[Sabre21]

The idea that a minefield continues to go off untill the ship is destroyed or the field is used up is not really such a far fetched idea. We must go beyond the thinking that all mines are the dumb ones that were used over the past several wars. There are mines today that can detect hovering helicopters and then launch a fragmentation device into the air in the direction of the chopper..then there are others that fire anti tank missiles at approaching threats..most people think mines need to have some kind of contact before they explode, and while most of them do, many of them do not. The anti helicopter mines have been in use since the mid eighties. Today the tactical internet between combat platforms is the new thing, and it is not hard to imagine a couple centuries from now that smart mines would be able to "talk" to each other, not only to determine friend from foe, but to attack targets until the target is destroyed, even being able to process battle damage assesments and pass this info back to a friendly HQ. Even having the individual mines reposition to cover holes from previous breaching attempts seems logical. From a play balancing point of view this may not seem entirely fair, but from a realistic one, its perfectly logical.