USA Update: Armoured Company Part 2 news - Rise of the Reds mod for C&C: Generals Zero Hour

Good evening everyone. We hope you've had a great week.

This week we are continuing our exploration of the American Armoured Company expansion, with the Paladin kits. Positioned as the American heavy tank, the Paladin - although tanky with the right upgrades and battle plans - was left in a rather vicarious spot when paired up against its contemporaries. When fighting other heavies like Golems and Kodiaks it was often an even fight and often the Paladin would need to have support to win, and when against super heavies like Overlords and Sentinels, it could not engage without some level of support at all. Although this was by design, this left the Paladin in a rather odd place within the US tech tree. It was a GP locked unit that couldn't really do its job of being a breakthrough heavier vehicle, nor did it have the firepower to really go toe-to-toe with its contemporaries. So, when reworking the armoured company Generals Point, we decided that instead of doubling down on one role or another for the Paladin, that we expand the unit and give it the capacity to do both and more with some kits.

Throughout the war against the GLA, the US Army invested in the development of new tanks tailored for rapid global deployment and asymmetric warfare. The M1 Abrams underwent a series of branching upgrades from the common CRSADR (CRew Smart Assistance & DRone package, dubbed "Crusader") to the novel PALADIN (Perimeter-Active LAser Defence INtegration). After the War on Terror and the crisis of the early 2030s, the US armed forces were streamlined to once again engage in overseas operations at only a fraction of the previous cost through the implementation of new automation, battle management and propulsion technologies. An early product of this was the M10 Paladin II battle tank which fused the decades worth of upgrades of the old Abrams into an all-new design which would serve as a clean sheet for future technological innovations. One such innovation was the Electro-Magnetic Projectile Accelerator, or EMPA for short - the world's first mass-produced heavy railgun fitted on a combat vehicle. While the US Navy had already introduced larger versions of these weapons for bombardment and air/missile defence purposes in the late 2020s, the US Army had initially deprioritised the development of railguns as they were deemed impractical in the face of light, if at all armoured GLA vehicles. It was only after the rise of new peer-level competitors like China and Russia and advances in fusion power miniaturisation that the concept of a railgun-armed tank rose to prominence. In tank-on-tank engagements, the EMPA significantly increases the Paladin's range and firepower. However, due to the kinetic projectile's inefficiency against infantry and hardened buildings, crews are instructed to only fire on vehicles to minimise rail attrition. By the time of America's entry into the Third World War, the development of dedicated anti-personnel and demolition shells had only just begun and would not deliver results until years later.

Render Description: MARS2588

As with previous American tanks, the Paladin II was also used as the baseline for a new combat engineering vehicle. Designed specifically to address the threat of land mines, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and fortifications by the GLA in the previous conflict, the Clearing Roller / Assault Breacher, or CRAB for short, significantly improves the Paladin's resistance against roadside explosives. The traditional steel tracks have been replaced with a carbon nanotube composite alloy, designed to absorb the force of an explosion and cause less damage to roads in the area of operations. The bottom of the tank hull has been remade into a shallow V-shape designed to deflect the blast of a mine or IED away from the fighting compartment and towards the reinforced tracks. Hollow rubber pads filled with “smart” fluid help further absorb explosive force and fragments, while simultaneously defeating the fuse triggers of older mines. In addition to these mine countermeasures, the Paladin II's standard cannon was replaced with a short-barrelled demolition gun, purpose-built to destroy fortifications and improving manoeuvrability in obstructed urban environments. While originally designed to deal with the roadblocks utilised by the GLA and other insurgent forces, this weapon also proved very useful in the Euro-American counter-offensives, as CRAB-equipped engineering squadrons were easily able to destroy Russian strongpoints in the key mountain passes of northern Italy, Austria and Czechia.

Render Description: SayaAyane

Another common variant of the Paladin II is tailored to increasing the survivability of the tank and crew inside, especially in the urban environments that have traditionally been difficult for tanks to engage in. Taking an already formidably armoured vehicle with some of the most comprehensive defensive capabilities on the modern battlefield and upgrading it to an even higher standard of survivability is what the Tank Urban Survival Kit, or TUSK, is designed to do, using a combination of tried and true methods to attain maximum protection for both the vehicle and its crew. Armour blocks are used to line the most vulnerable areas of the Paladin II, including the lower glacis plate and the turret. This provides a significant improvement to the tank's defensive capability. After that comes the Point Defense Laser Array System, sometimes referred to by crews rather melodramatically as “Hell's Crown”; that being multiple anti-projectile lasers ringed around the top of the turret. The PDLAS uses thermal, radar and acoustics-based sensors to identify incoming rockets and is linked directly to the tank's onboard AI, allowing rapid simultaneous interception of multiple projectiles. These modifications greatly limit the threat of common shoulder-launched rockets and even the most advanced anti-tank missiles to American forces.

Render Description: GeneralCamo & SayaAyane

Before we head out, we would also love to say a huge thank you to MaelstromX103 for hosting last nights ROTR Stream, it was a blast to watch and we all enjoyed it greatly. We would also love to give a huge shout out and thank you to everyone who participated in #modlove2024 and supported Mod Appreciation Week.
If you voted for a mod and won one of the free games, you should be getting notification of your steam keys now.

That's all we have for this week, we hope you've enjoyed!
We will see you all in the next one. Take Care.