#Minelayer Aircraft or Vessel
delicate pond
glad light
Would be cool,but also wouldn't have much counterplay
earnest abyss
Why are there so many downvotes? There have been mine suggestions before but this is not bad.
shell wolf
“yeah bro this was already suggested like 431 days ago”
languid shuttle
well the suggestion has already been shot down multiple times regardless, but yes while there would be some fun to be had most players wouldnt pay attention to the mine layers then get frustrated when all their ships blow up
worthy torrent
Yeah, thats very true. Mines would be a tricky thing to balance in general without making them either horrid to use or unable to be countered
gentle crypt
Doesn’t seem very useful, fleets don’t move too much during a game
bright quest
Alright let's talk about naval mines,
Counterplay
This is perhaps the most important point because that's the part people don't know about. TLDR is that there are ways to counter naval mines, and these ways include the use of aircraft. It is worth pointing out that only a small channel needs to be cleared to let ships through, not the entire mine field.
In NO minesweeping could be done mostly with the Tarantula and Ibis in different ways :
- Dragging a minesweeping sled that detonates the mines behind the aircraft, sounds boring but you'd make the sled high speed so the player would cover ground quickly, and occasionally there is a huge explosion behind you which is fun.
- Deploying minesweeping UUV (unmanned underwater vehicles), come into a hover and lower them into the minefield via winch, a swarm of them go into the water and blow up mines all over the place, clearing a path in the water.
- Nuclear depth charge : just drop a nuke into the water and blow everything up. The game is called nuclear option at the end of the day !
Deployment
Actually mine laying is often done by aircraft IRL, the US military has the QuickStrike series of air dropped mines (mk62, mk63, mk 65) which are based on mk82 and mk83 GP bombs. These could be dropped by any aircraft, but the Darkreach would be most efficient, you could carpet bomb an entire strip of mines across a narrow passageway, B-52 does this IRL. You could also have larger nuclear mines.
Off course you'd have some sort of minelayer / minesweeper ship, something the size of a corvette or smaller, as well maybe as smaller boats, like airdropable USVs proposed here.
I have not here covered how the mines get detected in the first place, i think the player should have to initiate the recon effort, such that if you don't, your friendly ships will get a bad surprise eventually. So ideally we'd be able to send vessels to use sonar and find them.
modern minesweepers are basicly tenders for UUV (or AUV) and USV. They need escort from missile attacks.
calm wedge
tought about it today, good substitute for submarines since it can expand the game with slight ASW gameplay (that isnt as abysmally boring) with utility aircraft
bright quest
I'm bias towards it because i'm already a Tara/Ibis player and this mostly (but not only) adds gameplay for the logi aircraft. So I can understand someone who likes playing with fighters not caring for naval warfare.
glad light
Coming back to this thread, Seamines are hands down one of the most crucial aspects of asymetrical naval warfare. If a faction gets all of its main vessels sunk,these would be crucial in denying them access to more vital areas. ⬆️ from me