Aurora Alpha

The Aurora Alpha is a supersonic bomber utilized by the USA General Alexis Alexander as an improvement to the Aurora, carrying a destructive Fuel Air Bomb in Zero Hour.

Background
On its attack run, the Aurora Alpha's great speed prevents any enemy anti-aircraft weapons from successfully attacking it. However, unlike the regular variant, the Alpha maintains supersonic speed on its return run, slowing only for turns, a few seconds after it drops its payload, and landing. This trait makes the Alpha much more powerful than the conventional Aurora, as you can safely fly over an AA-heavy area to strike a remote target and still be able to get enough speed to ignore that same area on your return.

Strategy
The primary purpose of the Aurora Alpha is demolition. Two Aurora Alpha bombs can destroy several buildings in one strike. However, the Aurora Alpha is extremely vulnerable as it transitions to its return run and has to be used carefully as it is also quite expensive. In addition to buildings, Aurora Alphas are effective at destroying slow-moving vehicles, such as artillery and Overlord Tanks. Groups of slower-moving vehicles, infantry, and grounded aircraft are especially at the mercy of the aircraft.

Counters
Due to its supersonic nature, no anti-air measures are effective against an Aurora Alpha on its bombing run. However, once the Alpha Aurora finishes its bombing run, it becomes vulnerable to all forms of anti-air weapons for a short time as it performs a painfully slow turn to return to base. It is important to note that, after around three seconds of straight-line flight, the Alpha regains its original supersonic speed and can negate all AA and out-fly all missiles it flies over as it returns to base, whereas the original does not. They are also extremely expensive to construct and far too costly to be used for one-way missions.

Changelog

 * Zero Hour patch 1.02: fixed missing particle effects
 * Zero Hour patch 1.03:
 * added new skin
 * secondary attack damage decreased from 1000 to 900
 * secondary attack range decreased from 100 to 70

Trivia

 * The Aurora Alpha uses the unused model of the Hypersonic Aurora for General Granger as of Zero Hour patch 1.03.
 * Unique quotes for the Aurora Alpha (shown above) were never implemented for an unknown reason. However, they can be implemented via INI editing.