Much has been said about the tankrush strategy, and we are not going to try to give you THE right answer on how to solve this challenge. Because that's what it is; your enemy uses one strategy, so what are you going to do about it. We're not going to try to tell you if this is the right way to play the game, because that's individual to each and another. And if you hate it so much; let your opponent know it and leave the game!

What's most important in warfare? To know your enemy and his moves. So it's important to early in the game scout out the landscape to see what your enemy is up to. If you sense that he's a tankrush guy / girl, forget about all those fancy gadgets and make money and tanks to withstand his attack force. Concentrate on building harvesters and war factories.

There are several ways to withstand an tankrush:

• If the battle finds place on neutral ground, make sure you outnumber his tank platoon. It's stupid to attack a much larger force on open ground, you're bound to loose. And unless you have some backup in your base, your harvesters are an easy kill without defense.
• When the opponent is rushing your base with his tanks it's in your benefit to keep the opponent in the dark, so use Gap Generators to hide your strength and weaknesses. A strong base defense in addition to a tank platoon equal or a little less than the attacker will place you in the long end of the stick, and if you have tanks left after an attack; go for HIS harvesters.
• If you are the attacking part, try to wipe out his power supply. This will strongly weaken his building speed and maybe make him loose his radar facility. Then attack his moving units first, then go for his base defense. If you succeed in this take out his income ensuring that he can not recover from your attack. After that he will pretty much be an easy kill, and you may even have some time to rebuild your forces.

Concentrate, concentrate and concentrate!
When you are in a tankrush situation, remember to concentrate your firepower on one unit at a time. Guide your units to kill one unit, completely and go on to the next unit. A damaged unit has equal firepower to an fully operational unit. Also remember to kill the units with the highest firepower first, like Artillery. If you encounter an APC on the battle field, don't kill that one at first, because if you do, you will have another 5 units to fight off, so spare them until the main attack force is wiped out. Personally I prefer to group my tanks in parties of 10, that way I can ship my platoons in different directions, and measure my attack force according to my opponents war power. Also, if your tank platoons are to big the ones in the back cannot use their firepower at your enemy. Make them attack different targets at the same time.

The tanks weaknesses.
Another aspect is the mines, these come in handy if you are playing Allies. If you scatter the surrounding area of your base with AT mines, some of the tanks that reach your base is so damaged that it's easy to take them out. But remember not to put the mines within the reach of the turrets, because they will shoot them up. The Soviet mines however, is useless against tanks. They are used against personnel only.

In addition you have to remember the tanks weaknesses, they have no air / sea defense. Even if he wipes out your entire base, you could make his life pretty miserable with those Cruisers and Destroyers.

In all the options above, it is also wise to combine your ground / sea forces with some air strikes. MIG's are okay to use, but they are not so accurate as helicopters on moving targets.

And PLEASE, don't try to nuke the tanks! It's a waste of time and base destruction. The nuke is only effective against people and structures. And yes, you can wipe out one or two Ore Refineries in one nuke attack. There are at least two positions that will completely lay an Ore Refinery in ruins. Take a look at our nuke school for more details.

Outnumbering the tanks?
We now have experimented with how many tanks it takes of one sort to wipe out the other one. The conclusion is that this strongly relates to your skill with the firepower you are controlling. You also have to relay on a hunch, and redirect your fire to the next unit the second they have finished off the primary target. To be certain of this we played both sides to see the difference, and both times the same person came out victorious.

This page needs input from all you Command & Conquer:Red Alert freaks out there, so don't just give in to this tactic but let us fight it! and give us feedback on your experiences on the matter. You'll find our e-mail addresses at the bottom, or the main e-mail address at our front page.