Wolfhound

**Key Features** | »x2 37mm coaxial chainguns, x1 12.7mm 12 barrelled Nosemounted Gatling Gun»Schturm Multi-purpose Missiles»Tunguska EMP Rockets»Contra-rotating blades»Body Decal (Of favourite OGAS Virtual Idol)

*"...I've picked up their scent!"*

- Wolfhound Operator hunting Protectorate Machines in Siberia.

## Tactical Analysis

* **Reap the Siberian Winds:** A slow but ominous Hunter-Killer Helicopter, the Wolfhound is a natural companion of the Twinblade that focuses primarily on making dead what the Twinblade suppresses and clearing away the heavier units that the Twinblade is not oriented for dealing with, while the Twinblade swats lighter targets, brings transport support, and crushes structuers.

* **Fear my Howl:** Armed with multi-purpose anti-tank and air missiles, twin 37mm coaxial chainguns, and a nosemounted 12.7mm twelve barelled gatling gunn, the Wolfhound's armament and imposing armour can shred units with ease even if it is poor against buildings, and its EMP rockets can ensure that the enemy tank columns will have no hope of escaping from even the relatively slow helicopter once it catches up to them. It is also deadly against even fixed wing aircraft, being designed as a patrol craft.

* **Soon!:** For a Helicopter, the Wolfhound is quite slow, and its inability to deal with structures and particularly base defences makes it poor for assaulting a base on its own. Similarly it tends to rely on the Twinblade to help slow down its intended prey so that it can rain down their justly deserved destruction.

* **They Shall Reap the Whirlwind**: The most skilled Wolfhound crews are given access to the new "Super Wolfhound" equipped with the old Iron Energy warhead missiles and a Chain Tesla emitter, letting them cut down swathes of enemies with ease, and test a new Turbo-Tesla Turbine engine that power a magnetic shield to protect itself and nearby allies.

## Operational History

The Soviets have always been a contender in helicopter aviation, pushing the technology to extremes that most would not consider, only surpassed by the Allies. The skies over World War two came to know the gatling scourge of the Hind Anti-Infantry Gunship, the snooping probes of the Hound Scout Copter, the punishing missile and autocannon volleys Havoc Anti-Tank Hunter as well as the chopping blades of the Hackjob Transport Helicopter. While the Soviets dominated the skies in the beginning of the war, the Allies' eventual accomplishment of naval and air superiority and the overstretch of Communist forces would eventually lead to the destruction of their airforce, forcing their helicopter fleet to fly in close-in air support, a great stalemate and desperate peace when Stalin was assassinated by his own generals, leaving a power vacuum even as Cherdenko took over. But the Havoc, while less prominent in propaganda and media than the Mig-9 and other fixed-wing aircraft or the Allied Longbow, Hawker, Rascal, and various aircraft that would shatter the Union's own airforce and cement themselves as ruler of the skies, was renowned as the "Panzerschreck" or "Tank Fear" for good reason.

The tactic of ranger fleets would largely come to a halt due to the appearance of the Havoc, and Havoc helicopters would destroy 15% of the tanks committed to the Stahlpakt's invasion of the Soviet bloc countries and contribute thousands of ruined vehicles to Operation Blackbeard that severely slowed the Allies blitzkrieg and saved countless Union soldiers as they retreated to Moscow. The poor anti-aircraft abilities of the Empire in WW2 led to Havoc hunting packs tearing through Imperial Mecha in Korea while the Soviet navy's maritime aircraft had slowed the Japanese Navy, that was until the Empire's own heavy hitters showed the Union why Japan rules the seas as they ripped through the entire naval fleet. It was impressive enough that an improved successor was inevitable, and the hard workers at Krasnoyarsk would come up with a monster.

Taking advantage of advances in power generation, the Wolfhound would have better armour and all-new weapons, including a Tesla Arc Emitter able to scythe through multiple enemies at a time and unstable Iron Energy missiles able to weaponise improperly activated Iron Curtain effects to leave burning red patches of destruction that reduce men to particulate soup and vehicles to superheated slices of metal as the chaotic field cuts into them with impervious energy vectors. Furthermore, it would also pack EMP rockets to prevent enemies from retaliating or getting away, and enough armour to shrug off most standard fragmentation anti-air weapons. While it was slow, the Red Army is a collective, not a pile of disparate parts, and other units such as the Twinblade and Krokodil would help it catch prey.

With the radar and IR sensor equipment to track and shoot down aircraft, the Wolfhound would form a "sacred square" of helicopters with the Krokodil, the Twinblade, itself, and the Halo. The Krokodil would find and mark targets and close off escape routes with mines, the Twinblade would suppress them and drop the advanced guard of troops and tanks while its gatling guns and rockets denied them mobility, the Wolfhound would push in and wipe out heavy resistance, and the Halo would drop the main bulk of the troops and tanks to press ahead and achieve the tasks that aircraft could not. The effectiveness of this tactic was seen in the swiftness of the fall of Turkey and Scandinavia, as well as the wholesale destruction of Allied armour assets in the Flanders and North Africa.

However the issues with speed and dealing with structures were plainly shown in the struggle to break through British defences at Brighton as well as in the difficulties of catching Peacekeeper troops in Arabia when a combination of fortifications and mobile assets forced helicopter formations to move at the Wolfhound and Halo's speeds. It also meant that many were not able to respond in time to the Empire of the Rising Sun's landings, and complete eradication, on Russia's North Coast until they had either already moved on or established strong footholds. While the Wolfhound was able to shred through the fragile Imperial formations when they caught them and cared very little if they transformed or not, the Empire made a habit of not being where Wolfhounds were, as did the Reactionary Guard, and often they left behind anti-air traps and ambush for those who thinks of chasing them.

And the Africans' habit of putting defensive weapons on all of their buildings would make sending Wolfhounds to support pushes into African League bases in support of the United African Socialist Republics and the APO a risky business at best, especially as the League did have the firepower to severely damage even the Wolfhound's armour. Changes in tactics were rolled out, with greater integration with fixed-wing aircraft assets and ensuring that helicopter pilots could reliably count on artillery support to deal with detected problems. Furthermore, while the Empire's military could live off the land, Yoshiro's hopes to colonize and Japanise populations with psychic propaganda and settlements gave the Imperial and Reactionary Army tails they could not simply sever.

Wolfhounds would often prove crucial in counterattacks and in holding the line against the allies, such as repelling their Berlin offensive and pushing back to the North Sea or in the recapture of Vladivostok and the destruction of the 5th Siberian Airfleet over the skies of Chita. The attempted Invasion of New York to try and pounce on the USA ravaged by massive Guard and Imperial invasions would see the largest Wolfhound casualties in the war.

And despite the commitment of many wolfhounds, it would not be they who felled the tyrant Yoshiro in Japan even as the USSR rampaged across Northern Japan to beget a revolution, as the Emperor's Tenno Oni turned out to be impervious to EMP of any sort, and the instant action nanites and binding fields running through its composition let it regenerate from impacts that would have felled standard King Onis a dozen times over and its massive suite of weapons cut down the intruders one by one even when the Imperial Guard's mecha had fallen. However, as a whole, wherever they were used properly, they had proven effective, with the wolfhounds accompanying the invasions of Japan and Northern Honshu reaching the exterior of Tokyo and skirmishing with the Allies before Cherdenko agreed to pull out Soviet Troops in exchange for truly massive reparations, technological forfeitures, trade deals, diplomatic treaties, and other concessions from the Japanese that would ensure that even if they joined the Allies, they would not be diplomatically permitted to join in a war with the USSR unless attacked first, though they didn't forsee the Empire exploiting the unforeseen loophole that meant trading was permitted and made one of the biggest economic booms, not to mention the sneaking suspicion of their permitted “self-defence force” having more weapons then it should...

But it was probably the conquest of the Caelus Sky City that made them the most famous, as Wolfhounds launched off the decks of Helicopter, Fleet, and Battlecarriers as well as from airfields set up by deployed MCVs in huge numbers for one of the largest air battles of all time and a race with the Allies to secure the Guard's capital. Wave after Wave of Guard aircraft were shot down by Wolfhound pilots who would continually circle and strafe the colossal cavourite-uplifted chunk of earth and construction, launching daring attacks on the Zeppelins and Airships of the Reactionaries and their allies and bringing down even the committed Epics of the Guard with continual, frantic attacks.

It was Wolfhounds that were some of the first World Socialist Alliance Aircraft to breach the barriers of the Eternal Palace, taking out a number of the Keshik Mechs of the White Guard that were protecting the person of the so-called "Emperor" Vladimir the Third and the Privy Council while other protected the STAVKA Palace that would build the Chaos Mega-Walker that would break the siege of the Eternal Palace. While the Wolfhounds' lack of speed would prevent them from catching up to the privy council's transport before they used a kinetic spline device to hide in their pocket dimension, the sight of wolfhounds hunting him in his garden was enough to convince the Romanov pretender to surrender.

Wolfhounds would also partake in the bizarre battle of Leningrad as Communists fought Communists, with Davidova's Proletarian Opposition pitted against Cherdenko's Leninist Guard. There they would find that all the rumours of the Black Guard having a lot of strange tricks up its sleeve were entirely true, including the nasty surprise of "Eradicator troopers" with radiation weapons able to turn the internals of a wolfhound to soup, or the infamous "Super Terminator II" tanks immune to EMP and durable enough to shrug off multiple direct Vacuum Imploder impact despite only being superheavy tank sized whose missiles swatted down hordes of aircraft from the skies. Heavy Grumble anti-air missiles and the "Black Centurion Crawlers" together with the "Black Cyborgs" and Super Terminator IIs would make the Leningrad launch facility unapproachable, even after Colonel Reznov and Krukova (NOT to be confused by Cherdenko's incompetent right-hand man Krukov, a confusion SHE is extremely frustrated by) and their forces, though to have been killed in Chernenko’s surprised purge, to inform Davidova of a hole in Cherdenko's defenses.

Once again, another target was allowed to escape, as Cherdenko escaped to join his loyalists in the USSR's extensive space colonies made with technology he kept to himself and his black guard beyond the reach of current spacefaring technology. But the Wolfhound had a proud service record.

### Post-War History (WIP)

The Wolfhound, while popular, was in too high of a demand for its present cost range, and a decision was ultimately made to replace the Wolfhound template in SPAM Air Fields with the lower cost export model stripped of high end Soviet technology to make it available earlier in a battle and at a considerably lower price point. They would however, keep the high end turbine engines and the advanced computer systems of the Soviet model, thus birthing the "Budgethound" as some would call it, which was actually somewhat faster than the Wartime Soviet model due to no longer having to devote its engines to powering a Tesla emitter and making use of lighter, conventional missiles instead of unstable Iron Energy warheads.

This was deemed more than good enough for outfitting new Wolfhound formations, particularly for the reformed, Davidovist military which sought efficiency in its new goal of mostly defending the core of Soviet territory while the Comintern busily argues over the direction of foreign policy. A debate that seems unlikely to resolve itself any time soon, especially with the Comintern presently holding elections for the worker's deputies to represennt the movements that attend its International Congress.

As the Union once again mostly looks inwards, the Wolfhounds have taken up the creed of "defending Soviet airspace" as they join with other helicopters to do long distance patrols of the Soviet hinterland, frequently bringing them into conflict with the Electrical Protectorate, the Kumun, and the Ecumene among other strange factions in secret engagements deep in Siberia and Central Asia. Many of these are veteran crews operating the "Super Wolfhound" which packs the old weapons suite plus a new super-engine that not only improves speed but can power magnetic shields that make the infamously sturdy wolfhound even tougher.

## Behind the Scenes

* The Wolfhound is lifted mostly from Mental Omega