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SOVIET INFANTRY

You might want to pay special attention to this part of the briefing Commanders; what you read here will forever change your view of the Soviet force.  They have indeed made many changes here as a result of our future forces arriving.  No one can predict the future, as in the future our troops came from, none of these advancements were made:

CONSCRIPT

As long as the Soviet's continue with their process of mass recruiting simple peasants to serve as grunt soldier's in their army they will remain no match to our superior GI's.  That said, however, their cheap basic training means they can pump out Conscripts faster than we can our basic soldiers, and in groups they can be quite effective.  Their armor also remains slightly more resilient than our own but even that does not protect them for long against the heavier machine weapons in our Pillboxes and deployed GIs.

Graphical Enhancement: The animation played when Conscripts fire out of a structure is changed to a more appropriate one for a Machine Gun.
 

ENGINEER

Soviet Engineer's remain identical in all respects to our own.  They may have donned slightly different clothing, but that serves no purpose other than help us distinguish our own Engineers from theirs.

A famous tactic that our enemies have used in the past which still very often catches out less experienced Commanders is the 'Engineer Rush'.  This usually happens quite early in a battle where our opponent hopes to end it quickly by rushing our base with multiple Engineers (or Engineers in transports) bent on achieving only a single goal (usually to capture our Construction Yard).  This is why I always recommend that you protect your critical structures at all times via Concrete Walls to prevent attacks like this, most commonly in the first half of the game.

Graphical Enhancements: The Soviet Engineer now sports it's own unique cameo image.
 

ATTACK DOG

It wasn't long after we enhanced our Spy ranks with new disguise techniques that the Soviets improved their anti-Spy Attack Dogs to help detect them, when normally they could have slipped by unnoticed to even the most alert infantry.  Dogs will now not only see through causal uniform disguises, but also reveal our improved Spies at an impressive distance if they travel close enough.  By now you should be used to avoiding Attack Dog patrols when using Spies, just keep in mind that their detection range has more than doubled since you last encountered them.  Remember though, Spies aren't the only infantry using the new 'cloaking' techniques...

We have also heard reports of Dolphin's being revealed to the Soviets thanks to nearby Dogs, so their own training improvements have resulted in Naval detection abilities like our own.  Apart from that, you should still see them being used in pretty much the same manner as you have in the past, albeit more frequently.
 

FLAK TROOPER

Oh yes...  For quite a while the Flak Trooper has served as a bit of light humor for us when it came to critiquing the Soviet army.  We often ridiculed its dated equipment and usefulness to help build up the moral of our troops during the especially difficult times in the original Soviet Invasion.  The fact that they needed a Radar Tower before all the materials became available to train them was laughable enough; but then we discovered that their weapon was prone to failure at the worst possible times (for them of course), shooting out flak shards all over the place when trying to target flying units, and rarely hitting them.

It is a shame now that they seem to have finally corrected these problems.  I believe it was probably out of sheer arrogance that they refused to 'fix' or even acknowledge their shortcomings until now, not wanting to give us any satisfaction.  Well for whatever reasons they have, not only have we seen these infantry popping out of their Barracks at the beginning of the game, their elite weapon when fired at aircraft now actually does notable damage.  Make sure you keep an eye on these units...  They may act funny, but their weapon is a threat to infantry and aircraft.
 

TESLA TROOPER

In many ways the Tesla Trooper was the opposite of the Flak Trooper.  We were always amazed at how well this unit was able to be trained so early in battle, especially before their Flak counterparts.  It now appears that since the Soviets have not made their Flak Troopers trainable without a Radar Tower alone, they instead swapped them around with the Tesla Trooper on their 'tech tree'.

While that's good news for us, the improved resources that they gain from the Radar tech level has now allowed them to outfit these Troops with more durable suits and armor.  While it doesn't protect them any more from conventional weapons, Attack Dogs are now powerless to penetrate this new armor.  Dogs are now completely unable to harm the Trooper while they get fried by their electric bolts.  Be sure to send an appropriate counter in with dog groups if they happen to encounter these infantry.
 

CRAZY IVAN

The infamous Crazy Ivan has changed dramatically since you last encountered it.  According to early skirmishes, Romanov has finally realized how ridiculous it looked to see a Crazy Ivan attempt to sneak up on an infantry unit and place a bomb on them, expecting them to continue walking around unaware of their impending doom.  While it worked surprisingly often, it was risky business.

In a rare show of conservation on Romanov's part (probably due to his continued losses against us), he has ordered the Crazy Ivan weapon system redesigned.  Two major changes have been witnessed so far.  He solved the earlier issues by providing Ivan troops with new grenade-style dynamite packs that explode on impact.  By throwing these new packs at Infantry reminiscent of the old-style Grenadiers from the last war, he can inflict far more devastation that he could previously, making this an effective anti-infantry unit.  Thankfully the grenades are not nearly as powerful as his larger, stationary type; but it's rare for any target to withstand more than two direct dynamite hits before succumbing.

The other change is the modification to his original weapon: Ivan's still attach them to the weak spots of vehicles or structures, however the detonator has been modified to accept a remote trigger as well as a timed one.  Bombs will still explode after the same amount of time as before, except Ivan's can now choose if they want to detonate it prematurely.  To detonate a bombed structure, click on it and click again when the cursor changes to a bomb icon.

What is amazing is that all these enhancements were provided at no extra cost to the unit.  None of us are sure how Romanov is managing it.  We only hope they burn out their budget early and are forced to increase the costs.  Or sacrifice other parts of the army.  It won't be the first time...
 

Cuba seems to have spent a lot of time perfecting the 'training' of their fanatical Terrorists.  They have taught them to be more self-aware of their surroundings and not focus just on their target so completely.  This 'Smart Terrorist' is now better able to anticipate and resist their own blasts so they can carry out their mission with no hindrance from comrades.  This means that our reliance on killing one of the Terrorists to destroy an entire group will no longer work, nor will they all die when one of their friends destroys himself.  This doesn't just apply to Terrorists on their own side as well.

The trick when fighting off these annoyances will be to use weapons that have a large explosive radius or quick firing rate from a long distance.  They are only resistant to their own blasts; and are more unfamiliar to foreign ones.  Unfortunately, the Soviet's seem to have anticipated that we will attempt to use methods like this instead, and have equipped their troops with more effective armor protection.  They will still die quite easily to the right weapons, but just be advised that they will resist about as much damage as standard troops now.

Gameplay Enhancement: Now explicitly requires a Radar Tower to train.
Graphical Enhancement: Tanks now rock from the bomb blasts of Terrorists.
 

The only visible changes we have seen to Ukraine's Desolator is their weapons system.  Lately, we have witnessed some Desolator's being able to punch through armor with it's radiation emitted that's designed to withstand even the strongest radiation attacks.  It seems our current radiation-shielding techniques are not holding out as well as they did before.  This poses a serious risk to Miners and robotic units (such as our Chrono Miner and Robot Tank units), as they are normally resistant to Desolator assaults.  Thankfully this enhancement has not yet been seen everywhere, which leads us to believe that the new weapon hasn't been fully distributed into their army.  We think that the Ukrainians are prioritizing deployment of this weapon onto more experienced Desolators, so be especially wary of Elite Desolators you encounter from this point on.

Gameplay Enhancements: Now explicitly requires a Radar Tower to train.  Desolator's no longer destroys V3/Dreadnaught missiles in the launching process with it's deployed weapon.
 

AGENT

I had better detail this before continuing any further: I mentioned earlier during our own Spy briefing of enemy ventures into disguise and sabotage; Yes, it is true.  Not long ago we received word from our European allies that a number of their outlying bases were reporting power outages and credit theft from even their most secure Refinery areas, Sabotage methods that have so far been used only by our own forces.  Upon closer examination of the security footage inside the affected structures, we have come to the startling conclusion that both the Soviet's and Yuri are strangely deviating from their standard war doctrine in order to resort to more stealthy strategies.

The Soviet version has come to be known as an 'Agent' (most likely originating from the Soviet Secret Police organization, the KGB) and is seemingly armed with all the knowledge of our own Spies prior to the advancements we have just made recently.  This means Agents can affect bases in the same way as our own, although they lack the new enhanced disguising techniques that we now use.  They are utilizing only the old-style costume disguise technology which we have since replaced with the more effective 'cloaking' ability.  This does make them inferior to our own, but don't underestimate their abilities; you may not be used to being on the receiving end of sabotage operations, so be sure to take the necessary exercises to become familiar with the effects a Spy can cause.
 

VOLKOV

We were afraid this might happen.  It appears the Soviet's have found and reactivated the Volkov assault trooper project that was responsible for many of our casualties during the last war.  We are unsure how the Soviet's were able to obtain the prototype and technology, as it was thought to be lost in the chaos after the Allies defeat of Stalin.

For those of you who have not familiar with him, Volkov and partner Chitzkoi were created in the latter stages of the first war as prototypes for an amazing new style of solider: A 'cyborg': Someone (or most appropriately, something) made up of a mix of machinery and organic material.  To this day we are not sure how and where the Soviet's even began experimenting with this type of technology, as we were not successful in obtaining any information in the past.  It is also unknown how long before this point in time that the Soviet's were working on resurrecting the project, or on the current whereabouts of Boris, who has seemed to disappear from the war as quickly as he arrived.

Volkov's capabilities lie directly in his nature.  If the new Volkov is anything like what we've faced before, he can withstand enormous amounts of punishment on the battlefield, as the materials used in his construction are astonishingly durable.  His mechanical nature means he is not only immune to mind control, but all other kinds of psychic weaponry too (such as the Psi Corp Mind Blast attack) and even Attack Dog strikes.  Early reports of battles show him to be heavily armed: Loaded with huge cannon in the place of one of his arms which doubles as both a Chain gun and a Grenade Launcher.  The Chain gun devastates both infantry and vehicles with its explosive-tipped shells on a similar level to Boris's Rifle, and the Grenade Launcher is equipped with Micro-Nuclear warheads normally loaded as payloads for demolition purposes.  Be very careful Sirs!  Allow him get close enough to your structures and he'll be able to launch a flurry of these, decimating it.
 

CHITZKOI

Wherever Volkov is sighted, Chitzkoi is never far behind.  The two are inseparable and complement each other quite well in battle.  Like Volkov, Chitzkoi is constructed in the same manner, however his canine-like nature gives him exceptional speed on the ground, allowing him to outrun pretty much any land unit and also making him immune to psychic and dog attacks as well.

Chitzkoi's primary attack is much like the standard Attack Dog's, although his enhanced speed and strength make him able to rip through any infantry unit in a much quicker time than normal, including ones Attack Dogs are normally unable to penetrate.  Even Terror Drones are vulnerable to his razor sharp teeth.

However, it's true abilities are demonstrated when up against enemy armor.  Battlefield footage has shown Chitzkoi tearing through the outer hull of the Vehicle, diving inside, and proceeding to shred it from the inside out, destroying even the most armored of vehicles in seconds.  While this sounds understandably deadly, there is hope of a weakness in this method.  On closer examination of the footage, before delivering the final blow Chitzkoi seems to prematurely scan what's left of the vehicle in order to plan a route to escape unscathed in it's destruction.  This means that, should the vehicle be destroyed by foreign fire before Chitzkoi expects to destroy it himself, he might have not made any scan and will most likely be destroyed along with the vehicle.  This has not yet been exercised in battle, and while I don't like the idea of destroying our own 'infested' vehicle, it may be the only way to easily remove this threat.  Be sure to act quickly though, as it does not take Chitzkoi long to pick apart its targets.

We must speed up this briefing Sirs, as our enemies are moving again and we cannot afford to be ill-equipped when coming up against the advancements of the Soviet's vehicle forces.

Soviet Vehicles »« Soviet Armory