What are your favorite units in the game?

[Mustang]

Artillery- An on-map Bm-27 Uragan batallion is 250 points, half the price of a comparable MLRS unit. The cluster munitions are good against ANYTHING and if you buy an ammo dump you can keep pouring fire for almost the whole game. If you can't buy that, at least get some small cheap mortars for suppression and smoke fires. Mortars are excellent because they have a lot of firepower for their price.

Tank- Russian Chiormy Oriol. Slightly cheaper than an Abrams, and it's the only Russian tank with a fire control of 50 (enough to see through smoke). You have to buy it in the Export Tanks section under armor, to anyone having trouble finding it. It has less armor than an Abrams, but is still decent. The main reason I like it is not because of fighting ability, but just because I think it's cool that Russia has finally turned out a tank truly equal to Western models.

Infantry- FN MAG machine guns. Any machine gun works very well in open terrain, but the western ones tend to be more lethal. In close terrain, machine guns are usually less effective than assault rifle infantry, though, because numbers matter more in that situation. USMC infantry are the best because of high morale and experience and good weapons.

Air- Against an enemy witout air defences, helicopters are excellent. Any helicopter will do, as long as it has modern ATGMs. In pre-1980s scenarios, though, helicopters have poor anti-tank capability, and you should only buy a few cheap ones for scouting.

In terms of airplanes, the American B-2 is the best. It costs 999 points, but carries SIXTEEN standoff JDAMs. You could destroy the whole enemy army without them firing back, because it has a high enough EW rating to aviod most area SAMs.

Air Defence- Stinger SAMs or ZSU-23-4s. Stingers are cheap and the most accurate MANPAD avaible. I don't usually buy area SAMs because they're pretty inaccurate considering their cost and are vulnerable to anti-radar, but they're useful if the enemy has stand-off bombers.
If you don't like MANPADs for some reason or want a good anti-infantry weapon to double as air defence, buy a ZSU-23-4. They're not too accurate, but are cheap enough to pay for themselves if they kill a few enemy.

APC- BRDMs, or anything with just enough armor to repel bullets. I don't generally use APCs because they're too lighly armed and armored to survive on the battlefield anyway- that's a tanks job. It's best to buy something with just enough armor to survive small-arms fire, because anything else is a waste of money.

ATGM- Javelin. With a range of over 2,000 meters, top attack capability and very good accuracy, it's by far the best. All you have to do is make sure that you prevent them from being surpressed by artillery.

Recon- If you can't buy a recon drone, buy a helo. If you can't do that, buy something heavy enough to shrug off almost anything that the enemy will throw at it (if you recon survives he'll get a better picture of the enemy). If you can't find anything with that kind of armor, get a jeep or Humvee. Infantry have good spotting, so load them into your recon vehicle and dismount them when you contact the enemy. If the vehicle dies, at least you'll have a hard-to-spot infantry recon outpost.

[loflyh]

Ooh, I don't agree APC's are a waste, they can get your infantry from point A to B, usaully faster and saver then if you walk them. Plus, when encountering other infantry, they multiply your combat power forward. Add to this the fact the AI tends to shoot at them first, means they die so your tanks can live long enough to take a few of those Commie Bastard's ...mmm, sorry, just got carried away for a moment.

Pre-'80's Scenrio. I like to think helocopters perform more functions then mere scouting, hell a jeep can do that soldier. Rapid re-deployment of infantry, scounting, yes that too but let's not forget enemy surpression!! Get yourself a couple of snakes loaded out with Zuni rockets and watch those VC bastards scatter and a minigun at close range, well I did offer them un-conditional surrender, didn't I?

Now I don't want to get anything stirred up here but I thought I chip in with a thought or two of my own. I hope I've not offended anyone, it's all good clean fun.

[Mustang]

loflyh said:
Ooh, I don't agree APC's are a waste, they can get your infantry from point A to B, usaully faster and saver then if you walk them. Plus, when encountering other infantry, they multiply your combat power forward. Add to this the fact the AI tends to shoot at them first, means they die so your tanks can live long enough to take a few of those Commie Bastard's ...mmm, sorry, just got carried away for a moment.

APCs usually are a waste, but "Personnel Carriers" aren't. Well, I usually play armor battles that take place after 1980, so this might be the reason why, because around 1960-1970 BMPs armed with Saggers are a good way to kill tanks. Other than that, though, modern APCs are pretty expensive. If you just want to move your infantry quickly,get something cheap like an M-113, but I rarely use infantry on the attack. If you want to multiply your combat power forward, that's what tanks are for- Bradleys, etc. are way too expensive considering their limited firepower and the fact that their ATGMs can be defeated by reactive armor. And as for the idea that the AI shoots at them first, if you want to draw fire, just buy trucks or humvees.

Pre-'80's Scenrio. I like to think helocopters perform more functions then mere scouting, hell a jeep can do that soldier. Rapid re-deployment of infantry, scounting, yes that too but let's not forget enemy surpression!! Get yourself a couple of snakes loaded out with Zuni rockets and watch those VC bastards scatter and a minigun at close range, well I did offer them un-conditional surrender, didn't I?

Well, like I said, I usually play post-80s armor games, but I agree that helos are VERY effective against infantry- only if he dosen't have any air defence, though. You have to get close to use them against infantry, and you're very exposed against air defences. Against TANKS, though, helos have good ATGMs by post-1980. Because of their mobility, they can move to the enemy rear and shoot at the tank's rear where reactive armor dosen't go.

As for infantry, it's usually a bad idea to do a heliborne assault unless your enemy dosen't have tanks or is fighting in close terrain.

edit: About the Bm-27s. Go to the Russian purchase screen and look at their cost- 250 points for a batallion. Bm-21s are 161 points and also very powerful.

[wulfir]

Mustang said:
edit: About the Bm-27s. Go to the Russian purchase screen and look at their cost- 250 points for a batallion. Bm-21s are 161 points and also very powerful.

hmm... are you using a custom OOB?

A BM-22 Batallion (year 2003) costs 1386 build pts.
Glanced through the encyclopedia, can't find any BM-27 unit in the Russian OOB.

[hoplitis]

When there is infantry involved,Snipers can be very useful. And I mean the "heavy" type.
And on the lighter side, my most favorite are... enemy units!... the destroyed ones :^)

[Mustang]

I don't know, I'm using the version 2.5 OOB and I was playing a PBEM game with a guy. Maybe its a bug? Also, make sure you look at the on-map BM-27 because the off-map is more expensive.

Snipers are great for attack or defence. They're better than machine guns in some situations.

[hoplitis]

Mustang & Wilfur,
According to:
www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/9p140.htm
BM-22 and BM-27 are the same thing. The designation BM-27 is the correct one for the 9P140 Uragan (Hurricane)
220-mm Multiple Rocket Launcher which I think is what we are talking about. The 161 building points correspond to a battery of BM-21s (not batallion). The cheapest Uragan I found is the on map battery at 462 points. Nothing close to Mustang's 250. Am I missing something?

[Mustang]

Well, maybe I'm just remembering wrong. Or maybe it was some kind of bug. Regardless, I bought 6 Uragan batallions and 3 paratroop infantry batallions with 5,000 points. Make of that what you want.

[wulfir]

Mustang said:
Artillery- An on-map Bm-27 Uragan batallion is 250 points, half the price of a comparable MLRS unit. The cluster munitions are good against ANYTHING and if you buy an ammo dump you can keep pouring fire for almost the whole game.

Defending against the blanket fire of an BM22 Batallion with ammo carriers is stern buisness indeed. I've tried it against some Russian PBEM gamers, and they "only" used about a battery..., but with an ammo carrier for every launcher they were able fire every other turn. The only really effective response I've been able to work out is attack helicopters..., wouldn't really want to think about what a Bn of BM22's could to to a ground force...

The price for a full Bn of (Russian) BM22s is considerably more than 250 pts though...

[Mobhack]

The ideal counter to uragans, if on-map and tied to ammo units, is the MLRS units you held in reserve to smack him when he revealed himself.

Plot a couple of gold spots in the rear zone if you can spare them.

Personally - I declare uragans (or MLRS) an "Uncle Target", and will plot all available arty assets into the area of smoke left over and around, including pulling them off current tasks (maybe keeping a section or so of mortars on a critical CS mission if they are prosecuting a contact, but al auxiliary tasks get cancelled). And I will pound the ground around there till I see enough wrecks to convince me the task is complete. Primary target is the ammo trucks really.


Cheers
Andy