Colibri

File:Pelican icon.png
The **MX6A *Pelican* Urban Air Patrol Craft** is the Asian Alliance's primary gunship in *Red Alert 2: New World Order*. Unlike its counterparts with the other sides, it is designed as a powerful anti-aircraft platform, but is also capable of effectively engaging ground targets, preferably structures, giving an attacking force an edge in a siege. Like many other crafts employed by the Alliance, the Pelican Gunship and its larger cousin, the Flamingo Bomber, are kept aloft by maglev drives and as such are capable of hovering in place and do not have to land when passive.

## Stats

* Type: Vector-thrust aircraft
* Class: Ground support
* Prerequisite: Assembly Plant, Air Pad
* Cost: 1400$

## Equipment

* Polymer armor
* Air-tight cockpit for two with advanced life-support system
* Shoulder-mounted gattling guns
* MiniMissile Launcher
* ECM pod

## Abilities

### Vectored Thrust

Glides on a stream of ionized air. Capable of stopping and hovering in place. Faster than helicopter movement, but capable of the same maneuverability. VTOL.

### Upgrade: Cannon

The cannon is comparable to the light tank gun of the Lynx.

### Minigun

Template:Main
Fires flechettes in a swerving arc from the unit's underside. This is used when engaging infantry and is ineffective against anything with more armor than a light vehicle. The fletcher turret is automated and independently controlled, swiveling from side to side as it fires. The vehicle itself can be given orders to move into weapon range of a target, but the turret will turn independently, saturating the area with monomolecular blades.

### MiniMissile Array

Template:Main
The Colibri is armed with an array of missiles that can target both air and ground targets. Like all missiles of their type, they are highly maneuverable, but their range and firepower leaves for wishing. Still, they are highly valuable against soft target dispersed on the ground (such as infantry), or against the soft skin of aircraft. The sheer amount of missiles gives this weapon a blast zone comparable to that of a fragmentation warhead, despite the miniscule blast zone of each individual missile.

### =Notes

* On Elite, the missiles will gain a cluster warhead that splits up into Micro-Missiles.
* Highly effective against aircraft and infantry, but unable to effectively damage armored vehicles or fortified structures.

### Promotion upgrade: Rail Gun

The Rail Gun is slow-firing and mostly effective against single high-value targets, however it has a line damage effect, meaning that if an opponent is foolish enough to line up several targets of merely mediocre value in sight of this weapon, it quickly makes its' few shots worthwhile as damage accumulates.

#### Strategy

While the railgun is capable of targeting air targets while the Colibri is in the air, and its damage and speed are going to down virtually any manmade aircraft in the game, the linear damage effect is almost completely meaningless in aerial combat, making this choice primarily a specialization suited to ground warfare.
Because the Colibri is primarily a flanker (or should be employed as such), the practicality of the railgun is debatable, as the unit has to be positioned virtually frontally before an enemy armored column in order to make use of the line damage feature, a situation in which it is not likely to survive for a second shot. Of course, if the enemy deploys units in a row instead of a column, this point easily becomes an advantage. One can also risk to insert a Colibri in the back of enemy units, but chances of survival there are only better if the enemy has not given the usual fore-thought of positioning air cover in the rear. Catching an opponent off guard who has not done so, however, is a highly devastating.
Finally, in uncoordinated "tank blob" circumstances, the railgun can excell by targeting tanks towards the center of the blob.

#### Notes

* Very (very) high damage per shot.
* Line damage to accumulate damage against columns of enemies.
* High delay
* Because the attack is purely kinetic, it is not blocked by most shields and does full damage to those that block it.

### Promotion upgrade: Laser Gun

The Laser Gun has the advantage of suffering no damage penalty against any type of target. It is pretty much the only option to take to give the Colibri the ability to attack structures with someeffectiveness.

#### Notes

* Like all laser weapons, has no damage penalty against any armor type (bar specialized armor, such as shielding or mirror plating).

## Notes

* Has a targeting laser that paints its target whenever it fires.
* Highly vulnerable to anti-aircraft weapons, however it has a long standoff range, allowing it to bombard enemy installations without getting near SAM Launchers or Patriot Launchers.
* The Pelican and Flamingo are the only factory helicopters that 'wobble'. They also both do not have visible rotors and are propably meant to be powered by some other lift system, similar to the ORCA (or the apparently rotor-less Harpy of *Tiberian Sun*).

## See also

* wikipedia:CAIC WZ-10
* **''heroE03''**
* X-89 Firefly - Automated kamikaze craft.
* X-90 Dragonfly - One-seater gunship.
* Flamingo Bomber - Similar maglev aircraft, however used as a bomber.