Kemco Games

[cleveland]

In my games I'm usually plagued by enemy assault helos and end up using vital tanks to clean up my cities when they should be at the front. And by the time the helos are dealt with, the tanks are running low on ammo and have to be resupplied.

What's the most cost effective way to rid yourself of these pests? Infantry units are great as a garrison but you can't always produce enough of them and get them there fast enough. Tank destroyers are relatively cheap and mobile.

What are you using?

[DoubleTap]

I made a post asking if anybody else used truck mounted infantry as much as I do, and there were some great replies. If you buy trucks along with your infantry, you can move them around much more quickly, and can even use the trucks to mop up the grounded assault helos. Plus, if there's one particular city or facility the enemy keeps trying to take, an infantry unit placed there will consistantly get surprise attacks with SAMs when the enemy helos approach.
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"If an evil is minor, resist it nonetheless. If a good deed is trifling, perform it all the same." -Liu Bei

[SemperFi2382]

[DeviousPENGUIN]

Keep focused on taking the enemy's capital. Use stray friendly units to hunt down and destroy the offending helo. My suggestion is one or two infantry or if nessecary add an attack chopper. Basically don't become distracted from the objective.
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Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

[DanielRuoss]

Usually I have stray infantry wandering around since my attacking forces usually get ahead of the slower ground troops. This lets them recapture any location lost to assault helo "cherry picking". I'm a firm believer in SPSAMs. Keeping these units in the rear and by the flanks of my attacking columns usually allow me me to keep them within striking distance of any assault helo incursion. If I can afford to I try to keep at least one SPSAM available to protect an exposed city. The computer will move that assault helo right on top of it and get itself a nasty surprise attack!

[irashunal]

It seems that this thread has been long since abandoned, but in case someone does end up peeking back in here i am offering my solutions:

put a line of navy out there to detect and engage these pests... not all countries have awesome navies but all of them do have something that can engage an air threat

have a set of choppers with heavy ground attack sitting in the middle of your land mass within reach of your vulnerable cities - if an enemy assault chopper does manage to land on the city pulverize it before it can lay claim to it the next round

tank destroyers are cheap and pretty much good for nothing except a unit like this in my opinion, and most of them have a good movement range

any artillery that can move and fire or any placement that can reach your vulnerable cities is also good insurance.

Overall, if you can spare the units, i'd suggest a combination of the above at least early on in the game.

[irashunal]

If the cities/factories/etc in question aren't ones on my direct movement-resupply route then i'll sometimes just put a 40mm AAG unit in there and leave it. Later on if the enemy is no longer able to field air units or i've generally dominated the skies i'll disband these AAG to free up the slots.

[SemperFi2382]

[irashunal]

I haven't played around with the idea much - the 40mm was cheap, it was quick to move across country and if i didn't have a city to leave it in i could park it somewhere and it would have 12 rounds to keep it in business before i had to worry about reloading it. AND if all else fails the 40mm can also defend the city against ground units fairly effectively where most other AA can't do that at all. So i wouldn't have to put additional units around the city to defend vs ground.

[SemperFi2382]

[irashunal]

So far we've been focusing on how to get rid of those annoying little buggers - as far as US using them in the game is concerned- here's a little trick i learned playing free mode against the comp...

Load up a couple of assault ships with anything you can hold ground with even temporarily... load an assault heli for each assault ship... have a destroyer or two as anti-air support...

Send some shoreline support with them - if possible a carrier full of air to ground equipped units would be super. But if you're playing a country without carriers send bombers and/or bomb carrying jets...

Bombers, jets go a little inland and begin to do their thing. Assault ships deploy their heli the round before the drop off then approach the shore and unload their ground units - who make a ring around the target city. The assault heli then lands in the city.

Bombers/jets blast any enemy that start heading to the city you're trying to take over. Anything that survives to get to the city is stopped by the ring of defensive units - the assault heli survives to capture the city the next round even if the defensive units get mauled.

Now, the most dangerous enemy to the assault heli is going to be artillery. So focus on any artillery that the enemy has over any other ground units. The second most dangerous enemy unit is going to be anything they have in the air... though the AI isn't that bright, it will usually attack one of the units on the ring around the city. But don't take any chances. If possible deploy a hawk AA system or some type of AA as one of the units around the target city.
If possible get your destroyers close enough that they may be able to provide anti-air support for the group.

Of course, if the city is not where there are shallows you can drop ground troops from the assault ships then goto formation B:

(see the next post)

[irashunal]

If you can't use the assault ship to provide a buffer of units for your assault heli then send a trio of loaded tranport heli - a battalion of infantry provides a great buffer against incoming enemy and they're cheap!

If the terrain allows you to land take a chance and bring in two infantry per transport heli for a better chance of units surviving.

Also you may want to use a transport plane to drop a ground unit farther behind the enemy lines to act as a further buffer as the enemy will likely engage the first enemies encountered rather than bypassing them to hit the city. I've even sacrificed my heli by landing them farther in and moving the 'cargo' back toward the city defense positions.

Whateve buys time for the assault heli in the city.

[irashunal]

By themselves the assault heli is more of an annoyance than anything else - but coupled with a good ground assault team then you can establish a foot hold in the enemy territory that you may be able to hold.

Why do this in the first place?

Simple- by creating a second front you will be forcing the enemy to divide it's attention and resources between the two current 'front's. Often the assault heli landing will be enough of a distraction to allow your forces at the main front to break through and blitzkrieg any other important destinations you wanted to capture.

Even if you lose the forces and the city your assault heli just took you can wreak havoc on the AI.

I especially like denying the enemy it's own airfields using the assault method. Then whatever bombers/jets you used as support can immediately begin using that field to continue to operate in the enemy territory. And you can use your transport planes to bring in better ground forces and more infantry.

[SemperFi2382]

[ElricJC]

It depends on what force I'm using, but in this case as the U.S. my favorite assult heli interdiction unit is the M3 Bradley CFV. It's cheap (200), fairly fast (6[7]) and powerfully armed for a recon vehicle, then I have a LAV-25 or M2 Bradley IFV (depending on whether I am blessed with numerous roads or limited to rougher terrain), or even a truck loaded with infantry follow them. As the assault heli lands, I blast it with TOW missiles, and might even have my IFV/Truck get in on the ass kicking. In all liklihood the heli will survive, but will sit there as it captrues. Then I'll just kill it next round and immediately retake the lost location.

If the computer is being REALLY annoying, I send an A-10 or two on "Bitchkiller patrol", shooting down the little bastards mid-air or, if they live, killing them on the ground. I prefer not to waste much in the way or units and resources on such patrols so I only do so if I really, really need every territory. In scenarios where I need to protect a small number of facilities, but they don't lie along my attack route, I deploy simple 40mm AAGs because of their low cost and large ammo capacity. These work great against the French since their assault helis have no weapons.

And sometimes I let the enemy keep all their assault helis so long as they aren't compromising my attack route. I simply follow them with a transport heli loaded with infantry to recover my losses. The computer likes to invest in assault helis and as long as I keep them alive, they won't be producing combat units. The only situations where I kill assault helis is if they are UH-60 blackhacks (or Yanshufs in the case of Israel) because their AGM-114 missiles make them nasty. Pumas, Lynxes, UH-1Js, and Hip-17s don't bother me much unless the comp is using them for attack purposes.