Aircraft Deployed Mines

[late kestrel]

After watching the interview, the parachute nukes reminded me of a concept made by Dahir Insaat, which is a anti tank system deployed by aircraft that embeds itself into the ground by controlling it's speed (via a parachute that drops it at a predetermined height, or airbrakes). It's a nice idea but it's pretty impractical, so I was thinking instead of a anti tank system, more of something like a anti tank mine. I know there are issues like "how much explosive payload can it carry," "how can it differentiate friend from foe," and "how cost effective could it be with the scarcity of ground vehicles." But I think it could somehow work. (I feel like this might break the first rule for suggestions, so I expect this to be denied)
(this was made at 12am in my time zone, so sorry for any bad grammar)

[north moss]

differentiate
Its a landmine, you don't differentiate.

[lost iris]

To be practical it would need to be more than one mine per deployment from a player, especially since getting precise targets for an air drop is not trivial even under the best of conditions.

As such it should probably deploy an entire minefield per launch. I’m currently thinking of the Helldivers mine spinner pylon, but since it’s already up in the air maybe just a stick that ejects the mines and so the ones ejected higher naturally spread out more. Basically just a cluster bomb but the bomblets are mines. Then if people can get it near to roads it might damage or take out a convoy, and if the RTS control of vehicles ever becomes a bigger thing it would be useful there too.

Ideally friendly deployed minefields would be marked on the map automatically, but enemy minefields would not be marked even when visually scouted until something runs into them.

[modern hedge]

Air-deployable mine systems usually work by mounting a dispenser to an aircraft, and individually deploying mines as it flies over a target area. I think that's how NO should do mine deployment, instead of deploying them through a cluster munition.

VOLCANO mine system on a UH-60, for example

[lost iris]

While a lot more sensible and realistic, the downside with this is you have to keep track of every mine. With a parachuted cluster munition the game only really needs to know the centre of the minefield and how many mines have exploded to be able to approximate or abstract a lot of stuff. Whether that optimisation is needed or even wanted or not, no idea. If people can lay individual mines though, be prepared for them to heavily seed the roads all the time, in a way that limiting it to clusters (with presumably not that many per sortie) might at least slightly alleviate.

(They’d still be on the roads a lot for sure, but if each cluster can be dealt with as a singular thing, maybe a GPO in the middle, it’s easier to manage. But also, a lot less realistic, so is that good or not? * shrug *)

[cerulean tapir]

Alright. Make an AA mine. It’s an s1 tube that buries itself into the ground. Datalink triggered or maybe it has some optical sensor on top. This way mine dropping can directly attack other players, and it’d be a pretty unique weapon IMO.

Tarantula air superiority mission: dropping several hundred AA mines (ok maybe not that many.)

[lost iris]

I like that idea, it’s hilarious, mildly impractical, and I’d -love- to see it. Perfect to hit low flying people! (And as you say interacts a lot more with the aircraft people are actually flying, than all the ground stuff)

[cerulean tapir]

Yes and mines become a threat. You wouldn’t know about them unless you tried to fly by. They’d be pretty scary and maybe even a counter to low altitude suicide runs. Nukes maybe as mine clearing? Or some sort of decoy that triggers them?

[lost iris]

It also gives Crickets a bit more utility! They have such a low IR signature they can probably flare off a good number of these and fly low and slow enough to trigger them in relative safety! All the hot fast planes going low will have real problems but the cricket will just pop a few flares and keep on. (And, if you lose your cricket…. Eh, no big deal.)

[cerulean tapir]

I think datalink triggered is best. It makes them dependent on spotters so that you can take out nearby fighters or medusas or radar stations to disable them

Then it incentivizes defending those things.

And now another mine idea. The nuclear bouncing mine. This would be manually triggered only and dropped out of darkreaches or tarantulas. It buries itself in the ground and when triggered launches a kiloton nuke up to airburst. You could wipe out convoys or make traps for low altitude flying enemy pilots using this one.

Suggested just because this game is nuclear option

I think you’d click on it on the map then press an explode button

[lost iris]

Also sounds fun, but the lack of counterplay there could potentially be a lot more infuriating, unless they can be spotted and destroyed (with bombs? Medusa laser) before triggering

[cerulean tapir]

Yeah fair point

[late kestrel]

Or it could be a double impulse trigger for anti-convoy measures

I don't think having both would be a bad idea

[late kestrel]

Aircraft Deployed Mines

[rare mango]

Im not sure about it. But i like it!

[snow olive]

IRM s1 mines sound absolutely terrible

I want it

[north moss]

There was a concept of anti-helicopter mine being basically a Vietnam-styled rifle cartridge trap.

And it passed into series. Everything that flies low and below 360 kmph gets smacked by a HEAT charge.

Just a funny single-use turret using passive sonar and IR sensors to track down aircrafts in a radius of 1.5 kilometers and fire at them when they get in range of 150 meters.

[late kestrel]

I'm curious if any of the mods or devs see this, after about 1.5 seconds of searching, I can see that this isn't the first suggestion for a air-deployed cluster munition handling mines.

[bright pollen]

they look at suggestions