Colt Ward's question about Thunders led me to review the rules for mines in TacOps, which led me to glance at vibrabombs, which caused an odd idea to pop into my head. It seems like a nifty trick, but I'm not sure exactly when it might be useful. Anyway, here goes:
Step 1: Load an Aerospace fighter with a Thunder bomb. The mines in question are vibrabombs, with their sensitivity set for ten tons.
Step 2: Drop that bomb somewhere useful, filling that hex and the surrounding hexes with 20-point minefields.
Step 3: Take a heavy fast jumper(such as a Wraith) and land it near your minefield, close enough to trigger the desired hexes.
Boom, seven hexes filled with 20 points of AE damage. It's very fiddly though, requiring some setup and easily derailed by other mechs in the area. My first thought was clearing woods, as a heavy woods hex caught in such a blast would be instantly reduced to light, and a light hex reduced enough that only 10 more damage would be needed to clear it to rough. Another thought was to lay the mines along any approaches that light vehicles would use before making an attack run. You see some hovers park behind a hill about to make a slash at your flank or rear, jump the mech in before they get going, and that's a lot of tanks having a very bad day.
Can anyone think of other ways this might be useful?