How many mines are there?

[Brauer]

Ok, in my last 3 patrols in a row I have suddenly been damaged massively with no idea how. All three times I was submerged creeping at 3 knots and this last one, was the oddest. I am out in the channel (I know, risky) and I am getting in position to torp a large merchant. As I am setting my torps for impact, the ship sinks!!!!! What?!?!?! How? There weren't any other ship/planes in the area. Less than 5 minutes later, as I am creeping along at 3 knots underwater away from the scene, I have heavy flooding and am S.O.L. myself. While trying to repair, the game CTD! Man, I can't handle all these letdowns at one time. I don't understand what is going on. The other two times I experienced this sudden and massive damage were in open water nowhere near any ports or anything (AM 23, I think was one). Does GW mod have random minefields just anywhere? Is this a bug? I asked a friend and he had the same thing happen 2 days ago.:huh: :damn:

[CWorth]

Yes,If I remember correctly GW has the English Channel heavily mined as it was during the war..and no they are not random.Not sure if it is set to be mined after a certain date or not.

Basically you do not want to enter the channel.

Once France is under German control you can try and hug the French coast and get through that way until you get a base on the coast that is open to the Atlantic..but still have to be careful.

[andy_311]

Not in AM23 as far as I know eastern board of the UK yeah loads of them.
What year you in?

[Brauer]

January 1940. But yeah the channel is off limits for me from now on. I risked it because my patrol grid was CF32 I believe. It would have put me low on fuel to go around so I thought I had no choice but to go through. I guess that merchant ran onto a mine too, serves him right, blast those tommies and their mines. :p

[Keelbuster]

Just don't run at PD for long distances in the channel. You will hit a mine. Run on the surface when you want to transit for any distance. Except in very heavy weather, you're safe from mines when running on the surface. Merchants aren't because of their deep draft.

Kb

[Rosencrantz]

How many? Too many.

-RC-

[CCIP]

Just open the SCR layer and behold the horror off the east coast of britain :dead:

Yep, the British had laid massive mine barrages off their coasts. Heck, in WWI they managed to mine the entire exit from the North Sea - from the Shetlands to Norway!

[Miker1]

Okay, (using GW 1.1a) mines are present in the English Channel and off the East coast. I found that out for sure today. I also had a patrol grid far off the beaten path and so I thought a shortcut thru the English Channel might be something I'd try. I cruised straight for it and spotted an armed trawler that I engaged with the 88 at 4000 meters. About thirty rounds later it was destroyed but unknownst to me a patrol boat had sped up to my sub and surprised me with the clanging of small arms fire punching my conning tower. My 88 and flak guns returned fire and damaged it and it retreated but three other warships were headed my way and so it was time (daylight and around 1:00pm) to go under. My damage control team jumped into action and I kept heading west figuring I'd just slip through. But I kept thinking about all the warnings concerning mines and then it dawned on me to see if the periscope would work under water (I am new to the game and thought it would allow me to see what was in front of me.) It did. I was at 20 meters depth and looming out of the darkness, straight in front of me was a big ugly mine attached to a chain. Hard to starboard!!! Wheww!! Good thing they aren't magnetic. They did render them so neatly though with the contact detonators sticking out from all angles like some kind of spiny sponge. Scarry looking. So I kept looking forward and kept running into more mines and dodging them. The best you can hope for is 2X time compression otherwise you can't react fast enough. I just tired of the exercise so I started to head East again and worked my way out of the field eventually. Those that want to use this method are only vunerable when diving from the surface since for a brief time you are blind. Use the observation scope since it is in front and lets you see with a better angle. Also, I have to tell the watch officer to windex the lens as those smudges sure look like mines after awhile. So while I applaud the realism and attention to detail, (the air bubbles coming off the hull angle back towards you as the boat speeds up and at slower speeds the bubbles float straight up - so cool) the option for me in the future is to go via the Norway route. I guess that answers the question that I had about mines actually being in the game as discreet items versus some general % chance for different areas. I suppose the nets are real too. I have to go check that out at a friendly port with my external camera. Oh, one other thing... I was showing the game to a friend and was targeting seagulls (Wilhemshaven) with my 20mm and the rounds were impacting the water to the starboard side when all of a sudden the water exploded. Must have been a mine that I hit by accident. This game is really something. Makes me wonder if the trawler was luring me into the field in the first place. Oh one last thing. Running on the surface in calm water is safe since the boat clears those porcupines by about 1 meter from the looks of things - eyeballing it.)

[Safe-Keeper]

It's cheating in a sense, but you can find out for yourself where the mines are by opening up the Campaign_scr file in the /Campaign sub-folder with the SH3 mission editor. There are some truly massive mine fields in Grey Wolves, in places I'd never have thought of looking out for them. Quite horrifying to look at those enormous fields in the mission editor.

As a side note, there really should be a "We've struck a mine, captain!"-message when you hit a mine. It was infinitely confusing in the beginning to suddenly take damage and not know where it came from. When I struck a mine in Grey Wolves (and saw that huge fountain of water just by the boat) I actually found myself thinking "oh, wow, they've implemented AI torpedoes!":lol:.

[MarshalLaw]

Question on the Editor.... I was able to open and view however I wanted to zoom in but did not know how. Did not wanted to start clicking on things I was not sure about. Where do I zoom in and do I need to set time frames as well to see minefields? I'm just running 1.4 .

Thanks in advance.

[JScones]

Mouse wheel scroll up = zoom in
Mouse wheel scroll down = zoom out

It's an idea to set time filters as minefields "grow" over the course of the war. In other words, there will be less at the beginning of the war than what you see by default when you open the SCR .mis file.

[Hawk_308]

Im pretty sure the germans had done some mapping of the mine fields or at lest had gotten word that grid ____ is FUBAR. I wonder if there are any maps on the net that would be accurate enuff to use , or is the game not accurate enuff for the maps? I would like a map but not one thats a 100% accurate it would take some of the guess work out of it.:hmm:

[NIGHTFIGHTER]

Opperating out of Wilemshaven, i had the sme experance as MIKER1, twice i left port, got into clear sea so advanced time to 16x only to hit a mystery object and loose all on board:x Then at my 3rd attempt at starting my mission was to the south coast of Ireland, but at least this time i made it out of base. I headed for the channel (bad move) Travelling all the way on the surface i got jumped by a petroll boat got shot up and submerged, only to have two destroyers blow me out of the water:damn: never again will i go through there!!! But where is this map of the minefields? forgive me if its in an obvious place in the game, im a very Newbe in this wonderful game.

[bigboywooly]

Try a program called SH3gen by Global Explorer

http://www.global-explorer.de/

Reads your scr and rnd and provides you with intel on minefiels ( marking them on map ) as well as shipping
You can control the reliability of intel with a slider
Its a must have, along with SH3 commander
I dont leave home with out it:p

[NIGHTFIGHTER]

Thanks for the info Bigboy, anything that can make a great game even better cant be bad:rock: