Grand Cannon

The Grand Cannons are special defensive structures used exclusively by France during the Great World War III and the Psychic Dominator Disaster.

Background
Soviet rush tactics had left French commanders reeling with terror. Sensing that their Pillbox and Turret somewhat were ineffective against rushes, the French quickly revamped their defensive structure. As they felt that the pillbox design had somewhat reached its maturity, they chose to utilize a Turret design instead. The modification included adding an artillery cannon with a very large caliber and reinforcing the armour. Thus, the Grand Cannon was born. Other Allied countries, however, thought this structure was somewhat overwhelming, thus it was not fully adopted by them.

The Grand Cannon is basically a large turret capable of firing very powerful shells to an extreme range. The cannons are effective against both infantry and tanks, and would cause considerable collateral damage in the area around the target. Any lightly armoured unit that was unlucky enough to get within its range of fire could be destroyed in a single shot, which includes some infantry as well. Their range is comparable to that of most siege units, and only air units can safely dispatch these gargantuan turrets.

Deployments
A few Grand Cannons, presumably French-built, were also found in use in the United States, namely in San Francisco and Chicago. In Chicago, the Cannons guarding the way into the city were acquired by the Soviet forces upon the city's capture and had to be destroyed by the Allies.

In San Francisco, four cannons guarded the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay against the initial Soviet invasion. During the Psychic Dominator Disaster, France authorized their design and knowledge to be shared in an effort against Yuri. Their design somehow spread beyond their intentions as such designs can be obtained by the Soviets via a secret Tech Secret Lab in their final battle in Transylvania.

Game building
Though Grand Cannons are very powerful, they also have many drawbacks:


 * The shells fired from its cannon are rather inaccurate, and will likely miss moving targets, but a direct hit may not be required, given the powerfull blast the projectile has.
 * The structure had no defense against aircraft and incoming missiles.
 * The Grand Cannon are expensive, requiring up to 2000 credits to deploy.
 * The structure is large and require some space to be built.
 * If enemies managed to get pass the cannons and get into the base but are still in its range of fire, the shell can not only cause damage to enemies, but also to friendly units and structures.
 * Requires a lot of power to operate. Taking out enough power plants will render the cannon offline.
 * The shell is limited by terrain changes, target that placed within the area lower from the grand cannon (or if there are natural obstacle between the cannon and the target) the shell may not hit the target.