Barrage Balloon

==In game==
===Vital statistics===
Barrage Balloon 	Barrage Balloon 	Barrage Balloon 	Barrage Balloon 	Barrage Balloon 	Barrage Balloon 	Barrage Balloon 	Barrage Balloon 	Barrage Balloon
 	
Weak aerial unit, armed with a suicide attack. Very slow and poorly armoured, but with very good LOS, perhaps rivalling an enemy .
*Strong versus aircraft and buildings.
*Weak versus aircraft and rocket artillery.	
Weak aerial unit, armed with a suicide attack. Very slow and poorly armoured, but with very good LOS, perhaps rivalling an enemy .
*Strong versus aircraft and buildings.
*Weak versus aircraft and rocket artillery.	
Weak aerial unit, armed with a suicide attack. Very slow and poorly armoured, but with very good LOS, perhaps rivalling an enemy .
*Strong versus aircraft and buildings.
*Weak versus aircraft and rocket artillery.	
Weak aerial unit, armed with a suicide attack. Very slow and poorly armoured, but with very good LOS, perhaps rivalling an enemy .
*Strong versus aircraft and buildings.
*Weak versus aircraft and rocket artillery.	
Weak aerial unit, armed with a suicide attack. Very slow and poorly armoured, but with very good LOS, perhaps rivalling an enemy .
*Strong versus aircraft and buildings.
*Weak versus aircraft and rocket artillery.	
Weak aerial unit, armed with a suicide attack. Very slow and poorly armoured, but with very good LOS, perhaps rivalling an enemy .
*Strong versus aircraft and buildings.
*Weak versus aircraft and rocket artillery.	
Weak aerial unit, armed with a suicide attack. Very slow and poorly armoured, but with very good LOS, perhaps rivalling an enemy .
*Strong versus aircraft and buildings.
*Weak versus aircraft and rocket artillery.	
Weak aerial unit, armed with a suicide attack. Very slow and poorly armoured, but with very good LOS, perhaps rivalling an enemy .
*Strong versus aircraft and buildings.
*Weak versus aircraft and rocket artillery.
Prereq: 	Build time 	HP 	LOS 	Attack 	Attack speed 	Movementspeed 	 	
* [3]
* 
*  	6.9s(100t) 	145 	13 	20 	3.3s(50t) 	27 	 	
Cost 	Cost 	Cost 	Created from 	Armour 	Weapon range 	Specialty 	 	
Base 	Ramp 	Pop 	Created from 	Armour 	Weapon range 	Specialty 	 	
: 80;: 80 	: 2: 2 	1 	 	2 	1–12 	
*Cloaked when not moving or attacking
*Upgrades to Green Jackets for British.	 	
  Austria France Portugal	  Austria France Portugal	  Austria France Portugal	  Austria France Portugal	  Austria France Portugal	  Austria France Portugal	  Austria France Portugal	  Austria France Portugal	  Austria France Portugal
===Overall strategy===
The first aerial unit in Rise of the Moderns, the Balloon is a weak and slow low-flying unit that is used primarily for reconnaissance duty, although it is also capable of a suicide attack that can cause devastating damage aircraft, minimal damage versus buildings and almost none versus other units. Equally, it takes a very long time to build and so isn't necessarily an ideal unit for offensive work, but as a support unit, it can be vital. Balloons have extensive LOS and the ability to spot hidden units, so if deployed over static positions, they can be quite powerful, especially for aiding your artillery which often have issues with diminished LOS. Each Balloon built has an initial LOS similar to that of a heavy warship, which can be increased with Science research.
If you are facing an enemy armed with Balloons, note that Balloons can't be brought down by any non-modern units, bar buildings and Rocket Artillery Squads. All told, chasing the enemy's Balloons down isn't a viable idea, although there is always the chance that they may be upgraded later on to more dangerous Zeppelins. All told you are better off ignoring the enemy's Balloons, and instead concentrate on ageing up to access Biplanes, which can safely shoot Balloons down from a distance. Getting into a Balloon war with your opponent just isn't worth it unless you have plenty of resources and time to spare, owing to their plodding pace moving across the sky.
====Notes====
Balloons change appearance at least once, retaining their spheriod shape at the beginning, and then changing to a more modern "blimp"-like appearance in the Mechanisation Era..
=====Unit icons=====
Img_montgolfier mayence.png|Early appearance
Img_caquot.png|End game
==History==
Although devices for manned flight have been designed by various inventors as early as the Middle Ages, ranging from glider frames to man-lifting kites, the first practical form of aircraft in human history proved to be the hot air balloon, with Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier being the first man to fly on one in 1783CE at the Parisian Academy of Sciences using a prototype "aerostat" designed by the Montgolfier brothers, Etienne and Joseph. It did not take very long for this to catch the eye of the French government - as well as French military leadership. When the First French Republic was established, one of the first acts of the Committee of Public Safety was to appoint an advisory commission that recommended using observation balloons to help France's armies with reconaissance. 
However, these first hot air balloons were cited as being too clumsy, difficult to use, and not stable enough to provide any information of value — and while they did initially demoralise the Austrian forces attempting to invade France, French officers complained that balloons were not sufficient stable, could not control their ascent and also could not stay up in the air for too long before they ran out of fuel and had to descend. And so upon returning from Egypt in 1799CE, Napoleon disbanded the Aérostiers and the balloon school, suspending the use of aerial forces in warfare for 40 years. 
It would take almost half a century after Napoleon before balloons could be successfully deployed for the role the First French Republic envisioned for them, during the American Civil War (1861-1865CE). Unlike the first balloons designed by the Montgolfiers and their successors, the new American balloons used on both sides of the conflict did not use cotton for the envelopes, but instead used silk — a far more durable material. Methods for generation of propellant for the balloons also had changed — where the Revolutionary armies used a mix of simple hot air and hydrogen, the Americans (particularly the Union) now developed methods to transport the raw materials for generating hydrogen on-site (the British would further refine this by producing the hydrogen off-site and shipping it to the battlefield where needed). These developments would soon evolve into different new forms of balloon warfare — incendiary balloons, barrage balloons for deterring aircraft, as well as the development of airships in the decades to come long after the South laid down its arms.
===References===
*American Battlefield Trust, Civil War Ballooning
*Balloon Revolution, Balloon history
*Medievalists.net, The History of Flying in the Middle Ages
*US Centennial of Flight Commission, Military Use of Balloons During the Napoleonic Era