SLMM/mobile mines

[Molon Labe]

Let's put this to rest once and for all....

LW/Ami SLMM lies in wait at 250 ft as a Sovremmenyy approaches.


LW/Ami SLMM exploding...


LW/Ami SLMM exploded.


Does that settle it?

Originally Posted by goelfou

Is there a fix for this problem specifically or do I have to install the full LWAMI mod to fix it ?

SCS has not bothered to fix SLMMs/mobile mines in any patch so far. I am not aware of any standalone mods to fix it.

Originally Posted by Chock

hey exhibit much the same behaviour in my DW, and that has LWAMI on it. I had a Soveremmnyy (or however you spell it) hammer it past a line of four I'd supposedly blocked an inlet with, the ship doing about 31 knots. It went right in between two of them making more noise than a squadron of B-52s on a carpet bombing mission and they just sat there doing nothing. It was within about 30 feet of one of them, so it must have passed through the seeker cone, as it was pointing directly into the cone. the only thing I could possibly think of, is that some mines are intelligent in the way they trigger, i.e. they will let a certain number of ships past before they detonate, as this makes sweeping and detecting them trickier. There are all kinds of variations on this theme where mines are concerned. however, I doubt that is the issue here, I think they are just defective, unless someone knows otherwise.

They're about as much use as a chocolate fireguard as far as I can see.

You neglected to mention the depth they settled at. Detonation of an SLMM/mobile mine is a function of proximity, not noise levels or seeker cones. So naturally the deeper you plant them, the closer you have to get. (The Sov above was probably about 75yd away horizontally, 250 ft vertically.)

The situations in which you'll be able to get close enough to hit a specific ship in DW are practically nil,though. That isn't a problem with the mine, that's a problem of expectations. Mines are strategic weapons that do the most damage through psychological, not explosive, force. If you put enough of them in a high traffic area, maybe you get a hit, maybe you don't, but as long as your enemy believes the mines are there that area of sea is essentially shut down. There's really no way to model this in a tactical level sim.

[Chock]

You neglected to mention the depth they settled at. Detonation of an SLMM/mobile mine is a function of proximity, not noise levels or seeker cones. So naturally the deeper you plant them, the closer you have to get. (The Sov above was probably about 75yd away horizontally, 250 ft vertically.)

That's the point, they don't settle at any depth, they stop and stay at the depth they are fired at. In the example I quoted, that was with my sub at a depth of 18, this being the depth they transited to the area at. Having done that they came to a halt at that depth, and stayed at that depth, the ship passed within approximately 30 feet laterally of it and the water was only 13m deep at that point anyway, so it most definitely was not 250 feet vertically nor 75 yards. I've watched it with 'Show Truth' on and repeated it a few times too, and frankly if it was any closer, it would have hit the thing, let alone set off a proximity fuse or magnetic anomaly field detector. I know what sets them off incidentally, I was merely describing the noise level to indicate just how close the thing was when it passed. Believe me, I would love it if they worked as in your pictures, but they don't when I use them, simple as that.

Chock

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Chock

That's the point, they don't settle at any depth, they stop and stay at the depth they are fired at. In the example I quoted, that was with my sub at a depth of 18, this being the depth they transited to the area at. Having done that they came to a halt at that depth, and stayed at that depth, the ship passed within approximately 30 feet laterally of it and the water was only 13m deep at that point anyway, so it most definitely was not 250 feet vertically nor 75 yards. I've watched it with 'Show Truth' on and repeated it a few times too, and frankly if it was any closer, it would have hit the thing, let alone set off a proximity fuse or magnetic anomaly field detector. I know what sets them off incidentally, I was merely describing the noise level to indicate just how close the thing was when it passed. Believe me, I would love it if they worked as in your pictures, but they don't when I use them, simple as that.

Chock

Normal LW/Ami operation of for the mine to decend to just above the floor, as you can see in the pictures above. Normal stock behavior is for the weapon to overshoot its waypoint, stay at the launch depth, and eventually hover there and do nothing. So what you're describing perfectly matches stock DW activity.

I'll check to see if being in 13m of water screws with the Mobile Mine (I'm assuming that you're using a russian boat since you gave the depth in meters), but for the time being it really looks like your experience was without the mod enabled or with some other weirdness going on. LW/Ami mines have proved quite reliable as long as the floor isn't extremely sloped.

EDIT: WTF man? How could the mine have stayed at the launch depth of 18m and been planted in water 13m deep!!!!? If what you say is true, that mine was 5m underground!

EDIT 2: OK, no matter what depth you fire an SLMM from, it goes up to just below the surface. This means you don't need to worry about your launch depth; you can fire deep and the mine will be able to plant someplace shallower than you. So the firing from 18 into 13m shouldn't be a problem. Just got a successful hit on the same Sov in 80ft of water. Now for the Mobile Mine...

[Chock]

To clarify things, it's the Russian Rebellion mission where you are in the 'Akula', or Pike to be more accurate, and you have to drop off the special forces, of course you are supposed to ID the bad guys and prevent a breakout from the harbour too, so at the manual periscope depth of 18m, I'm launching four mines to four waypoints in a row from the centre of the exit channel to the left where the ships come out, leaving me just enough room to scrape past the mines on the right, into the harbour if I have to, so I would have thought a mine detonation should be money in the bank for something like that. The depth there is 13m at its shallowest up to about 23 metres at the deepest and the mines seem to stop at a depth of (approximately) 4 or 5 metres, i.e. nearer the surface than the sea bed. They just sit there and have no effect. I could torpedo the boat of course, but it's kind of annoying that i seem to have mines from Walmart:rotfl:

Chock

[Molon Labe]

Here's the LWAMI Mobile Mine in a 14m channel:



That's got to be my favorite mine screenshot since you can see the mine exploding from the surface.

[Chock]

I notice the range on your map inset there. In my case, the 'selection box' of the target ship was actually overlapping the mine icon on the tightest zoom setting, i.e. it was much closer than your picture depicts, but still no effect, so I'm at a loss as to explain why it didn't go off, like I said, if it had been any closer, it would have actually hit the thing.

Nice pic by the way, only wish I could get one:rotfl:

Chock

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Chock

To clarify things, it's the Russian Rebellion mission where you are in the 'Akula', or Pike to be more accurate, and you have to drop off the special forces, of course you are supposed to ID the bad guys and prevent a breakout from the harbour too, so at the manual periscope depth of 18m, I'm launching four mines to four waypoints in a row from the centre of the exit channel to the left where the ships come out, leaving me just enough room to scrape past the mines on the right, into the harbour if I have to, so I would have thought a mine detonation should be money in the bank for something like that. The depth there is 13m at its shallowest up to about 23 metres at the deepest and the mines seem to stop at a depth of (approximately) 4 or 5 metres, i.e. nearer the surface than the sea bed. They just sit there and have no effect. I could torpedo the boat of course, but it's kind of annoying that i seem to have mines from Walmart:rotfl:

Chock

Well, after trying this in a variety of depths, it really seems like your mod isn't enabled. In all cases, every mine fired in these tests decended to just above the floor. The only time a mine hovered as you're describing was when I ran a test with the mod disabled.

[goelfou]

After installing LWAMI Mod (from stock DW, with a Lwami_308_Full.exe installer), I have tried again the mine thing, and it did explode.

So, I can tell, from my own tests :
- Stock DW : hover at waypoint, does not explode at all
- LWAMI 3.08 : sink at waypoint, explodes

It is a bit annoying since I wished to do the campaign with no mods.
I'll use no mines then :/.

@Chock : Your problem seems bigger since you had this weird behavior also with LWAMI mod.
I can only recommend a clean uninstall/reinstall with fresh downloaded lwami 3.08 archive...

[Chock]

Yup, going to try a reinstall, it's got to be screwed up from the behaviour I'm getting (or rather not getting).

Chock

[Chock]

I'm guessing that when something gets this close to a mine, it really ought to go off, or you should get your money back from the arms dealer:rotfl:



Chock

[Molon Labe]

Hard to tell for sure, but it doesn't look like that mine settled.

[goelfou]

It's a paper boat ! Look at those nice folds !



Seriously, I could do the same with stock DW, resolved the issue with 3.08 install. Good luck

[SeaQueen]

Not necessarily, there's such a thing as ship counters, which require multiple passes for a mine to go off. Additionally, mines don't have to become active immediately after placement. There might be some time delay, in fact, if I was the one placing them, I'd prefer them not to activate for a few days after I'd placed them in order to make sure I was well away from the location and insure their placement remains secret. That's why, if I had my druthers, mines in the game, wouldn't explode immediately after a ship passed over them. Rather, I'd prefer to have a trigger to trap their placement.

Originally Posted by Chock

I'm guessing that when something gets this close to a mine, it really ought to go off, or you should get your money back from the arms dealer

[SeaQueen]

I agree in large part. The fact of the matter is, that mines allow you to "hold at risk," any vessel in an area, which is a very specific sort of strategic goal. That being said, the effect of a mine field depends a lot on one knowing their actuation radius. If you know that, then you can plan things like how likely it is that the first ship gets hit, etc. That means you can use them tactically, if you are careful.

The thing is, due to their presistant and indescriminant nature, laying a minefield is not to be taken as lightly as shooting a torpedo (not that shooting torpedoes is taken lightly either). Laying minefields has a lot of implications from an international law perspective as well. I'm not a lawyer but I doubt you could, for example, lay a minefield in self defense, the same way you could shoot a torpedo or a ASCM. Mines also typically don't "turn on" right away. They're placed and sit for some time before becoming active. These days, they also usually have ship counters set to some random number, so even if they were turned on, they might not actuate on the first ship that goes by. That makes the short term effectiveness of a field uncertain. Laying a minefield has a lot of larger implications because it effectively denies safe use of a piece of ocean to anyone in it. In this sense, one would almost always lay mines in the context of a larger operational or even strategic plan that had been very carefully thought out.

Given all that, it really raises the question, wouldn't it just be wiser to shoot a torpedo or an ASCM?

From a realism standpoint, I'd argue it's probably more realistic to use mines less as an actual weapon you intend to employ against someone specific and more as a way to satisfy a mission goal. From a gaming standpoint too I think it's better because the mission goal might be something like, "lay a minefield with at least a 90% probability that the first ship to enter the field will be hit" and then you have to ask yourself, "how many mines do I need to carry to build that minefield?" Then you have to ask yourself, "how much space will I have left for other weapons and will that be enough to get me to where I need to be?" If the answer is, "no" then you have to be really conservative about shooting torpedoes. You'll always find yourself asking, "Do I have to shoot this guy? Would it be better to just run or hide?" That's what sub gaming is all about in my mind. Instead of thinking of subs as wonder weapons, think of what their limitations are, and then build a scenario to challenge those and your skills as a decision maker. If I was a sub captain, I wouldn't want mines on my boat. I'd rather have torpedoes or missiles. Mines are something the people upstairs would make me carry as part of one of their evil plots.

The situations in which you'll be able to get close enough to hit a specific ship in DW are practically nil,though. That isn't a problem with the mine, that's a problem of expectations. Mines are strategic weapons that do the most damage through psychological, not explosive, force. If you put enough of them in a high traffic area, maybe you get a hit, maybe you don't, but as long as your enemy believes the mines are there that area of sea is essentially shut down. There's really no way to model this in a tactical level sim.