Red Alert Tank Breakdown

Tanks. Legendary vehicles of destruction, especially in the world of Command & Conquer. Check out this data I put together and learn which tank offers the most cost efficient way to annihilate your enemy.

Introduction

Welcome to my analysis of the four main tanks of Red Alert! It's pretty easy to see which tank is the strongest on the battlefield, but this strength comes at a high price! Now you should ask yourself: Which tank offers the best performance for the money? This is the question I wanted to answer.

Why did I only include four units, and tanks only? I originally wanted to list all available units, but I quickly came to the conclusion that there isn't much use in that. Comparing all units is like comparing apples with oranges because there are different kinds of armour (none, light and heavy) and different types of damage (normal, armour piercing, high explosive, tesla). It is very difficult to find a way to include all of these aspects. Those four tanks are most comparable because they all share the same armour and damage type. Also, all of them are likely to be built frequently and can be used as the backbone of your army.

Tank Data

These are the raw statistics for the Light, Medium, Heavy and Mammoth Tank, taken from the game files and calculated according to the country-specific bonuses (see below). I have included the unit price, the attack strength, weapon cooldown, damage per frame, hitpoints, speed, attack range and sight range. I did not list unit build time because it correlates with the price anyway and I didn't want it to be counted twice.

Unit	Cost	Atk	Cool- down*	DPF	HP	Speed	Atk R.	Sight R.
Light Tank	700	25	40	0,63	300	9	4	4
Light Tank (G)	700	27,5	40	0,69	300	9	4	4
Light Tank (F)	700	25	36	0,69	300	9	4	4
Light Tank (GB)	700	25	40	0,63	330	9	4	4
Light Tank (Gr)	700	25	40	0,63	300	9	4,4	4
Medium Tank	800	30	50	0,60	400	8	4,75	5
Medium Tank (G)	800	33	50	0,66	400	8	4,75	5
Medium Tank (F)	800	30	45	0,67	400	8	4,75	5
Medium Tank (GB)	800	30	50	0,60	440	8	4,75	5
Medium Tank (Gr)	800	30	50	0,60	400	8	5,23	5
Heavy Tank	950	60	70	0,86	400	7	4,75	5
Heavy Tank (USSR)	855	60	70	0,86	400	7	4,75	5
Heavy Tank (Ukr)	950	60	70	0,86	400	7,7	4,75	5
Mammoth Tank	1700	80	80	1,00	600	4	4,75	6
Mammoth Tank (USSR)	1530	80	80	1,00	600	4	4,75	6
Mammoth Tank (Ukr)	1700	80	80	1,00	600	4,4	4,75	6

* in Frames

Country-specific Bonuses:
Germany	+10% Atk
France	-10% Cooldown
Great Britain	+10% HP
Greece	+10% Atk R.
USSR	-10% Cost
Ukraine	+10% Speed

Scoring

As a next step, I have calculated a score value based on all performance parameters (see below for the formula). The score shows the aggregated power of the unit. The efficiency value finally takes the unit price into account.

Unit	Score	Efficiency	Rank
Light Tank	26,25	3,75	5
Light Tank (G)	26,88	3,84	2
Light Tank (F)	26,94	3,85	1
Light Tank (GB)	26,55	3,79	4
Light Tank (Gr)	26,65	3,81	3
Medium Tank	27,75	3,47	10
Medium Tank (G)	28,35	3,54	7
Medium Tank (F)	28,42	3,55	6
Medium Tank (GB)	28,15	3,52	9
Medium Tank (Gr)	28,23	3,53	8
Heavy Tank	29,32	3,09	13
Heavy Tank (USSR)	29,32	3,43	11
Heavy Tank (Ukr)	30,02	3,16	12
Mammoth Tank	30,75	1,81	16
Mammoth Tank (USSR)	30,75	2,01	14
Mammoth Tank (Ukr)	31,15	1,83	15

Calculation:
DPF (Damage per Frame) = Atk/Cooldown
Score = (DPF*10)+(HP/100)+Speed+Atk R.+Sight R.
Efficiency = (Score/Cost)*100
Rank = most efficient to least efficient

Conclusions

Now, what can be said about these results?

• The bigger the tank, the less cost efficient it is.
  
• According to this analysis, the French Light Tank offers the best performance for its price. The French bonus has the biggest impact in the effeciency rating overall.
  
• This can be explained with a simple example: Compare two French Light Tanks with one Russian Mammoth Tank. For 1400$ you get two fast-moving LTs with the equivalent of 600 hitpoints and an accumulated DPF of 1,38. On the other side, you need to pay 1530$ for one slow-moving tank with the same 600 hitpoints and a DPF of 1,00.
  
• Am I saying two French LTs can destroy a Mammoth Tank in a 1 vs 2 battle? Certainly not, because the Mammoth would destroy one of the LTs which would cause a damage falloff on the Allied side. Also, the Mammoth would start regenerating once its below 50% hitpoints.
  
• The Greek Medium Tank outranges every other tank with its cannon.
  
• The French Light Tank is the fastest shooter.
  
• Both the Ukrainian and the Russian Heavy Tank are able to make up for one lacking feature compared to the Medium Tank. Either the price or the movement speed.
  
• Interestingly, the Soviet Heavy Tank has exactly the same amount of hitpoints as the Allied Medium Tank. It does pack a bigger punch with its dual cannon, though.
  
• Despite the decent hitpoint pool of the Soviet tanks, it is difficult to get them repaired if they are losing the battle. They are usually too slow to get them back to safety once the enemy starts to overwhelm them and Soviet commanders don't have a unit to perform field repairs. This results in a total loss of valuable units.

WARNING: These results should be taken with a grain of salt for a number of reasons:

• The Mammoth Tank, which gets the lowest efficiency rank of all, does have some extras which are special and were not taken into account here: it heals itself up to 50% for free and can attack both infantry and aircraft with powerful rockets. Due to this, one needs to add some extra points for its rating.
  
• Both Soviet tanks seem to be less efficient compared to their Allied counterparts. But on the other handside, they focus more power in a single unit. This can be very advantageous in constrained areas. With the relatively weak pathfinding in the game, attacking with a horde of weaker units can be awkward. Masses of units can only play out their strengths in large, open areas where they can tear apart their enemies like a wolf pack.
  
• For reasons explained above, I did only analyse four units. However, the two factions consist of many, many more units plus unique defensive buildings. Therefore, winning or losing depends on more than just the cost efficiency of two units.
  
• Ultimately, you should always choose the faction which you like most or which fits your playstyle best. Having fun playing is most important!

Thanks for reading my guide. Please consider giving it a thumbs up if you liked it. Thank you!

PS: If you think my calculation is wrong, feel free to leave me a message in the comments!

[LesleySchultze]

Consider the build time too.

[Sastan]

cool

[Sil]

Great to see a basic comparison which works wonders for MP - puts the context where it needs to be, in chart form.

[Fury]

Interesting list. I'll add some nuance here that was left out - light tanks can also be built earlier due to lower tech requirements, so by the time you have one mammoth tank out, be that as it may with the vehicle costs, having extra the time and building costs factored in, I already have multiple light tanks taking to the field of battle, rushing your base/harvester.

[Brieg Skåld]

Interesting insight. I prefer quality over quantity though.

[Narcisist]

Haha! Light tank go BBRRR!!!!!

[[ToDD]Frost]

awesome work & table!

[KotCR]

cotss2012, speed directly affects performance.A bonus to speed translates into a defensive bonus with 'q' micro. Faster you move, harder you are to hit. With good 'q'ing, a Mammy can be eliminated by a single LT. It's big.

You are correct that the game heavily favours Lights, speed is a big part of that, but not because it makes them better against inf, because it makes them better against most incoming fire.

The biggest threat to tanks in RA, is other Tanks. Not infantry. While slower than a LT even a HT shouldn't have trouble squishing inf. The only MBT which struggles is the Mammy, because it's so slow.

Also range matters, more the further into a game you are. As armies get bigger, the amount of tanks that can get in range is relevant to who will win a firefight. One reason Allied players transition to Meds from LTs the further into a match they get, is the extra range & resilience per-gun becomes more important than reduced cost efficiency once army size reaches critical-mass.

[cotss2012]

Unfortunately your formula is garbage. Attack range and visibility range should not be included at all, speed is more utility than performance, and DPF should be multiplied by HP, not added to it. In a straight-up tank-versus-tank fight, the real efficiencies are:

lit tank: 0.63 * 300 / 700 = .270
med tank: 0.60 * 400 / 800 = .300
hev tank: 0.86 * 400 / 950 = .362
mam tank: 1.00 * 600 / 1700 = .353

So heavy tanks give you the most real bang for the buck in straight tank-versus-tank combat.

However, there's another HUGE factor that you didn't take into account:

1) the faster a tank is, the better it is at crushing infantry
2) the more tanks you have, the better they are at crushing infantry (both because infantry has fewer places to run, and because you can squoosh infantry in more different places at the same time)

Since the biggest threats to tanks are grenadiers and rocket infantry, rather than other tanks, the game ends up very heavily favoring light tanks.

[tacgnol06]

The calculations seem accurate, but there are so many other variables that the ranking doesn't really serve a purpose unless you want to destroy undefended buildings as cheaply as possible.