Guide to Playing Support in Fun Mod
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This update also introduces major balancing changes. The fast mobility of Air units introduced by previous 1.1 release quite
imbalanced the game in favor of Air role and made it significantly harder to play support as a role.
Air & Support have been rebalanced in this update to address this imbalance (see the updates for more information).
Based upon the new balancing changes implemented in version 1.2, the following is the Fun Mod Support Guide to help players
get acquainted with new anti-air setup:
1. In Fun Mod, anti-air as a roleplay has been authentically derived from Integrated Air Defense Systems in real-world armies.
The drawback to this is that it forces the support player to "centralize" his anti-air assets throughout the map, making
him more vulnerable to air attacks because of his units being located in the same place. 1 or 2 air players can destroy a
support player and disable their team's anti-air coverage for the entire map for example. This severely limits the
effectiveness of a support player to provide the necessary anti-air cover for advancing armor and infantry units. This
update's balancing changes will hopefully put this issue to rest.
2. The key to properly playing support in Fun Mod against a skilled air player is to use a multi-layered integrated air
defense network, dividing your anti-air units on the map into two major roles: HIMAD and SHORAD. See below:
a. HIMAD: High to Medium Altitude Air Defense (HIMAD) units include the Heavy SAM vehicle and Search Radar. These
are powerful units capable of providing offensive anti-air coverage to practically anywhere on the map with their
long range missiles. With vanila WiC, for the "outer" edges of the map, you needed to send 1 HAA to that area to
"deter" enemy air from attacking it. Notice I said "deter", not "defend" -- typically 1 HAA is a joke against a
full set of heavy air+scout helicopter. With Fun Mod, for these outer edges of the map, you don't even need to
bother sending any AA to that area. Instead, just use the HIMAD Heavy SAM to engage the air player at long range.
It will also deter and annoy the heck out of him at long range (because one missile won't kill him) and you are
not feeding him TA at the same time.
The draw back to Heavy SAM is that it is not an automated system. You have to manually order it to engage a
helicopter, furthermore, it is helpless against air player at close range. So as you can see, Heavy SAM is an
offensive anti-air unit, basically a ground-version of a medium attack helicopter. It is useless for a defensive
role.
Search Radar is another must-have equipment on the battlefield. Its powerful jamming offensive and defensive
capabilities can effectively provide missile-dodging virtual smoke screens to friendly units. In addition to that,
Search Radar has a very huge vision range that can pick up helicopters flying at high altitude at long range,
feeding you targeting information for your Heavy SAM vehicle.
Combination of Search Radar and Heavy SAM will literally force the enemy air player to fly at low altitude, closer
to the terrain to avoid being detected by your Search Radar. This limits his weapon accuracy and deters him the
ability to "nose-dive bomb" a friendly tank, deterring him from performing a devastating top-down rocket attack.
Flying high without having flares recharged is a dangerous maneuver and will subject him to wraith of your HIMAD
anti-air cover.
b. SHORAD: Where as HIMAD units provide offensive AA cover, the mission of Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) units is
simple: ENFORCE the restricted airspace (aka DEFEND). The SHORAD equipments consist of Medium SAM and Light AA units.
Medium SAMs are powerful DEFENSIVE anti-air units that automatically fire (unlike Heavy SAM) on any aircraft entering
their engagement radius. Light AA's are weak against air but when combined with Medium SAM, they become a deadly
partner against any enemy air attack. Medium SAM is the principal air-denial unit. It has a long firing range and
rapid fire rate. A single Medium SAM can deter an enemy air from attacking a defended command point or area of
operations. Medium SAM's drawback is that when it is exposed, it is vulnerable to Advanced Attack Helicopters --
their stand-off Hellfire missile outranges your Medium SAM. This means that Medium SAM should NEVER be at the FRONT
of the fromtline, but rather be at the BACK of the frontline of your team's ground advances. Medium SAM should ideally
be sitting between your team's infantry/armor advance and your HIMAD equipments (Heavy SAM and Search Radar). This
allows your team's armor and infantry players to stay inside the Medium SAM cover, while also protecting your Heavy SAM
as well. You should dynamically relocate and move your anti-air assets so that air player will always have to deal with
a Medium SAM if he wants to attack your Heavy SAM. Russian doctrine in real-life for a typical S400 deployment specifies
colocating a Tor M1 (which is USSR Medium SAM vehicle for Fun Mod) to provide point-defense against air and missile
threats trying to neutralize the S-400 (USSR Heavy SAM vehicle for Fun Mod) directly.
Lastly, you have the Light AA vehicle. The Light AA vehicie seems useless from the outset, but it is designed for
terminal point-defense (the last resort in your multi-layered setup) to protect your Medium SAMs. The fire range on
the Light AA vehicles are optimized so that when an air player comes into effective rocketing range to attack your
Medium SAM, light AA can start shooting up the air player with its guns. Light AA's do not have any smoke screens, so
you should give them smoke using your Medium SAM, or use your Search Radar to remotely jam the area over your Light AA's.
3. Putting it all together. Let's look at an example scenario, we are playing as USSR Support on do_Hometown.
a. On your first spawn, you can start with 1 Heavy SAM, 1 Medium SAM and 1 Search Radar. Capture South Town with your spawned
equipments and send your Medium SAM across the bridge to capture it. Be sure to have your Search Rar hot keyed to provide
jamming cover over your Medium SAM, in the event that enemy air player noticed it and starts hellfiring your Medium SAM
from long range. The jamming capability of your Search Radar will disable the incoming missile. You should also position
your Search Radar behind the bridge on the main road or on the flat terrain next to the river toward the Sawmill to make
sure that it has clear line of sight to detect high flying helicopters from long range.
b. On your 2nd spawn, bring in additional Medium SAM and any other vehicles you want. You can also bring in an extra Heavy
SAM if the reinforcement points are available by the time you do your 2nd drops. From here, you will have 2 Medium SAM
vehicles to work with. Place 1 Medium SAM near the bridge and place the other Medium SAM near the Sawmill, by the treeline
toward the bridge. These two Medium SAM's will provide effective anti-air coverage for friendly forces from bridge to
sawmill, covering practically half of the map right there with just two units. You can ideally colocate a light AA next to
the Medium SAM by the bridge to better protect it.
c. Your Heavy SAM should be sitting near South Town, preferably within the cover of your Medium SAM's and near your Search Radar.
When enemy air is incoming, use the Search Radar to provide jamming cover over your Heavy SAM to give it a virtual smoke screen.
d. Your armor player will probably want to capture gas station by now with light tank and airborne infantry drops. You don't
need to bother with sending an AA piece over there, since enemy air will simply laugh at it even on vanila WiC. Instead, use
your long-ranged Heavy SAM to interdict and annoy the enemy air player trying to attack the "sides" of the map, like gas
station and Dam.
4. Always dynamically control your units.
Remember: Historically speaking, the counter to SAM's and anti-air vehicles has always been AIR since Vietnam War (Wild Weasels/SEAD anyone?).
And best counter to SAM/AA in Fun Mod is also AIR, not armor or infantry.
a. It's fun to play anti-air like playing artillery in Fun Mod. The "Integrated" nature of air-defense network in Fun Mod makes
it very fun and powerful anti-air role to play, but the it also greatly exposes you to enemy air attack. It is easier for the
opponent air player to take out what few anti-air assets you have to defend the entire map than anti-air units located everywhere
around the map. This is a potential single point of failure for your team's entire anti-air defense -- so beware of this vulnerability.
b. When you launch your Heavy SAM missile, you are now giving away your position to enemy air. So SHOOT AND SCOOT. Don't just sit
there. After you launch your missile, quickly move the Heavy SAM and always optimize and re-orient the placement of your Medium SAM's
to make sure that enemy air player walks into Medium SAM network in order for him to take out your Heavy SAM.
Make it costly for the air player to take out your air defense network. This means constantly predicting the air player, using
your Search Radar to keep looking for him and constantly be on the move with your anti-air vehicles. Otherwise, you are sitting
ducks from enemy air attack.
c. Be sure to hot-key the Search Radar (i.e. control + 1 to bind Search Radar to the number 1 key). As soon as you detect incoming
enemy air attack, hot-select your Search Radar and use defensive and offensive jamming cover to protect your Medium SAM's and
Heavy SAM's. This can help you a lot when going head-on against enemy air up close and personal.
d. Because Support is a very demanding role, sometimes you are so busy with particular area of the map that you are not aware of an
enemy air player sneaking around in the back to attack you. Your Search Radar unit is equipped with active tracking system (which
can also be turned off by putting it on Hold Fire). When enemy air units are closing into you, the Search Radar will set off an
air raid siren sound to alert you of an incoming enemy air attack. But you need to make sure that your Search Radar can see the enemy
air player before it is too late! Search Radars should not be placed behind covers, rough terrain or treeline, because ground
clutters will add too much noise to radar returns. They should placed on ideally flat open terrain to monitor/scan the area properly.
This makes them vulnerable to enemy air attack, so be sure to use the jamming defensive ability to help your radar unit survive.
One good tactic to develop when playing anti-air in Fun Mod is to read and learn about the encounters of NATO coalition aircrafts against Serbian
air defenses during the Kosovo War bombing campaign in 1999. The Serbs lacked modern SAM equipments, they didn't stand a chance against coalition
air power and overall failed to provide effective anti-air cover against a modern equipped air force. Yet, they have proven to be extremely well
trained and highly skilled with what little antiquated equipments they had when they shot down an F-16 and an F-117 stealth bomber. One of their
principal tactics was to *always* be on the move with their SAMs -- never stay in one spot. And when turning on a radar to engage a coalition
aircraft or firing a missile at it, it's a death sentence as they give away their position by doing so for an anti-radiation strike. So the other
key tactic is to not give away your position to enemy air until it is necessary to do so.