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Disambig
For other uses, see Turret.

The turret was a tank-turret like stationary base defence used during Second World War.

Background[]

A Turret-mounted 105mm cannon. Heavily armored with good range, this Turret is effective against armored threats.
- Red Alert manual(src)

Finding themselves overwhelmed by the armored Soviet tanks, the Allies developed the Turret during the Second World War. It had the gun of a large tank, making them capable of matching Soviet armored forces and was buried within a cement foundation. The obvious drawback is that it could not move so it could only be used defensively.

Furthermore, given the fact that it was actually just a 88 mm cannon in a fixed location, it could not be used to 'scale' properly against enemy forces, particularly if positioned poorly. In effect this could create the following situation: if enemies could attack the turrets so that they could only fire back one at a time, then the enemies could use Mammoth Tanks to disintegrate these defenses.

However the gun platform is simple to build and therefore low cost yet quite durable, meaning enough turrets can take care of themselves. That also means that it is also power efficient and will stay online when the base runs short of power.

Legacy[]

Tiberium Universe[]

It was upgraded with a more powerful 105mm cannon and became anti-tank structure of the Brotherhood of Nod in the First Tiberium War.

Red Alert Universe[]

The limitations of its low range and relatively limited firepower made the turret obsolete. It was eventually phased out and made way for the newer Prism Tower, with both anti-tank and anti-infantry capabilities similar to the Soviet Tesla coil in Third World War. The French however opted to stick with a turret based weapon as its advanced defense and armed it with a large howitzer as its weapon. This fixed artillery turret became the Grand Cannon, meant to supplement the Prism Tower and bombard targets from long range.

Game building[]

Turrets are a cheap effective way for quick anti-armor defense. Unlike the more advanced Tesla Coils, although these anti-tank guns take up power from your power grid, they won't require power to stay online in a low power situation. In a one-on-one, these may not really go toe to toe with Soviet Heavy Tanks and needs some anti-tank infantry to back them up. However, being cheap and quick to build means that a good mass of turrets can be built relatively quickly. A large formation of turrets mixed with Pillboxes, Camo Pillboxes and tanks make up a powerful and well-rounded defensive bastion.

In the aftermath expansion, the turret received a rather large buff in terms of the weapon's firepower and rate of firepower for a small extra cost and power consumption. As a result the gun turret is far more powerful and formidable and allow it to stand a much better chance against even the heaviest armor in the game while giving more substantial punch against infantry, yet staying relatively affordable. More importantly the faster fire rates make target acquisitions of fast moving vehicles significantly easier.

Counters[]

Turrets are extremely vulnerable to Soviet V2 Rocket Launcher, owing to the V2's long range and extreme power, and being fixed, these could not move to engage the fragile V2 directly. For this reason, deploying turrets would also require a few tanks deployed alongside them to advance forward and take care of V2s. This also applies to other long ranged units like the Tesla tank. Turrets were also vulnerable to anti-armor infantry such as Rocket soldiers and Grenadiers. Even swarms of rifle infantry can also pose a problem to turrets as well as long as they are not backed by pillboxes. As with all Anti-Ground based emplacements, they are also completely helpless to any aerial attacks.

Behind the scenes[]

The Turret is possibly inspired by the real-life World War II-era Pantherturm, which consisted of the turret of a German Panther tank situated on top of a bunker and used as a fixed fortification.

Gallery[]

Cameos[]

DOS English French German
RA DOS Turret icon Gun RA Turret FR cameo RA Turret DE cameo

See also[]

RAR Allies Logo Allied Second World War Arsenal RAR Allies Logo
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