Ambulance

## Notes

Unarmed; cannot attack

The **Ambulance** was an unarmed variant of the American Humvee designed for a battlefield support role, and mostly (indirectly) saw combat during the War Against the GLA.

## Background

Medical staff can use the equipment on the Ambulance to heal nearby soldiers or occupants of the ambulance back to fighting condition. Later in the conflict, Ambulances were also able to repair nearby vehicles. Additionally, the Ambulance is immune to radiation and toxins, and could release a foam to clear them up, preventing harm to other units.

## Game Unit

The Ambulance is a thinly armored but cheap and highly useful support vehicle within the American army's arsenal. Perhaps their notable ability is their ability to heal nearby allies. In *Generals*, they passively heal all nearby infantry, and up to three can be stationed inside the vehicle itself to bring them back to full HP even faster. Infantry within the Ambulance are unable to fire when inside, though unlike its more combat-minded cousin, the Humvee, suffering critical damage will not kill its occupants. Instead, they will bail out with half health to continue the fight.

As of patch 1.01 of *Zero Hour*, the Ambulance gained the ability to repair all nearby friendly vehicles, in addition to its infantry support role. This increased their utility value tenfold, due to how vehicles, and not infantry, often dominated the battlefield. Should they be stationed within a Chinook, it will continue to heal fellow troops on the ground below, curiously acting somewhat like a Speaker-upgraded Helix.

The Ambulance's other ability to clean up toxins from the battlefield is used less often, but is extremely valuable at reducing incidental damage from such substances. This was especially important to infantry strike groups, whose mobility might be hampered by having to circumvent pools of radiation to avoid casualties. As a result, they were capable of cleaning up everything from chemical residue from GLA attacks to negating the effects of an Anthrax attack.

The Ambulance is unarmed, although like most American vehicles it can be upgraded with a drone for minimal protection or assistance.

## Upgrades

Drones can be further upgraded with Drone Armor.

## Changelog

* *Zero Hour* patch 1.01: can now repair friendly vehicles

## Trivia

* An unused model exists for a "medical drone", which would likely serve the same function as the Ambulance, but it was scrapped in favor of the Ambulance during development.
* General Alexis Alexander was supposed to have her own version of the Ambulance called the "Mechanic", which would repair vehicles instead of healing infantry. The Mechanic could hold up to six infantry and was armed with a small machine gun. The unit was cut, but its model and voice files still exist. The ability to repair vehicles was given to the existing Ambulance unit in the released version of *Zero Hour*.
* Interestingly, a military's ambulance would legally be considered a non-combatant, and thus attacking it would be considered a war crime under Geneva laws. The GLA wouldn't take issue since their goal is terror in nature; however, the USA attaching a combat drone to it would be a war crime too, since non-combatants are not allowed to be armed (except in self-defense). The Geneva laws are a Quid-Pro-Quo treaty, however, so the GLA's failure to sign the treaty (not that non-state factions are allowed to, anyway) means they are not protected under any clause of the code.
	+ Per the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (originating from 9/14/2001), international laws such as the Geneva laws no longer apply to US anti-terrorist operations after 9/11; thus, the matter would be left to whatever the US rules of engagement allows.

* Medical drone from the leaked *Generals* build 98
* Mechanic cameo
* Unused Mechanic model

## See Also

* Speaker Tower, similar unit-repairing structure
* Biohazard Technician, campaign-only chemical-cleaning infantryman