Hammerhead (Kane's Wrath)

"Heavy gunship airborne!"

- Hammerhead

The Hammerhead is GDI's support aircraft in Kane's Wrath.

Background
A curious element of the GDI air arsenal, the Hammerhead is a conventional helicopter, based on transport designs dating back to the 20th century. This is perhaps an extreme example of GDI's trend of returning to old, but extremely reliable technology following the Second Tiberium War. Its speed matches that of an Orca Gunship, allowing for fast deployment.

The Hammerhead is a large ground support aircraft that serves a dual role as both a long range infantry transport, and an anti-infantry gunship. Its central compartment is capable of housing one infantry squad, with sufficient internal space to allow the squad to fire out of the Hammerhead. Promotional materials of the unit claim the helicopter can house an entire regiment, but this is clearly an exaggeration. For loading and unloading infantry, the Hammerhead has to land; initial experiments involving jump-jetting infantry into the Hammerhead's cargo compartment met with unfortunate results.

The Hammerhead is equipped with two intermeshing rotors, giving it immense lift and high stability, as well as twin automatic cannons that can plow through enemy infantry and could be used to clear landing zones from hostiles. The damage capacity of these weapons can be increased with optional Armor-Piercing Ammunition. The amount of ammunition and fuel carried by the Hammerhead is sufficient to allow the aircraft to operate independently for days without refueling or rearming.

However, the Hammerhead's cannons cannot target other air units; so to counter enemy air power, the Hammerhead would need to be loaded with a Missile Squad or Zone Raiders to defend itself against airborne threats. A special version of the Hammerhead was seen guarding the GDI treasury; they had two wing-mounted fog lights that acted as searchlights capable of detecting stealthed units. However, Hammerhead aircraft issued to battlefield commanders do not possess this feature. This forces the commanders to rely on other means of stealth detection, such as Pitbulls and Zone Troopers or Zone Raiders. A Hammerhead loaded with a Zone Raider squad is nearly identical, if not better due to infinite ammo, to a ZOCOM Orca.

ZOCOM Hammerheads can be additionally upgraded with ceramic armour.

Assessment
Pros:
 * Lethal against infantry; even heavily-armored infantry stand little chance
 * Available to all GDI subfactions
 * Has a moderate move speed
 * Doesn't need to land for rearming
 * Much more cost-effective than Ox transports (one-time $1500 vs $500 each pickup)
 * Can destroy light vehicles with Armor-Piercing Ammo upgrade
 * Loading advanced infantry makes it effective against Epic units
 * Zone Troopers and Missile Squads make it effective against vehicles and aircraft; Riflemen help to make shorter work of infantry; Black Hand flamethrowers drastically increase anti-structure capability
 * A formidable opponent, especially with armor upgrades

Cons:


 * Vulnerable when loading infantry
 * Virtually helpless against Storm Columns
 * Without upgrades or the appropriate infantry, it is weak against vehicles
 * Cannot attack air units without Missile Squads or Zone Raiders
 * Expensive; slow to build
 * Mantis Drones and Stealth Tanks are extremely effective against it
 * Like the Guardian APC, any garrisoned infantry are destroyed with the vehicle

Quotes
Hammerhead (Tiberium wars)/Quotes

Behind the scenes
The Hammerhead is functionally similar to the Twinblades. Also, in the real world, the Russian Mi-24 Hind performs an identical role of a troop transport and an attack helicopter. It was added by the makers of Kane's Wrath when they decided that GDI commanders need an equal to the nod venom (as it can stay in battles with out having to rearm)