my pzc feature wish list

[Mr Grumpy]

Nothing like running into my own minefields because I forgot they were there.

This has been discussed at length in designer notes from earlier titles.....

"Mines in the Panzer Campaign Series often comes under scrutiny of players who feel that all mines that are "theirs", thus friendly mines, should remain visible at all times, so the owning player won't accidentally step on them. On the surface this idea is appealing to players who think top down. They reason that because they can see them on the map at some point, that HQ would know where they were and thus all units would avoid them.

True enough. But I like to explain that just because HQ (ie You the player) knows where all the mines are, doesn't mean that each and every units in the games also knows where each and every mine. Furthermore, even if each unit on the map were to have a specialty "Mine Officer" to keep track of them all, then who is to say mistakes wouldn't still happen sometimes. So for Alamein '42, where mines play such a dominant role, I collected a few references to illustrate the point that, "There is no such thing as a friendly Minefield."

Here is a good quote from Clayton and Craig - "End of the Beginning" which characterizes the design feelings about Mines:

June 5-14: "Ordered forward toward the Sidra Ridge from the north, 32nd Army Tank Brigade first ran on to an unmarked minefield laid by British infantry, ..."

June 18-20: ".., their platoon of four 6-pounders had entered Tobruk through the minefield that surrounded it, a minefield full of mines whose location was by now unknown to the defenders, and which destroyed the odd portee."

But this next reference says it best. It comes from "Rommel's Greatest Victory" by Samual W. Mitcham.

The confusion of battle is perhaps best illustrated by the exploit of Maj. C. C. Lomax, the commander of HQ Squadron of the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers. Leading a column of supply trucks and trying to find the 201st Guards Brigade Box at Knightsbridge, he veered too far north and got lost in the darkness. Suddenly he spotted a low trip wire, which denoted the boundary of a minefield. His driver hit the brakes and they stopped a few feet from the wire. Two sentries approached and identified themselves as Guardsmen. Lomax asked if this was the Knightsbridge Box, and they replied that it was.

"How very fortunate!" the major exclaimed. "Another few yards and we would all have been in the minefield."

"On the contrary, sir," one of the sentries replied, "another few yards and you will be out of it."

He and his whole convoy (which was following in his tracks) had passed through the entire minefield without hitting a single mine!

Even when crossing a known "Friendly Minefield", in a lane swept clean to allow friendly troops to pass, there were mishaps as illustrated by this reference from Jon Latimer's "Alamein":

On the route following 22nd Battalion came the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry on a mine-free track cleared and marked by the Kiwi infantry. 'Lurch, clank, bump. Up comes the dust again and before we've gone few yards we're back in the "pea-souper" once more,' recalled the, Yeomanry's historian as the precious protecting darkness dissolved. At 0600 hours the lead squadron was well forward of the infantry and thus became the only armoured regiment to break out beyond the infantry on the first day of the battle. But it was at a heavy price. Those in the rear of the column have been speculating about the origin of a new addition to the carnival of noise which is going on around them. Something different, this one. Deeper and more earth-shaking than the rest. Woomph! This is quite unmistakable. A very sinister sound.' Mines' - despite the declaration that the lanes were clear. The armour ought to have been clear of the minefields, but 'Woo-umph! There it goes again And this time there is no mistake. A spurt of flame appears in the distance through a gap in the fog and quickly grows into a flaming mass.

So accidentally running into mines, be they in "cleared lanes", or stumbling into a minefield, even a known minefield was not uncommon. Therefore, when you run a unit into a hex containing a mine - even one of your own - one that you wouldn't have run into had the hex been marked, because you had another unit in the line-of-sight a few turns ago, then think nothing more of it. These sorts of things happened, not only here in the desert, but in all theaters of WWII.

With mines in the game unseen in hexes when they disappear from the players view, understand that this is not a bug or a problem that needs to be fixed. This is just part of the game, all be it one aspect that some players find frustrating, due to the fact that had they see the mine on the map at some point from their "God-like" overhead perspective."