The focus of this feature is to inform you of the potential applications for Half tracks that contain attack infantry.
Tiberium wars has the GDI APC which has similar uses (an example being loading the APCs with Missile squads and harassing your enemy).
The Half track is a lot faster than the GDI APC, and it's attack is a lot more powerful, which makes it even more useful when combined with attack infantry. Also every combination is naturally strong vs infantry (due to the Half track), so that will not be specified any further.
Flak Track - Combined cost: $1100
- Tier 1.
- Very strong anti-air.
- Good attack range.
- Not strong vs other targets.
With the strong emphasis on aerial units in Red alert history: Release 5, this combination is very useful.
The range of the Flak trooper exceeds the range of the Half track, meaning that you can actually start damaging units even earlier. Also this combination removes the 2 major issues of the Flak troopers; the low health, and the lack of speed.
Use this combo to scare off most aerial units, even Kirovs! If facing the Kirov MkII, use the range of the Flak trooper to the fullest and keep your Half track out of the range of the Kirov's gun.
Very useful against aerial targets!
The Flak track is not very strong against non aerial targets, however it will out range most ground based attack units, so it is not completely useless in this regard.
Bomb Track - Combined cost: $1400
- Tier 1.
- Strong vs vehicles.
- Very close ranged!
- Rush!
- Single use only! (suicide attack).
This is a very specialised combination.
If you place a terrorist squad into a Half track, you will get the option to convert it into a suicide bomb truck! (this is not enabled by default).
Be warned that activating the 'Suicide bomb' option will disable the Half track's guns.
Always uses the gun by default
Once the bomb option is active, attacking a ground based target will cause you to drive up to the target and then detonate in the standard suicide truck style. This obviously means that you lose the Half track and terrorist squad.
Click on the bomb button to activate suicide mode
This has an obvious potential use in harvester rushes. While it is much faster to rush with only Terrorist squads, it is relatively easy to place anti-infantry defences to kill them. The Bomb track is a lot harder to stop in the very early game (this assumes optimum rushing, and a map that is not too large).
It is recommended that you have at least 2 Bomb tracks, and up to 4 (maybe more if it is a stage that has easy access to a couple of safe Tiberium spikes).
2 Bomb trucks will destroy an enemy harvester, and the blast radius is large enough that you may well destroy a group of harvesters if they are bunched up. In terms of general use outside of rushes, it depends on your play style. But be warned that even small groups of low tier tanks can easily cost effectively destroy your Bomb tracks.
Flame Track- Combined cost: $1600
- Tier 2.
- Strong vs structures.
- Rush!
- Good for Iron curtain (Use on groups).
- Short attack range.
This combo works as an expensive, fast flame 'tank'. Obviously the attack power is not as extreme as the Tiberium wars Flame tank, however it is more than decent.
The speed of the Half track is what helps the most here, as it allows you to harass the enemy.
In terms of 'rushing', this is at the very edge of what can be termed a rush. It is tier 2 and it requires a War factory and a Barracks. I would suggest a minimum of 3 Flame tracks, and up to 6 (obviously the more you build, the longer the enemy has to prepare).
Destroying enemy economy
The goal of the rush would be to destroy production structures (Refineries, War factories etc), as well as any tech structures.
You could instead attempt to go for the Construction yard. But that would require you to be in a single area for a period of time, which will make it simpler for your enemy to defend (never mind the repeated undeploying and redeploying that they will do to mess with the weapon lock).
Finally a group of Flame tracks is a very useful target for the Iron curtain, a very obvious use being to destroy an enemy super weapon.
Tesla Track - Combined cost: $1900!
- Tier 3.
- Strong vs vehicles & structures.
- Short circuits enemy vehicles!
- Good for Iron curtain (Use on groups).
- Slow rate of fire.
- Very expensive.
An expensive but useful combination. First the range is not that good at all (slightly less then the Half tracks gun), but the power of the Tesla troopers more than makes up for this.
The key when it comes to anti-vehicle use, is getting the tesla bolts to short circuit enemy vehicles. This is vital when dealing with tanks, as it will allow you to win vehicle battles that you would otherwise be losing.
Micro control helps here. Ideally you want each Tesla track to be engaging a single enemy vehicle. This in turn means a larger number of your enemy's vehicles being rendered useless.
Correctly using the tesla bolts on vehicles, will allow you to defeat Apocalypse tanks and Tank destroyers (or at least having a lot closer battle then you would expect).
The Tesla track is good vs structures, although not as good as the Flame track.
While this is the most expensive Iron curtain target, because it is good against the largest variety of enemy targets, I tend to use it the most.
Boris Track - Combined cost: $3200!
- Tier 3.
- Strong vs vehicles & aircraft.
- Rank up Boris safely!
- Good for Iron curtain (Use on groups).
- Rapid rate of fire.
- Prohibitively expensive!
Clearly the price is the most obvious barrier for the combination, so the question is, is it worth it? Alone, no it is not. A Half Track does not have enough health to keep this very expensive combo safe, even with good micro. Boris gun out ranges the Half Track's gun by a small amount. but the level of micro required to keep the combo alive is too prohibitive.
If used in a group however it is a different matter. No other Half Track passenger chews through vehicles as fast as the Boris-Track! If the targeted unit cannot fight back effectively (like Harvesters\Miners), then while the bulk of the group attack dangerous targets, the Boris-Track could be taking out these other softer vehicle targets (which it will do very rapidly).
Here a Boris-Track deals with an enemy Harvester, while the main group is busy elsewhere
Has you'd expect the Boris-Track will also chew through aircraft and infantry, structures are this combos only weakness.
In a mixed group, this combo makes for a useful addition to an Iron Curtain group, especially if you target objects that it excels against. One idea with an Iron Curtain use is to take out all the objects within an enemy base that could easily damage Boris (do this during the active period), and then when the Iron Curtain effect wears off, you can exit Boris from the Half-Track, and use his airstrike to do tremendous damage to enemy structures (especially if you have ranked Boris up).
Conclusion
Hopefully this has helped to inform of the potential uses of the Half track, outside of engineer transport, anti-infantry and anti-air.
