It happens all the time. There you were just building up your base, your factories spitting out hundreds of tanks, infantry, and other devious weapons when all of a sudden you hear a gun going off or missles exploding. You didn't hear any of your infantry scream as if they died. Was another player attacking another? Then you return to your base just in time to see planes destroy your contruction yard, probaly giving you such a large disadvantage now that you may lose the game. Ha ha! What a pathetic moron you are, you didn't defend your base against air attacks!

Defending against air attacks isn't hard but is very critical in the game. Many players make fifteen helicopters or more to blow something up because its very effective. Many players make the mistake that when they are first getting attacked by air to put up air defenses. You should ALREADY HAVE THEM UP so the planes couldn't start hurting you at all. Many players realize this but forget too until one of their buildings is attacked. As soon as you finish other defenses, get air defenses up and running too. It'll save your buildings and piss off the other player who just made fifteen helicopters :)

Another mistake players make when defending their bases from air is placing the anti-aircraft guns NEXT TO the building that has been recieving attacks. This isn't a good idea, for you're hurting the enemy when they arrive to the target, and blow them up while they're firing. They'll still hurt you. What you should do is to place your anti-aircraft guns well enough forward from the base so you'll destroy the planes BEFORE they get to the target.

If you're allies, get a gap generator very quickly. If you totally put a shroud over your base then the enemy can not attack you by air, unless he uses the spy plane or paratroopers to scout your area, so you'll still need those air defenses, don't sell them!

If you need some portable anti-aircraft guns then make a whole bunch of rocket launchers. Although the large number of them will be expensive, they will prove to be very good air defense. What many players do is sloppily leave all the rocket launchers in a large crowd. If the enemy is smart, he'd get an A-bomb to destroy them all, a fast vehicle to squish them all, or dogs and other nasty stuff to kill those $300 a peice infantry. Spread them out throughout your base. They'll do better that way and you won't have them killed off very quickly.

What? You've defended your base so well that if a plane/helicopter flys by they're destroyed? Great! So you guess you're done defending against air attacks. Wrong. Besides protecting your base (and any other bases you make) the sly opponent will head out for your ore trucks. Its your Anchilles' hill. If the enemy uses his many aircrafts to wipe out your ore trucks, then you'll starve from lack of ore. How could you defend against such a tactic? Many players just make a bunch of rocket launchers and have them stand out there in the ore. You can't have the rocket launchers escorting the ore truck since the rocket launchers are so slow. Of course a large group of rocket lauchers is a great place for a nuke attack. You can't really spread them out among the ore because the aircraft could then get by with a brief attack. But try to spread them out at least a little, for its easy to get rid of such a large crowd. If you're the allies, make mobile gap generators. The beauty with these little guys is to have them escort the ore truck. Your ore truck should then always be held under the shroud, and so the enemy will be unable to attack you by air.

SAMS- If you're Soviet, don't make SAMS. SAMS are only good at helicopters and that's it. SAMS will do practically nothing to MIGs, so instead, make rocket laucher dudes and spread them out.

AAGUNs- AAGUNs work great agaisnt any air units but don't become aagun happy. Some players make so many aaguns to cover their entire base. True that their base will be protected extremely well from air attacks, but aaguns main weakness is power. This means you'll be making more powerplants. If your power drops below normal for some reason (enemy blowing up your powerplants, you accidently building more structures then power, or your own ingenius stupidity such as accidently selling your powerplants when you meant to repair them DOH!) you'll be a sitting duck. Your aaguns are just pretty turrets without power. If you're allied, you should always have some aaguns and some rocket men.

Rocketmen- The bazooka dudes are the most useful infantry (well, perhaps second to tanyas :). Rocketmen are good mobile antiaircraft that don't rely on powerplant power. Even if your power falls below the needed lever, rocketmen will then save your butt from anyair attacks. Always use these guys if you're allied OR soviet.

Mammoth Tanks- Mammoth tanks antiaircraft weapons suck. Don't depend on them to help you out in air defense. The most you can expect from mammoth tanks is to annoy the other player's aircraft.

Destroyers- Destroyers will shoot down helicopters with ease. With migs and yaks, it'll take a couple of fly bys before they're destroyed. Destroyers should always be escorting cruisers if your opponent decides to become heroic and start air bombing you.

Water Gap Generators?- Mobile Gap Generators still work in the water transport. Have some 'shorud making transports' near your cruisers and you shouldn't worry about an air attack.

Tank Defense	Nontank Vehicles Defense	Water Defense	Air Offense	Other Ways to Defend Yourself