Last week we reviewed the evolution of the already revealed army specializations. It’s time to present something brand new : The AIRBORNE specialization.
This specialization is fully based on mobility at the price of resilience. You will airdrop infantry, light tanks and support from cargo planes or lift them with helicopters or simply use the fast road speed of your vehicles to always beat your opponents to the punch.
Spreading your small but heavy hitting fire support teams will force the enemy to over invest to deal with them, costing them precious time and resources.
Let’s review the units of each category in detail:
Recon
- The Humvee RWS (remote weapon station) has a good detection range thanks to the optics of its teleoperated turret that can be armed with a minigun, a M2 heavy machine gun or a Mk19 automatic grenade launcher. It can be upgraded with a B-kit armor package to resist small arms fire and smoke grenades to secure your retreat if you bump into an enemy armored column.
- The Humvee LRAS3 is a mobile laser designation platform with excellent optics and mobility. It is armed with a M240 medium machine gun by default but also has access to the M2 and Mk19 as well as the smoke and armor upgrade as well as the B-Kit armor and smoke.
- Army snipers come in groups of 3 with very good optics and exceptional stealth equipped with a laser designator. The main shooter can be equipped with a suppressed M2010 or a M107 anti-materiel. The second man is equipped with a M110 marksman rifle and the third man provides security with a M4A1+M203 grenade launcher.
Sniper rifles ignore building cover and have a long range so they can be used either to infiltrate enemy lines or as fire support in urban combat. Just make sure to use them at maximum range as they won’t survive for long under enemy fire.
- MQ-1C Gray Eagle: This is an evolution of the famous Predator drone. This high flying drone remains slow but can carry a larger panel of weapons compared to its predecessor with 4 pylons instead of 2, each carrying either one Hellfire or two smaller Griffin missile with High-Explosive Fragmentation warhead to engage infantry and vehicles from the top or 2 stinger missiles to engage other aircrafts.
- RQ-4 Global hawk: A much larger drone with exceptionally long range optics able to spot enemy units without entering the range of most surface to air missiles. This powerful asset remains extremely vulnerable as it carries no counter measures at all so expect the enemy to send a fighter to deal with the Global Hawk as soon as it is spotted.
Infantry
- Airborne: they are the backbone of this specialization. This 8 men squad is equipped with the brand new M7 Spear rifles and M250 machine guns. These weapons using the new 6.8 caliber have more range and armor penetration than the usual infantry weapons.
They also carry 2 M320 grenade launchers and AT4 light anti-tank rocket launchers.
- Weapons squad: A 8 men squad equipped with 2 M240L medium machine guns and 2 Javelin anti-tank missile launchers, these squads complement the airborne squads by providing overwatch and support fire while the airborne attack or retreat.
- M2 Browning team: A team of 4 manning 2 heavy machine guns. They are perfect to shred any infantry or light vehicle trying to cross an open area, forcing the enemy to unlock the situation with artillery or a fire support vehicle.
- Mk19 team: Equivalent to the Browning team but with Mk19 automatic grenade launchers. They are more efficient against ground targets but cannot engage helicopters.
- TOW team: Another 4 men team this time equipped with a TOW anti-tank guided missile launcher. This weapon has a long range, high armor penetration and high damage and can be upgraded with TOW-2B missiles which detonate above the target and project 2 explosively formed penetrators through the roof making any frontal armor useless. These missiles are the ultimate weapon against tanks.
- Stinger team: A team of 4 serving 2 short range Stinger anti-aircraft missile launchers. Stingers have a short range so they won’t be able to engage planes unless they approach very close, but they can fire from the concealment of a forest or buildings to ambush helicopters quite efficiently.
Combat vehicles & ground transports
The main ground transports of airborne infantry are the Humvees which can carry a 4 men fire team
or in the newest M1301 ISV which can carry 2 fire teams or a full 8 men squad. Both vehicles are very fast and can be equipped with M240 Medium machine guns, M2 Heavy machine guns or Mk19 Automatic grenade launchers.
They can be sent back to base to get a refund after dropping the infantry, sent forward to harass the enemy or kept around to act as additional fire support and reposition your fire team rapidly if needed.
- Humvee TOW: equivalent to the infantry TOW team but mounted on the roof of a humvee to provide mobility to this anti-tank launcher.
The vehicle can be upgraded with extra armor and smoke pods.
- M8 AGS/Thunderbolt: This air-droppable light tank can be equipped with an automated fast firing 105mm gun or upgraded to a 120mm gun as powerful as the most modern Abrams tanks.
The armor can be upgraded with additional ceramic plates or an active protection system. The heaviest version adds explosive reactive armor but removes the ability to be airdropped.
- M551 Sheridan: This is another air-droppable light tank this time with a large but short 152mm gun. Mostly useful against infantry and light vehicles, it is possible to add Shillelagh anti-tank missiles. It is interesting to note that this tank is light enough to be lifted by a Ch-53K King Stallion available in the USMC deck.
Support
One of the strengths of the airborne specialization is its ability to drop or lift support vehicles alongside the infantry to defend the landing zone.
- AN/TWQ-1 Avenger: This anti-aircraft unit is using the chassis of the humvee to carry a turret containing 4 or 8 stinger missiles. Its light weight makes it air-droppable and air-liftable by UH-60 Blackhawks. Like all the humvees it is possible to upgrade it with additional armor but it loses the ability to be airdropped in that case.
- Hawkeye MWS: A chassis of humvee again but this time carrying a 105mm howitzer. You can select the loadout between high-explosive or cluster munition or rocket assisted projectiles (RAP) with more range.
- MTV (Medium tactical Vehicle): This truck can transport troops and supplies, it can be airlifted by a Chinook helicopter but is not air-droppable. It serves as the main workhorse of the airborne specialization if you decide to play it as a standard infantry brigade. The truck can be upgraded with additional armor and a M240 Medium machine gun, M2 Heavy machine gun or Mk19 Automatic grenade launcher.
- LMTV (Light Medium tactical Vehicle): This lighter truck transports less cargo than the MTV but can be airdropped. It is generally useful to airdrop some supplies with your infantry to rearm them and at least one truck to move the supplies around as the initial landing zone might receive artillery fire. The same upgrades as the MTV are available to the LMTV, the armor upgrade removes the airdrop ability.
- Brutus: This is a MTV chassis stripped down from every possible extra weight to make it airdropable and equipped with a M777 155mm howitzer bolted to it. This mad max-style artillery truck offers medium range artillery support to the airborne specialization with high explosive and cluster rounds.
- SL-AMRAAM: Another MTV chassis this time with anti-aircraft missiles mounted on it. You can choose between 4 or 6 AMRAAM radar guided missiles dedicated to planes and missile interception or a mix of 4 AMRAAM and 2 AIM-9 with infrared seekers able to engage helicopters.
Helicopters
The airborne specialization represents airborne troops like the 82nd division but also air-assault troops like the 101st airborne division deployed using helicopters. As a result this specialization offers a varied panel of helicopters.
- UH-60M Blackhawk: Certainly one of the most if not the most iconic US helicopter. This transport aircraft can carry 12 personnel and lift up to 4 tons of cargo which is enough to carry a humvee, an ISV or some other light vehicles like the IFAV available in the USMC specialization.
The two door gunners can be equipped with simple M240 medium machine guns, GAU-17 miniguns or GAU-21 fast firing heavy machine guns.
- AH-64 Apache: The famous attack helicopter of the US army in its most basic version. Sturdy and well armed, it is equipped with a 30mm chaingun as well as 4 pylons each able to carry 70mm Hydra rockets, APKWS guided rockets or Hellfire top attack anti-tank missiles.
- AH-64 Longbow: Similar to the Apache but with a radar cupola above the rotor blades allowing this helicopter to use the Hellfire Longbow missiles which are fire&forget. It means that the helicopter can lose the line of sight with the target or be destroyed after the launch of the missile and it will still find its target autonomously.
- CH-47 Chinook: This large helicopter with tandem rotor can lift a large number of troops and heavier vehicles up to 12.5 tons. It is also one of the fastest helicopters in the game if we exclude the tiltrotor V-22 Osprey.
- OH-58 Kiowa: This is a small recon helicopter which can be equipped with a large variety of weapons on its pylons: GAU-21 heavy machine gun, Hydra rockets, Hellfire missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. And you can also select a different loadout for each side. For instance combine stinger and hellfire missiles to have a response to both air and ground enemies. It can also be upgraded with a mast mounted sight increasing drastically its detection range and giving it the ability to designate targets with a laser.
Planes
- F-15C Eagle: This is a dedicated air superiority fighter which can carry up to 8 missiles with the possibility to choose between AIM-9 short range infrared, AIM-7 semi-active radar guided or AIM-120 AMRAAM with more range and autonomous terminal guidance.
Contrary to most planes, the emplacement for external fuel tanks is independent from the missiles emplacement allowing to freely increase the autonomy without reducing the payload.
- F-15E Strike Eagle: The dual sitter version of the F-15C. It might look like a fighter but don't be fooled by appearances: it’s a bomb truck. The plane retains the ability to carry 4 air-to-air missiles but is mostly dedicated to ground attack with an impressive payload of 7 2000lb bombs or 18 cluster bombs. It can also be equipped with a laser designation pod to guide its own smart bombs.
- F-15EX Eagle II: The newest version of the plane regroups the capabilities of the C and E versions in a single modernized plane. It can do basically anything, twice! For instance carry up to 14000lb of bombs in addition to 8 air-to-air missiles. You can use it to launch JASSM cruise missiles, carry AGM-88 anti-radiation missiles or pile up missile over missile on every pylon until you reach the ultimate “Spamraam” loadout with 20 AMRAAM missiles.
- C-17 Globemaster: This strategic airlifter is capable of airdropping up to 75 tons of supplies, vehicles and 100 paratroopers. So you can drop a pair of Sheridan, half a dozen humvees of various types, some supplies and a LMTV, plus several platoons of infantry in a single drop.
Just don’t do that in contested airspace or your glorious airdrop might transform into a gigantic Piñata for your opponents.
- C-130J-30 Hercules: A smaller, slower, propeller plane transports less payload but has the advantage of airdropping from a lower altitude which grants it a higher survivability against ground based air-defense but makes it more vulnerable to fighter interception.
The J-30 version is a bit larger than the KC-130 of the Marines allowing it to transport a few extra tons of equipment but is not armed at all.
- B-1B Lancer: There, where the B-1B has passed, the grass will never grow again. This strategic bomber can drop an impressive quantity of bombs of various types: 84 SnakEye retarded bombs or 30 cluster bombs dropped from low altitude, 24 Mk84 2000lb bombs, 12 JSOW cluster smart bombs, 8 big ALCM or 24 smaller JASSM cruise missiles, and finally a B61 nuclear bomb.
Strategies
- On its own, the airborne specialization offers everything you need to gain air superiority, airdrop troops and vehicles on a key position of the battlefield and establish a layered defense around it. You can also use your multiple humvees to create a highly mobile motorized horde rushing through undefended approaches, forcing the enemy to overspend to deal with all these light vehicles wreaking havoc in their backline.
But in Broken arrow specializations always work in pairs.
- Combining it with the Armored spec allows you to gain time with your airborne troops while heavy tanks or artillery are on their way to catch your enemy pants down in the middle of an assault against your entrenched paratroopers.
- Combining it with the Marines allows you to maximize the amount of planes and helicopters you can bring to have a rapid answer to every situation. You can also airdrop even more support vehicles as the LAV-25 family of vehicles is air-droppable.
Gaining air superiority is very important, a team which is not contesting the air space at all must prepare to live under the bombs and constant enemy airdrops.
The best moment to perform an airdrop is at the beginning of the battle, before a thick surface-to-air missile defense is established.
But your opponents know that too, so this is also a moment where you have a very high chance to meet enemy fighters as your transport plane has zero chance to reach the drop zone alive if there are enemy fighters in the sky.
So if both teams try to aggressively gain air superiority to perform airdrops, the beginning of the match can consist of a giant air fight sometimes involving a dozen aircrafts.
But even if you don’t plan to airdrop troops or use helicopters it is recommended to call in at least one fighter to check how much the opposing team has invested into aircrafts.
- If they didn’t call in a single plane, this is a golden occasion to make an airdrop with 0 risk.
- If they called in an undefended cargo plane, this is a lot of free points for you.
- If you are outnumbered and cannot call in more fighters you can call in surface to air missiles and try to bait the enemy fighters to follow your plane into a trap.
Losing air superiority at the beginning of the match is also not the end of the world as long as you make sure that your opponents didn’t gain it for free. They have gained the possibility to airdrop troops and use helicopters freely for a few minutes while preventing you from doing so, but their planes will have to refuel at some point and constantly keeping 10 fighters in the air is a waste of resources so you will have the opportunity to contest the airspace again after a few minutes.
That’s it for today, see you next week for another dev blog presenting the new Russian specialization.