Strike Groups

**Strike Groups** along with Tactical Groups are the main opposition you will face during the campaign. Unlike Garrisons they can move freely around the map and will investigate any Alarms you cause. There are always 6 (even though Pyotr says 5). Strike Groups are present from the start of the campaign and they do not respawn. If not investigating an alarm, they travel between cities randomly. As of patch 1.14 they have random starting positions.

Strike Groups are composed entirely of cruisers, as well as potentially a Longbow aircraft carrier and/or a Tarantul ARM missile carrier. The number of cruisers changes based on how far away from Ur they are; the closest one has only two ships, the final one can include several cruisers and a Nomad.

Possible Strike Group ships:

* Borey
* Gryphon (2x Kh-15/N)
* Kormoran (4x R-9 SPRINT)
* Negev
* Nomad (2x Kh-15/N, 8x R-9 SPRINT, Jammer)
* Longbow (2x T-7, 6xLA-29)
* Tarantul ARM (2x A-100)

Strike Groups will only use nuclear (N) versions of missiles if you start a Nuclear War.

All Strike Groups contain at least one ship with cruise missiles which is usually Gryphon early and Nomad later on. This means every SG is guaranteed to have either a 500km or a 750km radar and a full ELINT. Conversely, if you have 2x ELINT yourself (see: Skylark) you will always detect enemy SGs from at least 1000km away and, given their glacial speed, you should have plenty of time to plan your moves around them. Strike Group Nomads also come equipped with a radar jammer.

Kh-15 missiles and planes are usually the primary danger the Strike Groups pose as they will happily send them your way if you're spotted or detected on radar/infrared within 1600km for missiles, and 2000km for planes (usually after an initial reconnaissance run). Note that a KH-15 strike can outrange your ELINT warning by 600km - don't assume you're safe just because your ELINT is not detecting anything. If you mess up and know that missiles are coming your way, you can deal with them by moving a single combat ship (preferably with proximity fuse) ahead as bait, or send T-7 planes equipped with AAMs to shoot them down. Using flares on a fast ship can also confuse cruise missiles, but if you are being tracked by their fire control radar, the missiles can circle back after thy miss you. Finally, a Jammer is an effective counter to a Strike Group's missiles; however, this will immediately give away your position and subsequently draw more strike groups your way. Note that radar Jammers cannot be used to counter KH-15P/N missiles - these are designed to home towards Jamming signals.

The best way to deal with Strike Groups is using aircraft or missiles. Note that some ships in SG can come equipped with R-9 SPRINT AA missiles; because of this, even if you plan on using planes, it's still a good idea to first send one or two cruise missiles their way to bait out any SPRINTs they have. Once an SG's supply of SPRINTs is exhausted, aircraft can strike them with impunity. Note that you may want to leave one ship alive and finish it off normally to create a Crash Site so that you get some loot for your trouble.

If you have to (or want to) engage SGs directly, pick a combat frigate - something the size of a Gladiator so that you don't have to worry about the hail of small cailber fire - then use AP ammo to "snipe" vulnerable areas of the ship such as the bridge, ammunition or in some cases even thrusters as the cruisers have low enough thrust/weight ratios as it is. Because they have radars and usually IRST as well Sudden Striking Strike Groups is pretty much impossible.

Strike groups will repair if damaged but they never replace lost ships. They will also replenish their armaments such as missiles, AA missiles and planes, so be careful of delaying between your strategic strikes. It is possible for two Strike Groups to "merge" if one of them suffers high enough losses.

### After Khiva

The game will spawn three more Strike Groups; two of them (marked as missile groups) will have a Typhon escorted by two cruisers and one will be a full combat SG with five cruisers and a Nomad. All of them will also be accompanied by a Tarantul ARM which is a deceptively important change: first of all it means you can no longer use radar jammers to evade incoming missiles and second it means your planes can focus target the Tarantul ARM and will almost certainly miss if it's in the air.