Tropic LighTning - Flames of War

Turn 3: The Bô Đôi Strike Back!2Hueycobra WeaponryThe AH-1G Hueycobra was theUS Army’s first custom-designedgunship. Based on the UH-1D Hueyutility helicopter, the Hueycobra wasextensively modified for the gunshiprole. The fuselage was narrowed andthe pilots placed in tandem, givingit the look of a fast, sleek killingmachine. The chin turret fitted underthe nose mounted a 7.62mm minigunand a 40mm grenade launcher underthe control of the front-seat pilot.This gave the Cobra an effectiveweapon against both infantry in theopen and dug-in troops.The Hueycobra’s main armamentwas carried on its stub wings. Thethree main weapons combinationswere: mixed M157 seven-tube andM200 19-tube rocket launchers, anM195 20mm gatling gun and M157rockets, and the aerial rocket artilleryoption with twin M200 rocketlaunchers. All of these are availablein the Tropic Lightning booklet.The mixed rocket launcher optionallows the helicopter to fire rocketsevery turn as well as its chin turret.The 20mm gatling gun option givesa lot more direct firepower, but limitsthe rocket pods to a single shot. Themost spectacular though is the twinM200 rocket pod option fitted toMark’s surviving Cobra. This onlyallows a single turn of rocket fire,but the 76 rockets cover a massivetarget area. It uses the 12''/30cmsquare Devastating Bombardmenttemplate rather than the usual6''/15cm square artillery template.Despite catching two platoons ofanti-aircraft weapons under thetemplate, Mark only managed to hitthree teams, and Kyran promptlypassed all of his saves!5Despite having nothing left on the table after the Americans first turn of shootingwiped out his ambushing company, Kyran took a calculated risk in bringing onanti-aircraft guns rather than more infantry. Kyran placed them guarding thelanding zone that the airmobile infantry would have to use and dug them in,forcing Mark to deal with them. Unable to reach them with ground forces, Marksent in the Cobras, but they were unable to knock out the dug-in guns. ThenKyran sprung his trap, deploying a second platoon of anti-aircraft guns, shootingdown both helicopters and gaining three victory points in the process!34BattleReport.indd 11 11/2/11 13:55:59