Tomahawk Storm

I see... very original!

American Airfield

## Introduction

The **Tomahawk Storm** is an American superweapon fielded by Alexis Alexander and Ironside. It is one the only two superweapons in all of *Contra*  to be available as early as Rank 1.

## Overview

Facing the need for collateral-damage superweapons, Alexander had the idea of salvaging a GLA's Elbrus Storm launch site and reconvert it into a multi-Tomahawk launch site as she was out of funds and the USA's heavy losses leading to a lack of funds for. Hence, the Tomahawk Storm was born. It is a Cruise Missile launch site just like the GLA counterpart: A square launch site housing nine launch pads. There is a feeder unit in the middle to fill the missiles with fuel. All of the nine Tomahawk Cruise Missiles are connected to their own launch cranes and when they are ready, the launch cranes will raise the missiles up and the missiles will be gradually launched one by one and fly to the target. The missiles are tipped with 4.5 kilotons of thermobaric, high explosive mixture warheads to destroy a group of light vehicles with ease. When all the missiles are launched, the hatches below the missiles' location will open to allow a new volley of missiles to rise up to the surface via elevators.

The Tomahawk Storm is exactly what it says on the tin: an Elbrus Storm launch site with USA Tomahawk missiles instead of R-17 Elbrus missiles. It's one of the weakest super weapons in *Contra*, but makes up for that flaw for its low price, short reloading time and early availability. It's currently one of the only two tier 1 super weapons in *Contra*, along with the Hadron Collider. The Tomahawk Storm does not need a Strategy Center to unlock like most other super weapons, instead it requires the Airfield.

Against structures, the Tomahawk Storm is not as effective as one would expect. Against structures with high durability such as War Factories or technology providers, a single Tomahawk barrage may not be enough to destroy it (but if the target area is right at the Barracks or War Factory, the superweapon will destroy it). Against clustered enemy units, however, the Tomahawk Storm is very effective thanks to its large damage radius. Its reloading time is also very short, at only 4 minutes which is on par with the Particle Cannon, thus allowing frequent weapon strikes against the enemy base.

Ironside himself liked the idea of an early access superweapon and decided to copy it for his own purpose.

## Assessment

Pros:

* Quite cheap for a superweapon (2,500$).
* Very effective against clustered units.
* Available in Tier 1 when an Airfield is built.
* Decent area of effect.
* Consumes little power (1 point).
* Short reload time of just 4 minutes.

Cons:

* Not very effective against structures.
* Can be captured, or infiltrated to have the countdown reset.
* Low damage output for a super weapon.

## Trivia

* The Cruise Missile might come from the Tomahawk Block V, which is actually a proposed Cruise Missile variant that will be mass produced in 2020.
* The Tomahawk Storm, along with the ICBM Silo, are super weapons intended for General Alexander during *Zero Hour*'s development, but were cut from the game.

## Gallery

Tomahawk Storm cameo. Notice how resembling it is with the GLA Elbrus Storm.Tomahawk Storm Cameo (old).