The Art of Mining

1. The Art of Mining Guide to successful mining in Battlefield 2 Part I: Overview

2. Mining Goals • Access Denial • Delay • Deterrence • Attrition

3. The Mine • Limited to 5 per engineer • Highly visible to blue forces (attractive “power-up” icon) • Limited visibility to red forces • Limited deployment options • Small engagement footprint • Suffers the adverse effects similar to those of a wizard’s familiar if engineer becomes a casualty.

4. Deployment options • Singleton road-hazard • Poses greater risk to blue-force smacktards • High degree of success in attrition mission • Once discovered, easily avoided by red forces • Clusters • Usually used in flag defense • Properly placed, forces red to dismount and take flags on foot (MCM usually not tactically available) • Unlikely to cause attrition • Critical for laying engineer to remain alive • Lines • Most effective for deterrence and access denial missions • Reverse-slope placement can achieve desired attrition while providing complete access control • Poorly implemented, can deny blue-force armor from participating in forward defense

5. The Solitary Mine • Offers greatest flexibility in mine distribution • Most effective at intersections (around corners) and in water • Highest degree of red force attrition, even at objectives • Relies on red force surprise, haste, and terrain camouflage • Can be used for tactical mining (place at front and rear of target vehicle)

6. Mine clusters • Requires multiple mines be removed in order to gain access • Multi-engineer mine clusters are less vulnerable to attrition through loss of engineer • Minefield engagement footprint is usually small with several sympathetic detonations • Useful for forcing dismounts

7. Mine Lines • Most common form of mining • Easy for red forces to spot • Reverse-slope mining most effective at achieving attrition • Usually used for route denial (bridges, bottlenecks, side-streets) • Multi-engineer mine lines most robust form of access denial • Can deter red forces resulting in abandoning alternate routes • Frequently used in conjunction with AT and infantry support - as such, engineer survivability is critical to defense integrity

8. Vulnerabilities There are three main threats to a minefield: • Engineer casualties • Most common cause of minefield attrition • Class kit offers few alternatives to potentially lethal engagements • Smacktards • Ubiquitous • Most common cause of cessation of mining operations • Red-force MCM • Rare • Highly vulnerable to disruption

9. Mine Synergies When accompanied by infantry, minefields (whether solitary mines, lines, or clusters) become exponentially effective. • MCM becomes impossible • Red force haste increases in transit-zones, resulting in increased attrition • Red force armor haste either increases, which renders it vulnerable to the mines, or decreases, which renders it more vulnerable to AT assets • Blue force infantry and armor benefit from asymmetric maneuverability

10. Aids to Minefield Perpetuity (The following advice is based on maximizing minefield effectiveness, perhaps at the cost of the engineer’s combat effectiveness. Usefulness of any given suggestion is dependant on tactical context.) • Engineers should retire to TOW emplacements • Engineers should command • Engineers should defend CO assets and rear areas and important rear area flags • Engineers and Support personnel should seek each other out to ensure minefield replenishment and to maintain the mine threat • Minefields are most robust when multiple engineers cooperate