MiG (Generals)

"We defend China's airspace"

- MiG pilot patrolling the nation's boundaries

To remain competitive against potential enemy air forces China purchased advanced aircraft technology from Russia. Chinese weapons experts then worked further on unique designs, resulting in the Chinese MiG. The MiG was a multi-role fighter for the 21st century, armed with two napalm missiles that could be used effectively against ground targets or could be locked on air targets (however with little effect - napalm simply pour down from hit aircraft - with little damage). Fast and agile, MiGs could be deployed early in a conflict from friendly Air Fields. Groups of MiGs could create firestorms by all attacking the same target.

Some generals equipped their MiGs with different payloads. General Tsing Shi Tao's MiGs had uranium missiles, which could be upgraded.

Upgrades
"Tactical Fighter Reporting!"

- Overheard from a MiG pilot


 * MiG Armor - Upgraded MiGs' armour. Developed at the Air Field.
 * Black Napalm - Upgraded MiGs' napalm missiles with more potent napalm. Developed at the War Factory.
 * Tactical Nuke MiG - available for General Tsing Shi Tao only. General Tsing's MiGs had radiation-tipped missiles by default, not napalm missiles. With this upgrade (from the Nuclear Missile Silo) his MiGs had missiles with critical mass, giving them a small nuclear explosion. The "Nuke-MiG" is far more devastating against vehicles and infantry, but didn't create a Fire Storm, which is more useful in some situations.

Tactics/Counters
"This is restricted Airspace!"

- MiG pilot, never a big fan of tresspassing hostiles

Individually, MiGs lacked the firepower to cause significant damage against heavily armoured targets. However, working in groups MiGs excelled at torching several enemy units at once by creating a huge firestorm. This required four Migs to fire all eight of their napalm missiles at the same location, and were as deadly as the ones created by the Inferno Cannon artillery. Better yet, firing 16 missiles makes a huge firestorm so large, a medium armor vehicle would dismember and melt before it was fully engulfed in the flames! 12 MiGs make storms so huge, an entire Overlord Tank can be completely engulfed, and most likely turned into steel soup. The fact that MiGs could be deployed so early in a conflict worked to China's advantage, as they could use MiGs to take out vulnerable supply units and buildings before sufficient anti-aircraft defence had been established.

General Tao's nuclear MiGs, although normally only encountered later in a battle, were very dangerous, packing firepower similar to the Nuke Cannon artillery. They were formidable against almost anything, although a number of accidents occurred when nuclear MiGs attacked other aircraft, then flew straight into the blast. One could argue that an ability to create a self-sustaining firestom was another flaw, although the sheer destructiveness of the warheads coupled with the long-term effects of the radiation more than compensated for this. The nuclear MGs were almost the most dangerous fighter aircraft known, rivaling the advanced King Raptor employed by the US General Malcolm 'Ace' Granger. Not even Stinger Sites can take them down easily when the MiG's have the Black Napalm upgrade.

Like Raptors, their American counterparts, MiGs suffered somewhat from poor armour, and China was more interested in attrition tactics than developing countermeasures, so they developed advanced MiG armour instead. Squads of rocket-toting infantry were dangerous (but they ran a risk of being cooked if spotted by the MiG pilot), but not as much of a threat as anti-aircraft vehicles like the Quad Cannon.

In Real Life
In the real world, this aircraft is called the MiG 1.44. Designed by the MiG Design Bureau, it was to be a 5th generation aircraft used to counter the American F-22A 'Raptor'.

China instead selected the larger Russian Sukhoi Flankers for it's modernization program. Chinese Flanker fleet consist of both Russian made(Su-27/Su-30) and Chinese made(J-11). It is believe that China would independently develop it's 5th gen fighter around the Flanker and/or domestic J-10 technology. The Chinese J-20 prototype was flight tested in January 2011 and is believed to be China's answer to America's F-22.