EndWar Strategy: A Guide to Intercepting Air Strikes with Electronic Warfare

By: Trauma 75

For the purpose of this guide, EMP means to “cast” Electronic Warfare on an incoming air strike, and AS means “Air Strike”.

Everyone has looked at the Tom Clancy’s EndWar achievement list and has noticed a rare, often neglected achievement called: Air Defense: Intercept 5 incoming Air Strikes with Electronic Warfare. Throughout my EndWar experiences I’ve been trying to figure out the most efficient way to get this achievement, as well as to deal with the Air Strike nuisance. I’ve done some experimenting with how to evade air strikes by moving my units out of sight, and that worked some of the time. I have concluded, though, that the most efficient method of countering the dreaded air strike by far is to EMP it.

There are several approaches that I have tried. I tried EMPing a spot in the air strike’s path and EMPing over my unit with minimal success rates. The most successful (effective) way to EMP an air strike is by placing the EMP on it as it enters the map. The procedure for doing this is simple. However, there are some things that you need to keep in mind is that anything on your opponent’s half of the field is 100% susceptible to being struck. It seems impossible to get an EMP on the air strike in time using the method to be described.

Intercepting Air Strikes with Electronic Warfare

Things that are required in order to Electronic Warfare an air strike.

Command vehicle (CV) that has the UAV upgrade.
Level 1 Electronic Warfare support on an uplink.
At least 3 CPs (Command Points).
Main Strategy

At the start of the match the CV’s UAV needs to be send to the very corner of the map behind the opposing teams spawn. (To better avoid detection send the UAV along one edge then to the corner, rather than sending it strait across the map.) In the majority of the maps the air strike will originate from the edge of the corner grid square behind the opposing teams spawn. It will pass along the side of the corner square NOT through the apex of the corner. The sit rep view needs to be enabled. Then, the zoom needs to be brought back as far as it will go in order to make the reticule as large as possible when compared with the incoming air strike. The air strike will appear as a red diamond out side of the map before it comes into play this gives you a ¾ of a second heads up on it coming. As soon as it enters the field of play you will be able to EMP it. You CAN NOT use the voice commands you must use the controller to call it in. The procedure is simple just depress the LB then press A when you are ready to call it in. Thanks to the auto lock capability, there is no need to worry about specific targeting of the air strike fighters.

Choosing when to attempt to intercept Air Strikes with Electronic Warfare.

It’s really only practical in 2s and 4s – more so in 4s. It can be done in 1s but, you need to do everything from sitrep and multitask. Example: you have your artillery start attacking their uplink, you have a tank + transport + gunship nearby to protect it and you switch to sitrep and anticipate an AS on your cluster, move cursor to AS area, get ready while waiting for uplink to go down. Not easy.

In co-op, its a lot easier. One person goes heavy riflemen + CV and the other goes firepower. This way the CV + rifle guy can focus more on stopping the strikes while the others are making a critical push. I’d say that you shouldn’t upgrade above level 1 EMP when attempting to do it, keep it as cheap as possible. Level 2 isn’t bad though, 4 CP for 4-5-6 CP for the AS, an even trade or better.

Determine when to set up for it:

You need to anticipate its usefulness by map and opponent because you need to set up for it off the jump – is this match/map a good candidate?:

What is the common strategy that you are seeing on this map from the player base?
Have you played these guys before, what are they doing? A bunch of air strike whores?
Is it a huge map w/9 uplinks where you have little chance of taking down their back uplinks until defcon (Maxwell for example).
Skirmish the map and find a good landmark that determines the 50% mark. If your troops must move past this landmark to be useful then it is not a good candidate and you need to think about an alternative strategy. For example: Shenandoah type maps, you can stop it at the water way/mid point of the bridge between sierra and delta. This means if you are hitting artillery on delta or foxtrot or yankee from lima, you can easily stop AS from knocking you out. Maxwell, you can stop it just outside of whiskey/sierra/foxtrot – which means if you are shelling any of those uplinks, you’re golden.

Useful scenarios:

1. When you are at stalemate against a difficult opponent and you want to knock down their supports using artillery but, you need to buy enough time to do it. If its a mid-point uplink, your artillery will be more then far enough back to be able to stop it. If its a deeper uplink where your artillery must move past mid-point, you will not be able to stop it.

2. When you know your opponent is an AS whore who run over with gunships, AS you and move back over and over. If you can EMP just a few of those while making your move, it could easily be game over. Especially when you are mobilizing a big force, if that force can make it with full health to their side and they were depending on AS to cut it down prior…

3. When you are trying to take back one of your rear uplinks from the enemy to stop the timer in conquest (maybe something they deep struck), each time you attempt to secure it, their nearby garrisoned infantry calls in an AS on you. Especially helpful towards the end of a long match where they still have air strike up and you are both low on deployments. If you can keep your riflemen from going down from AS, you can easily flip the timer in your favor. You deploy riflemen, you run to secure, co-op partner spots and EMPs incoming AS, you secure the uplink, timer stops, you storm building of garrisoned infantry.

4. During assault: especially towards the end of the match on a big map where you can’t easily take their supports down. If you can lure them onto your side of the map and counter the airstrikes while fighting troop for troop, you might be able to turn the battle. Especially when you still have back protected artillery – they want it down at all costs.

5. When massing a force to make a push: keep it well behind the 50% line and lure them in to AS you a few times (EMPing it of course) then push on them at full speed. If their strategy is based around AS and you can soak up a few of them with EMP, they should be drained of CP for a moment. Just remember to separate your troops when making your move.

6. Some maps have a defender EAST attacker WEST layout and on these maps the airstikes come from the north and south. Three Mile Island is like this. Stopping AS on these maps is especially useful because you can make a push into enemy territory and still stop it – move across the bridge in the south into the defenders area, take both of those lower uplinks and stop air strikes as you’re doing it.

7. Early on in matches: if you can take a critical uplink from them you can turn the game early. Typically they won’t have the force that far up to stop you so, they use AS as their only offensive tool. A common scenario is Delta on Brenner Pass. The defender can rush delta before the attacker can transport there. The attacker can artillery Delta from behind the mountain to get them out but, as soon as you push on it, they AS you over and over again to prevent you from taking it. If they knock your riflemen out, you have to start over from the DZ or save for a deep strike and by that point, they have massed a forced to protect it. If you can stop those early air strikes, you have a significant chance of taking Delta from them right off the bat, you’ll have the extra CP, they should be drained of CP for the moment and your 100% health force can pull out from behind the mountain and start pushing on them.

8. Similar to 3, when you have a riflemen in an uplink, the timer is at say 1m to victory, they are running up on you air striking your riflemen in the in the uplink over (blind or with eyes). If you can stop the air strikes, your riflemen will take care of the theirs.

A big thanks goes out to the guys I play with all the time the “Mod Squad” consisting of barbarism and Jackal0321USMC. A thanks goes out to Stiv X for proof reading this.



This information was written and provided by TRAUMA 75. Thank you Trauma this information is extremely knowledgeable and intelligible. Special Thanks to The Red Dragon for the great video!

-Corporal Bruno

Grant Squad Member // Drill Instructor
Tactical Gaming
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