Soviet Hind feature

Name: Hind
Era: Red Alert
Side: Soviet
Base asset: Isotx studio and Black_Drakon (additional texture and coding by me)

The Hind is the Soviets Tier 2 attack helicopter.
It is not a 'detector' unit, if you want to reveal stealthed objects you'll have to use something else. It cannot target aerial units, and it has limited ammunition which requires reloading at an air field once it's depleted. It also lacks any 'global' upgrades to improve its effectiveness, however it does have individual upgrades which will be discussed later.
It's main role is as a heavy anti-infantry gunship. The Hind is not very efficient at destroying vehicles or structures (upgrade dependant).

The Hind is very efficient at killing infantry due to a large ammo reserve and a rapid rate of fire. It is obviously a hard counter to any infantry unit that cannot respond to its attack (which is the vast majority of infantry units), it is not a hard counter to anti-air infantry.
The Hind can take out these infantry types efficiently (it has to be able to or it would have no use), but you will sustain loses.
If you believe that your enemy will not build tons of, for example rocket squads, then you can probably get away with a single Hind to deal with Tanya or any loose infantry squads that are unable to respond to the Hind's attack. If you think that they'll build loads of rocket of flak type infantry (most will), and if you want to counter them with Hinds, then I'd recommend you build at least 4 Hinds, because they will be far more effective against AA type squads if they attack in spaced groups (no bunching together!).

The rocket type squads tendency to overkill when targeting units, together with their slow reload rate, will mean that while you will almost certainly lose a Hind or two, the rest of the Hind group will rapidly kill attacking rocket troops (Flak troopers will be significantly more dangerous!). Be warned that you have no choice but to get within rocket type units weapon range in order to kill them (their weapon comfortably out ranges yours).
Vehicle based anti-air can efficiently destroy the Hind, it is not recommended that you attempt to engage them with the gunship.

Hind Rocket Pod upgrade

Each individual Hind can be upgraded with rocket pods. This upgrade (which is purchased at the Hind), requires that you are at Tier 3 (so it requires a Battle Lab). It adds 4 rocket pods, which each housing 8 high explosive rockets.

As with the main gun, once the ammo is depleted, you will have to return to the airfield in order to reload.

While this upgrade allows you to deal with massive groups of infantry extremely efficiently, the biggest positive is that the upgraded Hind is now a lot more effective vs structures.

The rockets are unguided, so they will not home in on a target. This obviously means that fast units will be able to avoid the rockets. Also the rockets are inaccurate, so if the target is very small they can avoid a lot of damage from the rockets due to frequent misses.
4 upgraded Hinds will do hefty damage to structures even up to War factory class health. They will quickly destroy any large lower health structure (obviously larger structures take more hits due to their size).
8 plus groups of upgraded Hinds are extremely dangerous, and require serious anti-air focus to counter.

Hind Missile Upgrade

Each individual Hind can also be upgraded with missiles. This upgrade (which is also purchased at the Hind), too requires that you are at Tier 3 (so it requires a Battle Lab). It adds 4 missiles.

As with the main gun, once the ammo is depleted, you will have to return to the airfield in order to reload.

The Missile upgrade adds a very similar missile to the Allied Longbow missile, however they only get half the ammo (4 vs 8). Being a missile, it homes in on moving vehicle targets, which is very significant for the Hind!

Be warned that there is no way of stopping your Hind from using it's missile ammo, once you have started to fire on a target. As such it might be a good idea to use the hold fire command (Alt+F) so that your Hind will use the powerful missile ammo only on the target you chose.

The missile ammo finishes much quicker that both the standard chaingun ammo, and (if purchased) the rocket pod ammo, so try to remember that the initial tremendous damage burst that you do with a missile upgraded Hind, will slow down considerably once the missile ammo has been depleted.
Therefore it is a good idea if you are attacking a structure with a lot of health, to consider retreating after the missile ammo is depleted (or at least not long after), as your damage per second will lower considerably, and your opponent may have time to counter you!

While a fully upgraded Hind is obscene to come up against, because it cost such a huge amount ($1900!) this is considered OK, because it is a massive investment.

Iron curtain use

It is possible to use the Iron curtain on your Hinds. The simplest way to do this on the field, is to have your Hinds bunched up and selected, so you can see from their selection decals where to place your Iron curtain decal.

With upgraded Hinds, in a large enough bunch, you can do a lot of damage, and it is a lot less fussy to organise the Hinds, then it is to get a bunch of Half tracks with Flame troopers or Tesla troopers etc.