In the movie In Harm's Way, the Americans' first line of defense was a minefield. The movie inaccurately showed the mines floating on the surface, but this was Mr. Preminger's artistic license – it's hard to work up suspense with numerous scenes of Japanese ships sailing along in a minefield when you can't see the mines.

The Japanese surface ships approach the minefield

This Hollywood modification, however, eliminated the true strength of a naval mine in that you usually don't see the wretched things till one goes off! This section is to assist a referee running this scenario and show how he should employ the minefield. For more information on minefield construction, see the Command at Sea Referee's Guide by Ed Kettler.

The minefield area, shown on the map, is a rectangular box 10 nm long by 5 nm wide. Inside this box are three lines of U.S. Mk 6 moored contact mines spaced 1,000 yards apart. The mines in each line are placed at 100-yard intervals and are set at shallow depth, so it is possible that any Japanese ship can hit one. Should Yamato hit a mine, the torpedo protection system is ignored, but the effects of the armor are applied per CaS Rule 8.1.6. The position of the mine lines within the box is at the referee's discretion.

Since keeping track of the exact location of each mine is a bit tedious, a danger space ±100 yards from the center of the line will be used to find out if a target can be attacked. When a target comes within the danger space, roll D100 and consult the following table. If the die roll result is equal to or less than the chance of a hit, then the ship has hit a mine and it takes 34 points of damage. All critical hits are resolved using the Torpedo Attack column.

If the U.S. PT boats enter the minefield, they have a 4% chance of hitting a mine (half of a normal size class E ship) because they have a planing hull form and a maximum draft of 5 feet.

Ship Size	Chance of Class Hitting a Mine
A	36%
B	21%
C	13%
D	9%
E	8%

Pala Passage
Pala Passage After-Action Report (ns15)
Ships for Pala Passage

Pala Passage After-Action Report (ns21)

BT