Minefields. Rules vs. reality

[Flinty]

I have started small scale skirmish set in NW Europe, playing (or having perused) CoC, TW&T, Battlegroup, Patrol WWII, Battleground WWII, Combat Patrol, 5 Men and Normandy Firefight.

Rules often allow for minefields as a support option. This raises questions in my little mind:

a) I thought minefields took some time/specialist knowledge to install and tended to form part of fixed positions, so usually around engineered defensive and artillery positions, strategic installations etc.).

b) Most skirmish scenarios, outside the assault of one of the above, tend to be meeting, probing or hasty defence actions.
I don't imagine an infantry platoon would have the time, munitions and ability to be able to install the typical wargame minefield, and I find it hard to believe that Higher Command was in the habit of releasing Engineers to install these at the drop of a hat when requested by any old Platoon, never mind a Company, commander.

c) I  don't understand why minefields (not part of a), above) are neatly signposted to alert the enemy (careful, you might hurt yourself!) - unless its a dummy/deception tactic.

d) I find 'Engineers can clear minefields in X turns/by rolling Dx/accumulating x task points' rules somewhat bizzare. Surely obstacles are only effective if covered by fire, and waving a mine detector about or stabbing the ground with a bayonet whilst being shot at, is not anyone's idea of a remotely sensible way to spend an hour.

So this seems to result in 100ft tall generals ignoring parts of the table as a minefield is clearly visible or the clearance activity taking a turn or two.
Note: I can see the value of banging a few signs into the ground as a deception.

Caveat. I have done no research and my primary period is the Cold War, so I may have the reality of WWII all wrong.

I have decided to house rule as follows:
- Platoons may hastily deploy or scatter a small number of mines.
- These small 'tactical' minefields are not marked; the attacker should set a mine off before being aware of thier presence.
- Blue-on-blue results are possible if you have dim/forgetful soldiers or poorly briefed reinforcements.
- A couple or three AT mines may be hastily dug in, or a string of them pulled across the road, with a suitably small spotting chance from within an AFV.
- Any minefield covered by fire cannot be cleared by Engineers until the enemy is driven off.
- Minefields cannot be cleared by Engineers within the duration of a typical game.
- Smaller/flimsier obstacles can be cleared under fire by setting a demo charge or being pushed aside by a tank (depending on construction). Usually charges are only available if Engineers are present/selected, and they will be shot at.

Is it possible to clear AT mines by chucking satchel charges or firing the main AT gun at them?


Im assuming someone will know if any of this sounds at all right for late WW2, or can describe what happened in reality.
Suggestions for other approaches gratefully recieved.

Thanks

[V]

Most WW2 minefields were clearly marked. Also mapped and planned out.

They were area denial systems, not offensive systems.

If you mark all minefields, then marking empty fields works well too...

Unmarked minefields were not the norm, except in quick laid environments or when a certain tactical need required.

But most of the time you mark them, so you dont walk in them... its effect is the same on the enemy. They either avoid and walk into your designated fields of fire or spend an age trying to clear it.

You also map them well so you can clear them yourself safely and quickly.

So yes, your ideas sound fine for specific historical scenarios to me where such tactical options are required. A string of AT mines to pull across the road was described in several manuals of the period I believe.

[RichBliss]

MinefieldS would almost never be laid or cleared in the presence of the enemy.  The careful handling required would be impossible under fire.  Also, engineers were a valuable asset that would only be exposed to enemy fire under dire circumstances.

Minefields were not intended to cause casualties per se. Rather they were (and are) meant to deny terrain, disrupt advances, and channel movement.  These functions are all better achieved through well marked fields instead of hidden mines.

[von der Tann]

a) I thought minefields took some time/specialist knowledge to install and tended to form part of fixed positions, so usually around engineered defensive and artillery positions, strategic installations etc.).

Not necessarily. Minefields are usually used to block movement or force the enemy into a certain direction. And, at least that's what I learned 25 years ago, are never without "guards". Nowadays you have Minelayers like the Scorpion or aircraft carried mines, that are jettisoned from their packages - no real specialist knowledge apart from operating the vehicle needed there. In WWII not every mine was dug in too. In the high grass of the Russian plains there is no need to dig in mines - not even huge anti-tank mines, same goes for forests. It is something else when we are talking about roads or trails - dig mines in there - and hide it as best as possible from the enemy.

b) Most skirmish scenarios, outside the assault of one of the above, tend to be meeting, probing or hasty defence actions.
I don't imagine an infantry platoon would have the time, munitions and ability to be able to install the typical wargame minefield, and I find it hard to believe that Higher Command was in the habit of releasing Engineers to install these at the drop of a hat when requested by any old Platoon, never mind a Company, commander.

The average Bundeswehr Panzergrenadier platoon usually did not carry mines around. But if necessary, could be issued with mines, to lay a small minefield. Say, block a bridge or path in a wood. Same goes for WWII imho.
Then you have to take into consideration what the platoon is doing. Attacking? Most unlikely they will lay a minefield. Blitzkrieg is movement, minelaying by infantry platoons ... not so much.
They will defend (statically or in a delaying operation)? Be sure they will have some nasty surprises for you. Minefields, booby traps, everything the human mind can come up with ... provided they had the time to prepare.

c) I  don't understand why minefields (not part of a), above) are neatly signposted to alert the enemy (careful, you might hurt yourself!) - unless its a dummy/deception tactic.

If you put up signs warning of minefields and the accompanying danger, you only put those up so friendly units can see them. I would expect those only at static defense lines. Otherwise you just get coordinates to put in your map. You might lay markers when you belong to the troops guarding the field, like reflecting bands in the trees or on the ground, facing away from the enemy - something like that.

d) I find 'Engineers can clear minefields in X turns/by rolling Dx/accumulating x task points' rules somewhat bizzare. Surely obstacles are only effective if covered by fire, and waving a mine detector about or stabbing the ground with a bayonet whilst being shot at, is not anyone's idea of a remotely sensible way to spend an hour.

Clearing a minefield completely is tedious and long work.
When you attack and run into a minefield you either "open the minefield" by clearing a single path through it or you bypass it.
Opening a path under enemy fire is probably one of the shittiest jobs you can get. Or - which is more likely, you will put in reverse, backtrack your steps, report that you found/hit a minefield. Most of the time you will be told to look for a way around the minefield.
But when you are told to open it, you (Panzergrenadier platoon) will dismount and through a combination of fire and movement the vehicles and the dismounted infantry will try to locate the guards, destroy them and then start clearing a path.
Clearing the path either by yourself (again shitty job with nothing more are a spade and a knife), or by explosive rods (those were carried by PzGren platoons 25 years ago) or call upon engineers to do it with whatever they have. If you are lucky enough to get the last option, you will remain there to keep them safe from enemy counter attacks.

While drawing mainly on the experience from my own army time, back then most tactics were only marginally different from those in WWII. Mostly tactics changed when technological advancement made things easier or faster or whatever. But basic infantry and Panzergrenadier tactics were mostly the same.

[Flinty]

Hah - Hive Mind win again! Cheers All.

Minefields are an area denial tool - which is how I would view them in a Cold War scenario - but which seems to have been somewhat over-abstracted in WW2 skirmish rules.

While drawing mainly on the experience from my own army time, back then most tactics were only marginally different from those in WWII. Mostly tactics changed when technological advancement made things easier or faster or whatever. But basic infantry and Panzergrenadier tactics were mostly the same.

Brilliant, always nice to hear a view from the sharp end - thanks.

So I will stick with minefields as a simple area denial option, with no chance of clearance during a game, unless it becomes the major drive of the operation - and look at expanding house rules for booby-traps and similar smaller scale nasty suprises.

 

[Truscott Trotter]

Yup minefield laying and clearing take hours and though usually done by Engineers/Sapper not always.

Small groups of mines laid to block a small area like a road or bridge  are often laid by troops and quickly - just reading some accounts of this in Calais 1940.

then there is the famous moving minefields of Kursk! 

[Flinty]

then there is the famous moving minefields of Kursk!

Read about these just the other day - huge numbers, as expected for Kursk - but shows (as per the answers above) that use in a hasty defense scenario is a perfectly viable option.

The Osprey 'WW2 Infantry Assault Tactics' also included the interesting snippet that the Japanese expected two men to silently cut 6yds/6m of barbed wire in 1.5-2.5 hrs.
I assume that silently would mean out of direct observation and/or at night.
 
Bangalores are the only option in a day-time game then!

I'll be treating all suitable locations as Blinds, which allows for mines, obstacles, booby-traps, or just rabbits.

[John D Salt]

A few quick points:

Marking minefields is a requirement of international law, although which countries had ratified which conventions on the subject in WW2 I don't know.

It's true that a formal protective minefield would need quite a bit of effort to do properly, but it's the sort of work that really requires only a few skilled engineers, and its the sort of thing the battalion assault pioneer platoon ought to be able to supervise. Once you have a lorryload of mines and some digging tools, a lot of the digging and lugging can be done by ordinary infantrymen.

At the platoon and section level you're talking about, in mobile operations, you're right to think that would be an extraordinary amount of effort. However there are various types of mine, both anti-personnel and anti-tank, that you might usefully incorprate in a game at this level.

You mentioned mine necklaces, and it would be quite usual, in an anti-tank ambush, to have a bunch of mines that could be pulled across a road or track with a cord, or pushed on a plank. These would probably be something light like the British Hawkins mine, also used by the Americans who developed their own M7 from it, although the Germans seem to have been able to scrounge Tellers from helpful pionere where tank-killing was concerned, and were famously known to stick them under the backs of T-34 turrets. I believe that off-route mines originated from the French Maquis practice of emplacing a bazooka with a wire attached to the trigger so that a vehicle driving along a road would cause the bazooka to shoot it in the side. A cunning device based on a PIAT bomb and trip-wire with grapnel-like spikes to stick it into a tree was issued to SOE, but not as far as I know to any regular forces. The Russians had the purpose-built LMG rocket-mine, essentially an 82mm HEAT rocket with tripwire firing. Any of these sorts of devices will work, and in tiny numbers, but they rely on the tank being confined to a road or track, so that an extensive field of mines is not needed.

The other kind of thing one might find are tripwire-triggered anti-personnel mines. These might be purpose-built, as in the Russian POMZ stake mine, or improvised using grenades, for which purpose I believe at least the Russian and German armies issued instantaneous greande fuzes as an option. The British Army in particular has for a long time been very fond of trip-flares to help security of a position at night, and laying and recovering these is an ordinary infantry task. They are intended to provide warning, rather than be lethal, but if you have a gun sighted on the flare, it may still prove to be no fun for the people tripping it.

I would think it would take a pretty hefty rabbit to set off a trip flare, but a deer will easily do it, and I reckon a badger could too. I did on one night exercise spend half an hour stood to with the rest of the platoon because one of our trip flares went off, and later investigation revealed that at the time the enemy were miles away, but we never discovered what tripped it.

As to clearing mines -- if it's individual surface-laid mines, as it would be with stake-mines, off-route mines, and most uses of the Hawkins, it's a question of blowing them in place, and one could easily do this with a satchel charge or another Hawkins mine, or, most obviously, a long piece of string to pull the tripwire from a safe distance. For a formal buried field, however, I'd say that any amount of gun fire would be largely useless, and you need some kind of specialist breaching gear -- flail, roller or plough, line-charge, or bangalore. Even at that, fields of mines are never cleared anywhere near the fighting line, only breached and safe lanes marked.

All the best,

John.

[DS615]

The purpose of a minefield is to keep people out, not to blow stuff up.
The latter is a consequence of disobeying the former.
Hence the reason for signs.  It does you no good to block a place with mines if the enemy doesn't know there are mines blocking them.

Anti-vehicle mines would be sort of an exception, and were placed on roads specifically to blow stuff up.  But it would blow stuff up to block the road, thereby denying its use, so it ultimately is to keep people out.

Mines should be used as part of a dug in defense.  In small skirmish games, you could occasionally fight over an area with a minefield that either wasn't finished, or hasn't been removed yet.  That could give you the oddly deployed fields most game rules allow for I think.