| “ | Hornets in the air! - Aircraft carrier, on the attack |
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The Hornet is a miniature fighter-bomber utilized by Allied aircraft carriers of the Allies during Third World War and the Psychic Dominator Disaster.
Background[]
Effectively a scaled down bomber, the Hornet is armed with five Hornet homing missiles and operates out of Allied aircraft carriers. Each vessel can carry three fighters of this type and automatically repairs damaged units and replaces lost ones with no cost to their commander. Due to their small size, fuel limits restrict operational range.
Game Unit[]
The Hornets are unable to inflict as much damage the missiles fired by Dreadnoughts and Boomers, but can attack moving targets with better precision. They also can switch targets much more quickly. Being attack jets, Hornets also give the carrier a longer striking range than that of the Dreadnought's or Boomer's missiles. Hornets are also more durable than Dreadnought and Boomer missiles, making it more likely that a carrier strike wave will survive long enough to hit the target.
On the other hand, carriers cannot launch strikes as frequently as the Dreadnought and Boomer can launch missiles (it takes even longer if the carrier must replace downed planes). Hornets are also capable of gaining veterancy promotions, and if they destroy anything will be immediately promoted to elite, though this is often short-lived due to the Hornet's weak armor and expendability on the battlefield.
Note that, unlike the missiles of Dreadnoughts and Boomers, their destruction will be counted as a causality in the end-game statistics.
Aftermath[]
After Cherdenko's meddling with the timeline, the Hornets was replaced by the Sky Knight jets in the new Third World War. However, despite their different name they effectively served the same role as the Hornet.
Changelog[]
- Yuri's Revenge patch 1.001: Hornets will no longer attack out of range targets when switching targets while they are firing their missiles.
Trivia[]
- The old official website mistakenly referred to them as Intruders.[1]
- On occasion, Hornets can be shot down while attempting to land on their parent Aircraft Carrier, and end up crashing onto and damaging it.
- Hornets can be selected by the box select feature, though they cannot be manually commanded.
- Even if controllable units are selected, the player will be unable to give orders until the Hornets are deselected.
- Much like the Osprey and Slaves, their extremely low internal cost means that they will instantly be promoted to elite if they destroy anything.
- The Hornets were primarily based on the actual F/A-18 Hornet, a strike-fighter aircraft used by the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps for aircraft-carrier based operations. Unlike the in-game Hornet, the real-life Hornet uses a catapult take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) method of take-off and landing aboard aircraft carriers and is capable of being used for air-to-air combat on top of its ground strike capabilities. Besides being operated by aviators in the U.S. Navy and Marines, the F/A-18 is also widely used by many air forces around the world (including the Finnish, Australian, Swiss, Kuwaiti, and Malaysian air forces).
Gallery[]
Voxel
See Also[]
- Aircraft Carrier, Allied parent launch vessel
- Dreadnought, Soviet naval artillery counterpart
- Boomer, Yuri naval artillery counterpart
References[]
- ↑ Red Alert 2 website, Allied units, retrieved 9/3/2011
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