There is really no defense of nuclear weapons, but you can make the damage as minimal as possible.

First off, make sure the enemy can't make nukes. You have to either blow up his missle silo or destroy several of his powerplants. Its not very likely that you'll succeed in this. (Air attacks work great against missle silos.)

Later on, as you keep on building your base, you'll be required to make many powerplants. Don't clump the powerplants in one spot, because that will be an excellent spot for a nuke. It would destroy your powerplants and your power will drop dangerously low making everything offline. Then the enemy comes to attack you... Spread out your powerplants! This also goes for ALL buildings!

Many players have realized that just making lots of tanks isn't enough. They start to see the value of infantry, especially rocket launchers. Not only do they do good damage to enemy tanks, but they are mobile air defense units. People clump the rocket launchers in large crowds, as they do with other infantry. Its a good target for a nuke. When the bomb drops, all those infantry will die. Although, you may think infantry as war fodder, having a lot of them adds up. It takes a lot of money to make many soldiers. So spread your units out. One way to do this is when you hear 'A-bomb launch detected', scatter your units with the x key. This isn't recomended though. You should have them spread out already, for the x key may not get them spread out enough in time.

If the enemy does the air/nuke strategy below, in which he air attacks a pivotal building until its almost destroyed, you will be making many air defenses. However, once you've made hundreds of air defenses around that building so he can't finish the job, then comes the nuke, that not only finishes the building, but your air defenses around it. Ouch! Don't let that happen. Have several engineers out, spread out around the base. Do this BEFORE YOU NEED TO REPAIR SOMETHING! If you start making an engineer when your buildings start getting hurt, you may not repair it in time. Don't rely fixing it with your money though. It'd take too long. In addition, do not place air defenses NEXT to buildings you want to protect. Get them around the perimeters of your base. You want to destroy the air attacks before they get to their target.

If your the allies, get a Gap Generator up. Although the enemy can still nuke your base, it'll be much harder for him to do it. Once you do have a Gap Generator up, watch for spy planes, or paratroopers. The enemy will use them to scout your base for a good spot for the nuke.

Most newbies of Red Alert focus heavily on the nuke attacks. But experienced players realize that the nuke is little more then a harrassing weapon. Sometimes it isn't WORTH building a missle silo, because nukes in total don't do that much, unless you play with a player who doesn't know how to defend against them.

First, aim for power plants that are bunched up together. If you follow it up with a major attack on his base, then you'll do massive damage since his defesive weapons won't be operating.

Do the air/nuke strategy. This involves taking a pretty well armored but pivotal building (ore refinery, construction yard), and simply blowing it up. Get many planes or helicopters (make sure you have a nuke ready) and send to attack the building. Most likely is that the enemy won't have any air defenses around it, so you'll do some hefty damage. Then the opponent will stupidly place many air defenses around the building and have an engineer in the making. The building is almost destroyed, but your air units suffered damages and are coming home. Use your nuke on the building, blowing it up and many of the air defenses around it. It'll piss off the other player!

If your oppenent is into infantry, there's another good target. Nuking a large crowd of infantry will hurt the enemy. If you nuke a whole bunch of rocket launchers though that are being used as an air defense, then you've made the enemy lose a LOT of money.

If your enemy is smart, then you'll notice that there is no good place for a nuke attack, even with the air/nuke strategy. If that's the case, find a Tanya and nuke her! Its one thousand dollars down the drain, along with other units she was with. Its a good attack to keep the enemy off balanced. This is why smart players store their Tanyas inside a vehicle so she won't perish in a nuke or air attack.

If you decide to nuke structures, keep this in mind. The power of the nuke comes from the shockwaves, not the impact. Therefore, don't attack the building itself, but RIGHT NEXT to the building. You'll weaken or destroy the building much better then if you told the nuke to hit the building directly.

Most RA players (including myself) don't waste the time, power, and money to produce nukes. The reason is because nukes usually do little or no damage to enemy, and there are better things to spend the money on. I saw the value of nukes in a 3 vs 3 player game. Me and two others (the team that I was on) made missle silos and we contacted each other to wait before we shot off our nukes. We picked a base from the other team and we accordingly fired three nukes simultainiously. The result? That player's base was practically destroyed. He had a barracks, a damaged powerplant, and a war factory left. That's all with the execption of his fifty tanks deployed around his base. In team games, always use nukes together. Nukes then actually become useful :)

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