Detecting mines in CMBN using allied engineers or German Pionieren

[Kandu]

The following were observed on a test map with every terrain type, using German Pioniers broken down into squad-sized teams to search for anti-personnel mines.
Allied engineers and German Pionieren can be used to reveal hidden mines. The goal is to do so while suffering the least possible casualties. This is accomplished by crawling the engineers through the suspect area. In non-agricultural terrain of all types this appears to reveal hidden mines the same turn, occasionally the next. In that same terrain marking mines will take just one more turn, rarely two. Density of trees and shrubs appears to have no influence on detection time.

Agricultural terrain such as ploughed fields and crops, appears to be more difficult. In these fields it seems necessary to remain in place for as much as four or five turns to detect hidden mines. Marking mines in agricultural fields similarly takes longer than in natural terrain.

Casualties do occur but are very low, about 2%.

Once the mines have been marked, infantry can safely pass through provided they are broken down into squads and do not move quick or fast. Vehicles must still move 'around' marked mines.

 

[dkchapuis]

what experience level were the engineers?

 

[Kandu]

what experience level were the engineers?

Thank you for that question, because it made me wonder.
In my test scenario described above, I used German SS Pionieren with Regular Experience and variable Motivation.

This afternoon I got different results with American Engineers, Regular Experience, variable Motivation in the second scenario in the campaign "Courage and Fortitude". The American Pioneers took five times longer to detect the mines and about twice as long to 'mark'. I could not discern any difference between under fire and not under fire.

BTW - tossing satchel charges at mines had no effect on the mines. The engineers just got up and ran towards the mines instead of tossing the charges. There was one exception. When I tossed a charge to blow a hole in a wire obstacle the marked mines immediately adjacent to the wire ALL detonated - blowing one of my nearby units to kingdom come. Interestingly, it did not change the warning sign from 'marked' to 'cleared'.

 

[Shady Side]

Thank you for that question, because it made me wonder.
In my test scenario described above, I used German SS Pionieren with Regular Experience and variable Motivation.

This afternoon I got different results with American Engineers, Regular Experience, variable Motivation in the second scenario in the campaign "Courage and Fortitude". The American Pioneers took five times longer to detect the mines and about twice as long to 'mark'. I could not discern any difference between under fire and not under fire.

BTW - tossing satchel charges at mines had no effect on the mines. The engineers just got up and ran towards the mines instead of tossing the charges. There was one exception. When I tossed a charge to blow a hole in a wire obstacle the marked mines immediately adjacent to the wire ALL detonated - blowing one of my nearby units to kingdom come. Interestingly, it did not change the warning sign from 'marked' to 'cleared'.

i know the mission your talking about in the courage and fortitude campaign... i can not think of the name of it but u have a bridge u must cross? and i think u already know from the briefing the bridge is known or at least suspected to be mined?????

i have played that one a few times..... in one of them i was going to blow the barricade with one broken down team while 2 more were marking mines........ well the charge to blow the barricade set off the AT mine and i am pretty sure AP mines all around.... damned thing looked like a 500lb bomb went all and killed everybody in a pretty big radius.....

side note on the campaign.......if anybody is trying to play thru it..... that is a very very hard mission but is doable..............

 

[Kandu]

i know the mission your talking about in the courage and fortitude campaign... i can not think of the name of it but u have a bridge u must cross? and i think u already know from the briefing the bridge is known or at least suspected to be mined?????

i have played that one a few times..... in one of them i was going to blow the barricade with one broken down team while 2 more were marking mines........ well the charge to blow the barricade set off the AT mine and i am pretty sure AP mines all around.... damned thing looked like a 500lb bomb went all and killed everybody in a pretty big radius.....

side note on the campaign.......if anybody is trying to play thru it..... that is a very very hard mission but is doable..............

Hi Shady:

Yes, I am playing through that campaign. The way to beat the first scenario without too many casualties is to use your 'three only' satchel charges to blow and entry and an exit in the bocage around the woods on the right and the last satchel to blow through the enemy bocage line at the farthest point on the right. Then move nearly all troops including Shermans through that route.

The second scenario with the exposed bridge and swamp was terribly dificult. I had to completely change my approach. Using the Shermans and mortars as overwatch from deep in my own position, I moved only one engineer team forward at a time. I did nothing except search for mines for about 30 minutes of play, keeping everything else back. After that I rushed forward three Shermans and one infantry platoon, most of whom were KIA'd. Then called for a ceasefire. The Game gave me a draw and the next scenario started with a large part of my force on the enemy side of the river and no more mines to worry about. I fed my follow-up troops in very slowly and patiently because the AI has an horrendous amount of artillery and mortar fire to pour down on the assaulting Americans. That enabled me to eventually win the scenario with only three minutes to spare.

Tomorrow I'll play the next scenario.

 

[Shady Side]

yes now i remember the first mission of it......... i thought it was a fairly easy one...though i think i cleared it a little different than that.... i remember i had almost completey wiped out the enemy force and had only taken a very few casualites....... seems like maybe i concentrated a lot of my tanks on very small portions of the german line across the valley once they had been baited into exposing themselves within a turn or 2 at most the entire position would be wiped out..... seems like i played with alot of sightlines where i could be in deadground to most of their positions and still have an overwhelming number of tanks firing at known and suspected enemy positions... after one was silenced.. i would bait another into firing ...rinse and repeat........

the school of hard knocks.is the next one. if u dont get a victory it branches to the university of hard knocks that is must win to continue....... now i remember.......

can i get an estimate of your causalities for the 2 scenarios... just a rough percent..... i dont want to spoil anything so i want say almost anything about what is in store for u.......i do remember one more scenario maybe the one your about to start that i thought was very fun.... kinda difficult but still fun....

it has been years since i played it.... first time thru i lost both bridge crossings and that ended the campaign....

SPOILER AHEAD FOR SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS






second time playing the first attempt to cross i won....by feeding all my infantry across the bridge then immediately to the right along the river bank.....u can get thru that way staying partly in the water and in the deep muck at times... it takes forever and really really tires your troops out... the good news is most of the route is mostly in dead ground.. though there are some exposed points where they will draw fire... but i was able to cover them with tanks and mortars that had not attempted to cross.......once all your infantry is on the right of the map u have the german positions on that side flanked...... so that allowed me to cross with my armor with the tanks covering each other on the move plus whatever little bit of smoke shells i had left only had to cover a short portion of the german side of the river on the left where my infantry not cleared out.... once tanks are safely across i was able to attack the ridge with all my forces concentrated on the right side of the map... basically bypassing the whole left side of the map............... i won with very little time left and all of my surviving troops fatigued or exhausted.........


the campaign has a voluntary branching route somewhere ahead of u.... i played both sides of it and remember liking one a lot better than the other..... dont remember which branch was which now though

 

[Kandu]

I don't have any saved files to look at casualties but I remember that my total of KIA, WIA and MIA in the last scenario was 100 or thereabouts. Also I am down to three tanks. My casualties in the first scenario and first attempt of the second, I do not remember.

 

[Shady Side]

I don't have any saved files to look at casualties but I remember that my total of KIA, WIA and MIA in the last scenario was 100 or thereabouts. Also I am down to three tanks. My casualties in the first scenario and first attempt of the second, I do not remember.

i dont wanna spoil anything........ .. .. when i played it the second time and was able to win the campaign.... i know i took some very heavy losses in that mission.....

it was still a good mission... a hard kinda frustrating one ... but there is a difference in a frustrating hard but still fun mission..... and a frustrating hard but not fun mission....

 

[Kandu]

i dont wanna spoil anything........ .. .. when i played it the second time and was able to win the campaign.... i know i took some very heavy losses in that mission.....

it was still a good mission... a hard kinda frustrating one ... but there is a difference in a frustrating hard but still fun mission..... and a frustrating hard but not fun mission....

I agree.

 

[Bulletpoint]

I think it is also possible to detect mines by moving engineers to the square right next to them. But it can take a long time to spot the mines, and of course you need to be quite sure of their location to do it this way.

About School of Hard Knocks, I struggled a lot with it in the beginning, but then I realised that you must sacrifice your engineers to blow the mines, and that the mission starts out in darkness so that you can actually move up to make a base of fire during the first 20 minutes or so. That made the mission much easier and I managed to completely win it with relataively few casualties.

It's one of those "easy when you know how" missions that's difficult because the graphics of the game don't show you how dark it really is, so you feel exposed when you actually aren't.

And because the clunky way the bridge demining was done since the game can't handle demining AT mines so you have to blow the wire, but the briefing doesn't tell you this and you have to play "guess the designer's intention".

 

[Shady Side]

I think it is also possible to detect mines by moving engineers to the square right next to them. But it can take a long time to spot the mines, and of course you need to be quite sure of their location to do it this way.

About School of Hard Knocks, I struggled a lot with it in the beginning, but then I realised that you must sacrifice your engineers to blow the mines, and that the mission starts out in darkness so that you can actually move up to make a base of fire during the first 20 minutes or so. That made the mission much easier and I managed to completely win it with relataively few casualties.

It's one of those "easy when you know how" missions that's difficult because the graphics of the game don't show you how dark it really is, so you feel exposed when you actually aren't.

And because the clunky way the bridge demining was done since the game can't handle demining AT mines so you have to blow the wire, but the briefing doesn't tell you this and you have to play "guess the designer's intention".

yes there is a method the works sometimes and sometimes not.... more your enginneers to where u suspect mines might be......... on the next turn if they have seen any the mark mine tab from the movement panel will be brightened up and be an option to select..... the the panel is not lit up move your enginneers only 1or2 squares per turn on move order or slow... sometimes they will spot the mines allowing the marking process to start the next turn..... sometimes they might find the mines like a regular GI and step one or two........ either way u can begin marking them the next turn