[Due to space considerations, this chapter was removed from the PC Gamer Red Alert & Counterstrike Book published with the July, 1997 issue, but is here in its entirety
Copyright (c) 1997 Imagine Publishing
This text may not be reprinted, redistributed, distributed electronically or included in any other book, database, program, web page, CD-ROM or any other media without the publisher's express permission.]
Chapter 3
The Art of War
by Roger Wong
"Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter."
Winston Churchill
In learning to become a technically and tactically proficient leader, every officer keeps a "how-to-fight" manual. Keep yours constantly updated by scribbling whatever notes you feel are necessary to be successful in battle.
Land Battle
The Center of Gravity
Destroy the enemy's center of gravity and you'll paralyze his forces. Sure, you can take out the Construction Yard or destroy a prized Mammoth Tank, but the enemy will only suffer a reduction in his ability to wage war. He can still fight and he can still win. The center isn't his greatest strength but his greatest weakness.
What is the center of gravity in a game of Red Alert? Think of it this way: you have a termite infestation in your home. Are you going to go after each and every termite, or are you going to go after the source of all your misery, the queen?
The queen termite in Red Alert is your enemy's ability to gather ore. Without a queen, you'll have no more termites attacking your wood. And without the income derived from refining ore, your opponent will be paralyzed. Some people call this cowardly, but as an accomplished infantry officer, Robert Leonhard, once wrote, "The aim of disruption is to avoid having to physically destroy the entire physical component of the enemy force by direct attack, in favor of rendering it inert by discerning and attacking its Achilles' heel." Now that makes sense.
Combat Tactics
The computer is a soulless, emotionless and relentless opponent that can't be psyched out. To the computer, the game is one huge battle of attrition, the aim being to destroy all your units before you can destroy its.
Take advantage of the computer's one-track mind by forcing it into situations where retreat, not combat, is the favorable option. Using this principle, you can set up "bait and trap" type ambushes or force the computer to commit forces in one area while you push through in another.
Firepower
Rather than using brute force, fight tactically. Focus your attention on the enemy units that are easiest to kill but have strong weapons, thereby whittling away the sturdier units' support. For tanks, focus on supporting units such as V2 Rocket Launchers and Mobile Artillery. For infantry, single out the flame throwers, and use tanks to run down the Rocket Infantry.
The benefit of this strategy is that with each enemy unit destroyed, you lessen the amount of damage that the enemy can inflict on your units. If you go for the strongest enemy first, you end up taking a pounding and merely denting the attack force.
Say each side has four light tanks and that it takes four shots to destroy each tank. If you and the enemy are fighting on even terms, what would be the result? With each unit pairing off to shoot at another, everyone would die. That's a waste, not a tactic.
The clever way to deal with it is to concentrate all of your tanks on a single enemy tank. After the first round of fire, all of your tanks have been hit once, but you've destroyed one enemy tank. With the next round, say three of your tanks take another hit and one's not hit at all, but you've destroyed another enemy tank. The end result is that all the enemy tanks are obliterated, but you still have three tanks standing!
The computer knows this tactic and will try to use it on you. If you notice that the enemy's picking on a certain unit, move it out of the reach of battle. It's difficult to hit a moving unit, and the computer's concentrated firing efforts will be wasted. Alternatively, you can use a heavily-armored unit as a sponge to soak up enemy fire while your more vulnerable but powerful units concentrate their fire on wiping out the enemy.
Air War
Effective Air Power
The Soviets have the advantage of powerful air support, but to realize the full potential of this strength, you need to build a large fleet of aircraft. If you're attacking Allied buildings, you need to destroy them on the first sortie because the enemy can repair them back to full health by the time your air force has made it back to base and reloaded.
If targets of opportunity present themselves, go for them. Aircraft are great at shooting at things that can't shoot back. Cruisers and Ore Trucks make easy targets for MiGs and Hind helicopters alike. In the early missions, a squadron of Yak aircraft can remove enough power plants to create a critical weakness in the enemy's ability to produce units.
Anti-Air Defense
Life on the receiving end isn't so fun. The only real anti-air power the Soviets have is a fixed station SAM Site. The missiles on Mammoth Tanks do damage aircraft, but you'll find that it takes a long time to down even a single enemy helicopter.
The Allies, on the other hand, are well equipped to deal with enemy aircraft. Those 300 credit Rocket Infantry are the best investment you can make. Why? Because they're mobile. You can move them to wherever you need protection and they aren't dependent on electricity.
Whatever defenses you do put up, place them well in front of the buildings and units they are supposed to protect. Aircraft fire their weapons before they get to their targets, so deny them the chance.
Sea Battle
Wolf Packs
In the real World War II, German U-boat commanders hunted enemy shipping in packs. What worked for them will work just as well for you, but for a different reason. In Red Alert, Submarines have a range of nine squares. That's nearly double the range of a depth charge. Neither Gunboats nor Destroyers can stand up to the focused torpedo fire unleashed by a Submarine pack. As long as each Submarine has a clear shot, they'll empty their torpedo tubes as fast as they can load them. Remember, eliminate the weakest units first and work your way up. Since the Gunboat and the Destroyer have the same depth charge weapon but the Gunboat is twice as easy to destroy, you should destroy the Gunboats first.
ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare)
The Allies are right to fear Submarines. If you use sea units, you have to get your boats very close to theirs to attack with depth charges. You're better off attacking the Submarines with land and air units. Artillery has good range and Submarines move slowly enough to make good targets. A helicopter can do the job too. If you're forced to use your sea units to attack Submarines, then be careful to keep your Destroyers and Gunboats moving as you close with the Submarines. Submarines need line of sight to fire on boats, so sticking your boats right next to Submarines will rob them of their focused fire advantage.
Finding the subs is the tricky part. If you can sneak a Spy into the Soviet Sub Pen, you'll get a wonderful device called the Sonar Pulse that will show you the exact location of any Soviet Submarines. If that's not possible, select a sea-faring unit and move the cursor over water as if you were going to move the unit. If your movement cursor suddenly turns into an "I can't move there" icon, there's a sub underneath. Your radar is also valuable for finding Submarines. If you see an attack cursor in the radar screen but you can't see anything under the cursor but water, that's another sign that a sub is lurking beneath the waves.
Obstacles
Sometimes there will be bridges blocking your path between bodies of water. If you want to get to the other side, simply get rid of the bridge. Fire on a section of the bridge with your tanks or Cruisers and it will eventually crumble away. To squeeze through an opening, you need to destroy at least two neighboring sections.
Logistics
Enemy Bases
Don't wait too long to make your move. The computer's always adding more buildings to its base or even constructing new bases in a different location. If you wait, you give the computer a chance to further strengthen its position, so attack any new bases that the computer builds without delay. A bunch of Turrets ringing your favorite ore deposit can completely ruin your day.
Economics
Ore is a limited resource. To gain the maximum benefits, it needs to be gathered wisely. An Ore Truck left to its own devices will quickly deplete a deposit of ore. Don't let this happen. An ore deposit will "sprout" new deposits every two minutes. If you skip every other square of ore when gathering, you'll create empty squares in a chessboard pattern that will quickly regenerate new ore. It's a form of digital crop rotation and this kind of conservation farming will guarantee a steady supply of ore.
An Ore Truck holds 28 bales of ore. A bale of gems is worth 50 credits, while a bale of the plain ore fetches 25 credits. Gems won't regenerate, so go ahead and gather as many of those as you can.
A good rule of thumb is to build an Ore Refinery for each patch of ore. Once again, don't over-mine. A steady stream of cash is preferable to running out of money.
You don't actually need to build Silos. Whenever you start construction of a unit or building, the ore's turned into money and subtracted from your ore reserves. If you cancel your construction order, the money is returned to you as cash instead of ore.
Minefields
Allied minefields are very dangerous. If you don't want the hassle of dealing with mines, start hunting Mine Layers. There are three ways to spot mines: you can run over one and blow up (not a good plan); you can actively sweep for mines using your weapon systems (if you shoot at a square that contains a mine, the mine will explode); or you can watch the enemy Mine Layer and send someone after it to shoot the mines it lays. This works great if you actually get to see the Mine Layer, but if the mine field is laid on top of ore, you won't be able to shoot it.
Waypoints
An undocumented feature of Red Alert is allocating waypoints for your units. You can give any unit a series of movement instructions that it will carry out in the sequence you specify. Hold down the 'Q' key when you issue your movement instructions. The coordinates of each spot you pick are stored in a queue and the unit will follow them in the order you give.
