Anti-Landing Landmines and You

Defending the Shoreline – anti-landing landmines and you

Due to the nature of Nationstates, most nations are separated from each other by far-reaching oceans and other great bodies of water. Typically (although not always) wars in Nationstates take up the following pattern: a diplomatic mutual misunderstanding erupts, escalates, and finally the two parties come to blows. A fleet is sent, it fights the foreign nation, and then the invader attempts to land troops in the enemy nation.

So it's only natural that here in Draftroom we have people asking how they can defend from ambhibious landings. In fact we have had this discussion at least a dozen times, I believe. People have discussed fortifications, maneuver strategy, the operational and strategic art ad nauseam. I would like however to address unlikely friend you will have in this circumstance – the anti-landing landmine.

During the Second World War, anti-landing mines were mostly of permanent designs, which had to be placed on the battlefield permanently. Even the most improvised mines, made by Nazi Germany, were permanent – they consisted of a rail, a concrete bed, and an artillery shell. The rail was implanted vertically in a concrete bedding, in such a way it could move slightly when a landing craft impacted it – of course, with the shell hidden inside the concrete bedding, detonating when struck with the craft.



There were various cool designs of these, but for us NS players it's clear what the disadvantage of this – it's simply not fast enough. The age of modern warfare, with speed at an ever-increasing premium, requires us to develop faster and faster-deploying landmines. My previous translations and posts on this forum demonstrated the development and deployment of air-deployed, artillery-deployed, and manportable minefields on the ground. Similar things had begun to develop also for the sea.

The Soviet Union came up with two distinct solutions. There existed YaRM anti-landing mines: heavy, anchored mines, which would need to be pushed over the side of a small boat, and would then anchor themselves on the bottom. They could be deployed within minutes, and weighed only 13 kilograms. But these were still unwieldy and required a boat – as well as a 52-kilogram safety crate. Additionally they could only be used in limited water obstacles – rivers, lakes, and so forth- clearly not the thing for an NS nation seeking to hold off a force of enemy Marines in BMP-3s!

For sea landings, however, the Soviets had a better answer: the PDM-1 and PDM-2 series of mines. Rather than anchor themselves on the sea floor, the PDM-1 and PDM-2 rested on the floor directly, extending only a sensitive antenna upwards, like an angry-looking bug:

This prevented the mines from being washed away by the sea. Still they required semi-permanent installation and could not be quickly deployed just before an expected enemy offensive. In silty areas, like the Suez Canal, this often means the PDM mines were washed away by the time actual fighting started.

Clearly a better solution had to be developed, and it was. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the KPDM-4 Anti-Landing Cassette Mine – Kassetnaya Protivodesantnaya Mina. English specs can be seen here.

The KPDM-4 is, in brief, a cylindrical shaped anti-landing mine. Why is it cylindrical, you ask? Why, simply because it can fit the standard mine-dispensing equipment of the Russian Army – the PKM-1 manportable minelayer, and all other minelayer tubes belonging to the Russian Army. It can engage practically any amphibious vehicle in existence today, and it takes literally minutes to deploy – just point the minelayer at the water off your beach, and push the button. The mine fires itself, drops into the water, and drops anchor. Being fairly small and painted in an appopriate color, it's virtually invisible from onboard an amphibious vessel or boat. And when the belly of said vessel hits the mine, well, the lulz, they are epic:

Remember how you needed your amphib vehicle to be light so it could swim? Well hello there. V-shaped hulls are also far less effective when in water, and even if you're not holed the hydrostatic shock will likely stun the crew at the very least.

I leave the implications of this technology up to the enterprising posters on NSD. At the minimum, I recommend that NS nations maintain a stockpile of these mines, and some kind of rapid-reaction ability to deploy them just as your enemy is about to land. It would be best to roleplay having some kind of cooperation between your Navy and your combat engineers in this. The Russians equipped these with self-destruct, for post-war demining. Whether your nation does is really up to you, but remember – landmine self-destruct will likely not be 100% effective. Prepare for post-war demining.


Sources:

1.Nussnknackermine III Anti-Landing Mine
[Veremeev, Yu. G.]
2.KPDM, PDM, and YaRM Anti-Landing Mines
3. YaRM Anti-Landing Mines [ Veremeev Yu. G.]
4. Amphibias in battle – Anti-Landing Mines [Veremeev, Yu. G., for the Russian Popular Mechanics]
5. KPDM-4 anti-landing cassette mine

Speed at an ever increasing premium?

How exactly can an army formation be a forward-deployable ? At less then one month, you're leaving some crucial equipment behind.



In any case, good post. Premise and suggestions iffy however.

1. With improving technology and operational maneuver speeds, the defender's deployment must become ever-faster as technology evolved.

2. I am not sure what you're on about.

3. There's nothing iffy about "let's drop landmines from helicopters".

What if you strapped a magnetic mine jammer to the landing craft? Or this being NS they make all the landing craft out of composite materials.

(I am interpreting "proximity, induction type" to mean magnetic)

I wonder if a pressure or acoustic fuze would be practical...

Then it would probably set off the mines before they hit, yes.

But I think it might make sense to couple this with some kind of pressure fuse like on the YaRM.

Trust me, we're getting very fast. And I don't mean in how fast the vehicles can drive, I mean in how fast the *force* as a whole can move. Sure, there's a great big ramp up time, but what with NS's perpetual cold war, I imagine a division or six is always kept active. Note everyone goes on about "rapid reaction forces" etc.

The French have patented rearward-deployable army formations, so we had to develop another method.

.

Hehe. Hehehe.

*spams the entire Dystopian coastline

Better. Naval combat engineers. Helocarriergroups filled with the things.

We need more mines.



So a couple things I am curious about:
1: How many would fit in one helicopter?
2: How far do these mines have to be situated away from eachother to make an effective minefield?
3: With the above taken into consideration, how many mines are needed for, say... 5 km of beach to be mined?
4: Can they be launched from fixed wing bombers? In theory that would allow it to carry more.

IIRC, there was something about floatmine-dispensers on the River Volga during that Stalingrad thing.

And hedgehogs /w/ flame-fourgasses and landmines strapped on top were pretty mental.

1. The original mine dispensing system carries 4 29-casing containers. These mines fit at one per standard casing (the same casings as on the PKM-1), so 126 mines on a heli.

2-3. Depends on what you define as "effective" no?

4. No, probably not. The mine deployment system needs helicopters to slow down to 200 kph to do it. You can strap them onto an Osprey, on the other hand.

What about adapting a sonabouy deployment system from ASW aircraft to drop these? Something like an S-2 or S-3, buzzing a beach and dropping a ton of these in a line could quicken things up. And on top of that, add another aspect to deployment.

Plus, if you really want to be a dick, use ASW patrol aircraft from your carriers to mine the fuck out of shallow rivers of your enemy.

Let's say, an area that gives 50% chances that at least 20% of a landing force will not survive a landing, until the area is demined. Just an estimation, but it sounds reasonable to me.

Look at the data from anti-tank minefields I posted earlier. Extrapolate, I suppose?

The difficulty is, how do you dump them?

I am not sure why the helicopter-based mine-deployment system has a speed limit. Perhaps it is simply due to air resistance to the boxes of mines on both sides. If that is true then you can certainly deploy mines at greater speed, by mounting a dispenser such that it is protected from the wind.

Anybody know more about this?

Helicopters usually have a lot of drag as it is.
But the munition can hit you, and then impact with water at 200+ kph is pretty severe.

Can this be fired like an artillery shell?