CNC Zero Hour

This guide is about how to counter humvees as GLA and China. I’ve decided to write this guide after yet another question about how to beat humvees. This question is by far the most asked question in the ZH section while being one of the most complicated to answer.

Written by Opsnyder





In this guide i only write about the early game of GLA because this is the part where lots of GLA’s have trouble with humvees. In late-game all GLA’s will have buggies, Toxin gets an overpowered ambush, defense structures and gamma buses and demo has demo bikes and demo ambush which should be enough to counter humvees without any further explanation.

One of the units you could use to counter humvees is the technical. This fast low armored vehicle kills humvees for only 1 reason: humvees can’t perform hit and run tactics on technicals since technicals are faster. The best way of beating these humvees is to drive your technicals close to the humvee(s) when it stands still or is heading towards your technicals. Following a humvee that drives away can cost you some technicals because it will take longer before your technicals are in range. A reason you should drive close to the humvee is to prevent it from escaping which would force you to chase it. The other reason is that this way all the technicals will be able to shoot on the humvee instead of only 1 or 2. After you killed a humvee it’s very important that you collect the scrap. Scrapped up technicals will rip trough enemy humvees.
However, when humvees are in a large group you will never be able to kill enough humvees to pay back for all the technicals you’re gonna lose. Technical spam should only be used when your technicals will have a numerical advantage. For example: when there is a humvee in your base, you will be unable to kill it with quads because the humvee will just flee. In this case, attacking the humvee with 3 technicals will be a good solution to get rid of the humvee.

Somewhat similar to the empty technical spam is technicals filled with RPG. You drive a technical or multiple technicals with RPG’s in it towards the enemy humvee, you unload your technical and kill the humvee. The way of approaching the humvee is similar as with the empty technicals. This is another strategy that should only be used on easy targets. A tech RPG as first unit can be great at harassing the USA and to keep the USA busy. Just keep your tech RPG alive and try to kill easy targets. Another strategy is filling 2 or 3 technicals with RPG and 1 or 2 workers as fast as possible, drive the technicals to the enemy base and unload all the infantry. Your tech RPG will then protect your workers while you build tunnels in the enemy base.

A big tech RPG early game can be very hard to counter even for good USA players but this still isn’t an effective way of killing a larger humvee force, especially when the humvees got the TOW missile upgrade.



And offcourse there’s also the possibility to put terrorists in your technical and kill important structures with them. Even though this can really hurt a USA it shouldn’t be relied on as the only way of attacking the USA. It's very important to kill the strategy center of USA’s this way.

The unit that’s produced the most to counter humvees is the quad. However, a quad is by itself quite a bad unit to kill humvees, and this is where it goes wrong for a lot of players. Lots of players keep chasing humvees with quads or try to engage them in a direct fight. This will end up in massive losses. Humvees are faster than quads and the Missile Defenders in the humvees got more range than the quads. Quads aren’t a direct counter to humvees. This doesn’t mean quads are useless though. For example, quads become very useful combined with RPG’s. RPG’s do massive damage to humvees and can absorb lots of rocket fire from the MD’s. You should keep your quads behind your RPG’s and order your RPG’s to fire on the closest humvee, this humvee will have low health and your quads can finish the humvee while it tries to escape. While doing this it’s important to retreat your quads behind your RPG’s again as soon as possible as you don't want to much rockets to hit your quads. While doing all this it’s extremely useful to follow your army with a worker and build tunnels. With this army in front of it there’s almost no way for the USA to prevent you from building tunnels close to the USA base.



When quads are in the enemy base, they have the potential of hurting the USA badly. The quads can be positioned behind buildings or supply docks which unables the USA to outrange the quads with humvees. And when quads aren’t dealt with fast enough they will rip trough chinooks and buildings, get cheved up and turn into humvee killing machines.

A great way of harassing the USA is by performing a hard attack on your enemy on 1 side with quads and RPG’s or technicals and RPG’s while you sneak 1 or 2 quads from the other side into the enemy base. This quad(s) will force your enemy to pull away his chinooks and will disturb the USA’s economy significantly. Quite similar to this is that you attack the USA from 2 different sides. A big benefit of this kind of attacks is that the USA will have to micro his humvees at 2 different spots. This increases the chance that your enemy will make micro mistakes.


Orange: the main attacking force. Red: a sneaky quad on the other side

Besides quads and technicals, the tunnel networks can also counter humvees. The tunnel's turret won’t do lots of damage themself unless they’re toxin tunnels. Their strength however lies in unloading an army at the right time. When humvees engage a tunnel they have to get close to kill it. When you unload your army on the right time you can press Q(select all units on your screen) fast and target a humvee. You will be able to kill a humvee and your enemy will most likely react by pulling back his army while you get your units back into the tunnel. This can also backfire though, when you unload too late and the missiles are already hitting the tunnel you risk to lose all your units. The trick is to unload your army before the humvees start firing but not too early else you scare the humvees away before they’re in your range.

With stealth tunnels this becomes even easier. Besides your enemy possibly driving straight in your tunnel you also got an easier time doing the things i described above. Humvees won’t be able to shoot on the tunnel before the tunnel is revealed. In lots of occasions the enemy USA won’t have the possibility to scan and has to wait until the tunnel reveals itself by shooting on the humvees. For some reason tunnels always wait a second before they start shooting and when the turret has to turn it can even take some longer. This means the enemy humvees have to be dangerously close to the tunnel for quite some time before they can kill the tunnel, giving you an easier time doing the things i described above.

There’s also a great way of tricking your enemy using this method as GLAv. As GLAv all your tunnels are visible and that’s what your enemy will expect. For only $500 you can stealth a tunnel. When your enemy didn’t see it getting build, he will never expect a stealth tunnel and there’s a high chance that he drives straight into it, you then unload your tunnel and kill the humvees.



And offcourse there’s also the demo trap. They can be great at killing a big number of humvees at 1 blow but they can’t be relied on since they can be discovered. Most players will position their demo traps in front of their tunnels which does surprise the enemy occasionally. While these demo traps are definitely not useless there are better spots for demo traps. Humvees often stand still in front of tunnels which gives the spy drones a chance to detect the demo traps. Demo traps will be more effective on spots where you will expect humvees but where they won’t be standing still. The spy drones will be behind the humvees when they drive and will be unable to detect the demo traps on time.

A big humvee army will always be hard to counter so its important that you prevent the USA from gathering this big humvee army. In the end it will be all about having tunnels around the USA base with which you try to harass the USA from multiple sides using these techniques i described above. It’s important you keep the USA busy by attacking it from multiple sides.