scenarios. While a mine or a minefield could be represented by a marker it would be quite easy to assign some D6 or D10 checks to determine if a ship hits a mine when coming close to a marker or crossing a certain area. Explosions could be handled same way as a torpedoe-Hit, since mines are basically the predecessor of a torpedo and only lack the movement (therefore a defensive weapon).

So I´m curious if this idea has already been discussed somewhere or what ideas are out there about this.

[Nat]

So… are there rules for minefields – no in the rulebook

well… ok there are, in the Op Pedestal scenarios – written by me – found on the WL community site

However the only down side would be that a ship is only the bridge – each 1″ of table is 1000 yards of real world, so it would be easy for ships to sail round.  For scenarios they yeah its diffidently something that can be expanded.  (Currently a couple of us are concentrating on trying to tighten up the aviation side of the game)

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Nat.

[AndreE]

Thank you. You did some great work with that scenario! I checked the mine-rules in the szenario.

In case some people read this without knowing the szenario here is the mine-related rules:

“After deployment, the Axis player may deploy up to six mine tokens (these should be no more than 2″ in diameter). These may not be deployed within 3″ of another mine token, and not within 6″ of an Allied vessel.”

“The area is extensively mined. If a ship’s move begins or ends within 3″ of a mine, roll a D6. On a result of 2+, it will explode, and the ship immediately takes 1D6 worth of damage (note that on a roll of a natural six, this will not trigger a critical hit). Then remove the mine token from the table.”

I think thats a great rule for  a preset szenario like Operation Pedestal. However for a Balanced Play Game I think it might need a bit tweaking. I think i´ll give it some thought and try to figure out some ideas beyond a preset scenario. … But first i got to paint one more destroyer for my next game on friday … 😉 Cheers!

[Nat]

Indeed, they were written to add jeopardy to the SS Ohio but not make it impossible for the Allied player to win the scenario.

[AndreE]

After sorting my ideas a bit,  I have compiled a list of all Aspects that might interact with existing rules.

A) Equipment – (Shipclasses with Mines/ Number of Mines/ Type of mines/ Points for equipping)

B) Scenario Goals and Descriptions/ Victory-conditions

C) Mechanics for Shipdeployment

D) Mechanics for Minelaying

E) Mechanics for Mine-clearing

F) Mechanics for Discovery/Passage/and Ignition of Mines

G) Marker (Scale and Size)

Attachments:

1. 

   Minenmarker.jpg
   

[Nat]

So….
A) – VaS is a simple game not a simulation .. therefore I’d go like Depth Charges, a single profile for all mines.

Now a startings of a nice easy approach..
laying mines in combat isnt something you’d do… its too risky! you cant anchor them well enough and they become a risk to you… so to that end.

Ships that carried mines get a new ship trait – Mine X where X is a number derived from the historical number carried.
Minesweepers get a new ship trait – minesweeper.

At the start of deployment you add all the X’s together (like with Aircraft X).  So many Xs = 1 mine token (maybe 1 for 1?).
You may not ever deploy them in the enemies standard deployment zone, and can always deploy them in your own.  Mines tokens are deployed before any ships or scouting rolls but after ships /aircraft have been assigned.
Enemies scouting roll can be used to remove 1 mine token per scouting point thats in their deployment half starting with those closest to their deployment zone (this is in addition to the normal use of scouting points)

Tokens go off if a ship passes within Y” of it.  You roll to see, 5+ with modifiers
-making it easier (so +1 for each) normal size ship (10 HP+), large ship size(11-60HP?), huge ship (HP 61+), speed (over 6″), have the Lumbering trait, being submerged & the first mine roll of the game. note ship sizes are cumlative so a huge ship is +3!
-making it harder (-1 for each) small size (3 HP or smaller), agile, moving 3″ or less, under and evade order, friendly minefield, have the minesweeper trait.

Minesweepers inside Y” can attempt to remove the minefield on a 6 as an order that means they cant fire weapons  (crew is too busy clearing mines to shoot) +1 (so need a 5+) if its a freindly token.  On the roll of a 1 it detonates

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Nat.
• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Nat.

[AndreE]

I think one could go a bit further than that (since it is a house-rule atm anyway).

In terms of Combat I can imagine 3 working scenarios within this game system:

– Offensive Minelaying – Block enemy shipping routes (Use the available Vessels/Aircraft to deploy mines in enemy waters and retreat[lay 4 mine marker in the enemy half of the battlefield within 12″ of the center = Submarine sectors 8-9,9-10 or 10-11])

– Defensive Minelaying – Protect your home-waters (Your Vessels have laid a stretch of mines in your own coastal waters to force enemy fleet movement- destroy any approaching vessels[a bit like “Defense Line” but you may place 4 mine  markers in a 6″x12″ area in the centerline of the board)

– Mine Sweeping/Breakthru – Find a way to the open sea (The enemy has laid a minefield to block your fleetmovement – force a way thru the minefield [Basically the counterpart of Defense minelaying – “Breakout” with mines]

Carrying Mines is very easy to implement on larger vessels since you basically just need a ramp and cargo space, but especially U-boats, planes and E-boats(motor Torpedoboats) can only carry limited amounts and usually have to switch mission specific or where constructed especially for this mission(like Kriegsmarine Type X Minelayer  U-Boat). I think Refits are a way to make this worth considering (f.ex. remove z number Torpedo for -20 and add x mumber of Mines for +20 points).

Mine-laying can be achieved same way as smoke-screen(they are for the most part just dropped and anchor themselves with the attached mechanic).  Give an order in the movement phase(Apply Speed limit of 4″ max speed and propably just AA guns working). Lay one marker for every 3″ distance the ship moves in that phase. Mines may not activate during the round of placement.

Mine clearing during operations for the most part is detonating visible mines after cutting cables and then shooting it when it is on the surface or by triggering it with magnetic fields. Sometimes surplus boats where used to detonate mines. Therefore mine sweeping is actually harder and takes much longer than laying mines and is thus harder to implement.

[Nat]

Ok… rabbit hole time… Rules (even house rules) have to be playable or be the difficulty setting of a scenario.  Also VaS is at its core a historical system so any rules need a grounding in historical fact.

Now forget Hollywoods visuals of minelaying.. its a LOT more complicated than just chucking a mine off the back of a moving ship.  It boils down to:
1) You need to know the exact location otherswise its a danger to your own ships as well as the enemy… a US Destroyer was sunk by a Dutch mine off Java during the defence of java in early 42 while the ABDAFloat force was traversing the area to hunt for the Japanese invasion force.
2) Mines are not randomly dropped, but layed to a set pattern – Royal Navy doctrine was (is?) 50 yards apart – this dictates a speeed of 10-12knots (2-3″ movement in VaS terms) – closer and you risk sympathetic detonations (ie one sets off others…)  Again seen multiple times during the Java campaign with torpedoes (actually most of the ‘recorded’ torpedo strikes were sympathetic detonations when one hit it would set the other 2 or 3 off making it look to the firing ship that they’d hit with 3 or 4 when on 1 had)
3) Mines were laid by 3-5 ships working in tandem to set the pattern
4) Mines are set to a predertmined depth, so you need to know how DEEP the water is then set each individuals mines anchor cable.  You dont want to get the depth wrong on one, because you risk a ‘friendly fire’ incident if you try and use that area yourself at another time.  At the time the mines anchor length was set mechanically…. dont set the chain log enough and they’re too deep to trigger..
5) Mine density was (is?) about 100-150 mines in a patch – this is about 1″ square of table space (1″ in 1000 nautical yards – yes the table distances are a different scale to the models) without sitting down and doing the maths.
6) Mines move… see point 1.  Plus the mine fields at malta had a channel that was just big enough for the Ohio being guided by two destroyers either side – people expected them to clip and set off a mine, the other channels were smaller & all 3 (if memory serves me right) were regularly checked by Royal Navy minesweepers
7) Mines are basically a big box of explosives set off by a mechanical trigger – and they are sensitive, a near miss (a US carrier received damage from shell fire hitting the water a couple of hundred yards away (think it was the Yamatos main guns)) could trigger a mine if armed… so you would arm them as deploying them.  And you wouldnt be arming them if you are expecting to do violent maneuvers or expecting enemy fire.
8) So going off Soviet ships (I had the data to hand) MTBs carried about 5-6 mines normally instead of Depth Charges and /or torpedoes,  Submarines about 20, Destroyers 20-50 depending on equipment again,  Cruisers up to 100.
9) Individual mines were never dropped.. its impossible to keep track of them and you never know when you might need to sail down their yourself.  An example of this was the US mining the channels through the Solomon islands to stop Japanese reinforcements while using the channel themselves.
10) You dont want the enemy to SEE you dropping the mines because then they’ll know where they are and avoid them….

So for a usable game mechanic /token it would have to have a range of 3-4″, this would be a mine density of  up to about 400 mines (give or take).
So if you was to says a single mine field is 1-4 mine tokens stacked on each other to give a range of 3″ (otherwise its too easy to go round) and each detonation removes a token.  Token stacks cant be closer than 8″ to another token but can be touching land.  So as to give a channel of passage between each mine patch.
This would mean each token would equate to approximately 100 mines, or Mine 10!  As each Mine X would equal 10 real world mines, with MTB bases being mine 1.

 

So on to costs… well torpedoes cost around 2-10 points per system (VaS rounds the costs to 5 points for ease of list building) … now if you say each mine token is a 3 Damage Die Devastating attack that ignores Torpedo belt mine X would be in the 1-5 point range per pip.

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Nat.
• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Nat.
• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Nat.

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