APM basic authentication workflow possible without a redirect to /my.policy?

Hi - we have a number of SL offload VIPs accessed by thick client applications, for which we would like to add authentication. Ideally, we would like to do this via an access policy on the F5, for maintainability and security.

But in our early attempts, we haven't been able to do so without triggering the 301 redirect to /my.policy under the covers. Certain of our thick client apps don't automatically handle that HTTP 301 ... hence, in certain cases, we would like to have the authentication workflow do a straight HTTP 401 response, sans redirection.

Is such a workflow possible with APM? Currently using a local db for authentication, but not married to that, if needed.

We're on 11.5.1, running on 2000s devices.