Naval Mines

[Emperor_Taiki]

Naval Mines played a very important role in both the pacifiic and atlantic, but I have never read any house rules that add them as a unit or tech.

Does anyone have a system for representing them? or do you think mines are just part of the combat factors of the subs/destroyers/crusiers/transports/aircraft that might lay them?

[Imperious Leader]

Yes i use them in my WW1 game.

Basically two methods:

1. you buy them and place them, a ship that moves THRU the sea zone, invades or attacks any ships in the Sea zone gets rolled on 1 is a hit and each ship must roll. You can only place one per sea zone and you have to allocate a destroyer for this task.

2. They are built and hidden and when a ship that moves THRU the sea zone, invades or attacks any ships in the Sea zone
   is randomly lined up the die roll hits the unit it rolls in the sequence.

Example: you line up the BB, CA, and 2 DD. The roll is 5 so no hits are assigned. If you roll a 1 the BB is gone!

In both cases if any hit occurs the mine is removed. If no hit is occured the mine remains.

The cost varies depending on application and cost of naval units. For AA50 i suggest it cost 5 if using option 1 and 10 if using option 2

[Imperious Leader]

forgot to add: you can only mine areas adjacent to land territories, and ships passing thru straights get a bonus of +1 if using option 1 and -1 if using option 2.

[Emperor_Taiki]

ok, i like the first way, i will it in try it in my next game

by the way, why did you not used them in AARHE

[Imperious Leader]

WE have enough detail in AARHE. AS you may know we are making a more friendly version of AARHE at the moment.

I could offer it as a compendium of optional rules. Remind me latter.

I don’t like to windowdress a design with a bunch of “fluff” thats too specific, like ‘sea mines’ because its really a unique and minor weapon. its not like hundreds of ships were sunk by mines.

[tekkyy]

if its not too complex I would make it only work for amphibious assault or waterways
it would have been too expensive to mine the open seas right?

[Imperious Leader]

open water would mean very deep water and the chain would snap from the tides because of the length of the chain, and also it would disrupt your own naval traffic.

[Flashman]

I would allow bombers to drop mines over sea zones, a cheaper and much safer way of doing it!  One of Bomber Command’s most succesful tactics was to air drop mines in the Danube and other inland waterways; this caused havoc with German supply lines to the eastern front, and they later wondered if this would have been a more efficient means of damaging the Axis economy than area bombing.

[Imperious Leader]

Thats too detailed!

You might as well add engineers and sapper units to the game.

[Flashman]

Why is it more detailed than destroyers laying mines?

Interesting to find the stats for voulme of mines layed per method.

[Imperious Leader]

you cant assign any unit to lay mines. I choose destroyer because it closest to mine layer. Perhaps a transport should be used instead.