Longbows

[Rorschach]

Longbows are one of the most OP units in the game. It's best used for pop-up attacks. Don't let it sit and hover over forests.

It reminds me of the A-10. Perfect for a role against units that are less common than in EE and ALB.

If your Longbow is facing uber heavies, it's great.

If it's facing MANPADS, it dies (No rockets to supress them), if it faces AA, it dies (No rockets to stun them, have to rely on the Hellfires, which can take too long. Old tactic was to stunlock with rockets, buy time for hellfires), if it faces planes, it dies, like all helis, and if it faces AA helis, it dies, because of no AA weapon.


It fulfils a very small (too small) niche, very well.

[Seer7]

Come on. It kills anything with wheels or tracks not just heavy tanks. Its value is in killing anything motorised or mechanised that dares to enter its range. I don't care if it 'only' kills a bunch of T-55s so long as they're not reaching their objective of shooting my stuff.

[another505]

If you want to save ammo, use hellfire A platforms
if you want to wipe out a column of heavy tanks
longbow


if you want to talk about missing missiles, ka-50

[YTM]

I don't even...

If you're calling out the Longbow, I'm assuming you're dealing with large amounts of 80+ point tanks. What are you doing that's more important than baby sitting the longbow and making sure to switch targets after every "kill" missile?

The Longbow is not a tank, where you can reasonably expect that hanging out in a bush he can fend for himself for a few moments,

Micro wise it's not even a strenuous task. it's one click every 1.5 seconds or so.

[Medan]

I really haven't seen it brought up, but what makes the Longbow solid is the exceptional optics. It makes finding targets and avoiding potential pitfalls very easy, so while yes it is expensive, it should also be easier to keep alive. However, it really isn't an early game unit, but rather a late game hunter killer. Wait for the air game to peter out and use it to find weaknesses, probe enemy positions and eliminate high value targets. As people have also stated, it's great against tank hordes, which do happen from time to time.

But Brutoni is right, it takes one heavy tank kill to make this unit cost effective, so it is priced pretty well for its capability. Just try to avoid buying it in the first 15 mins and profit.

EDIT: That being said, I still prefer the DAP.

[Seer7]

if you want to talk about missing missiles, ka-50

It should get another 10% ACC on the Vikhr imo, the Kokon is currently more accurate at 55% not to mention TOWs...

What are you doing that's more important than baby sitting the longbow and making sure to switch targets after every "kill" missile?

I'm always trying to do something so I end up with a lot to do...it's a vicious circle. I would rather not have to deal with the annoyance of that micro.

[Mike]

Longbows are good for killing tanks that take more that one Hellfire missile quicker than any other helo. But they attract a lot of attetion. Hell, I killed a Longbow is a run from two Avia-10S's (Czechoslovakia plane with A2A rockets)

[Arch]

Killing a single top tier tank will pay the Longbow out, and you have tons more Hellfires where that came from.

If you have under 500 points of units to kill, don't call it in, not worth the effort and money.

[Random]

It misses, alot.

It misses, on trained while moving 46%, on hardened 42%, while standing still and on trained 24.4%, on hardened 18.8%.

[Trimen]

If you are facing multiple targets the easiest thing to do is to switch targets between shots. as soon as 1 missile is fired right click another one in range then switch back if the original target did not die. You will eviscerate any armor spearhead doing this. It's also good to keep a Heavy Hog and Stinger Kiowa just in front of the Longbow for security.