Armored Tiger MLRS

The Armored Tiger MLRS is a People's Liberation Army self-propelled Multiple Rocket Launcher truck that is featured in Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

Overview


"Looking to level a small town? You could pay for an expensive air strike, or do it yourself with your own Chinese rocket artillery truck."

- Stockpile caption

The Armored Tiger MLRS is a multiple launcher rocket system variant of the Armored Tiger Cargo. It is used very rarely by the PLA during their presence in Venezuela. The Armored Tiger is used mainly for bombarding locations, destroying buildings, and sometimes as an anti-air vehicle (but is never labeled as one).

The rockets can be aimed quite high up which makes it very effective at destroying buildings and to a certain extent, helicopters. One main weakness with the Armored Tiger is that the rockets cannot be aimed down at the ground or straight ahead, due to the design of the truck, meaning it cannot engage ground targets effectively.

Both the passenger and the driver have control of the rockets, giving an impractical overlap of control when with an AI passenger.

It can be purchased from the PLA shop at $60,000 after completing level 3 Medusplosion at the Eastern Cumana Outpost. It can only be found during and after the "Missile Commando" contract on the hill south of the Shanty Town.

Tactics
This truck is not made for combat, it was meant for providing fire support out of range of enemy fire and cannot fire forward without aiming upwards. Its purpose is to saturate a small target area with overwhelming amounts of rockets; the sheer density of rockets is what inflicts the great damage.

It has type 2 armor, meaning it can get destroyed very easily by anything greater than small arms fire. The rockets it fires deal the same damage as RPG rockets, which are quite weak and often tend to sway off target. This truck might be very cool but it is not very practical, it is more like 40 fast firing mobile RPGs that only point upwards. For the price, it would be better to purchase something else with better mobility, like a Locust Assault Helicopter ($40k) or better firepower or armor, like a Dragon Lance Light Tank ($100k).

A way to overcome to problem of not being able to aim forward and down is to point the truck in the opposite direction of the target, there is much less restriction on rear firing angles.

If somebody stays in the gunner seat while the player drives, the truck has an endless supply of rockets. Each time the ammo count reaches 0, it reverts to 40. This unlimited ammo glitch makes clearing hostile forces from an outpost effortless.

Real life
The Armored Tiger MLRS is based on the Shaanqi SX2150. The MLRS is Type 81, the Chinese copy of the Soviet BM-21 Grad MLRS.

Trivia

 * This vehicle is supposed to be the vehicle firing the Rocket Artillery Strikes. In the Missile Commando contract for the Allied Nations, Chinese artillery positions in the Shanty Town are comprised of Tiger MLRSs and Bladesongs firing rocket artillery on Allied positions. However, the explosions and rockets from the rocket strike and the MLRS are not identical.
 * The Armored Tiger MLRS is the only Armored Tiger series vehicle that is available for purchase.
 * The Armored Tiger MLRS is known as the 'Cortez RA' in the PlayStation 2 version of the game.

Related pages

 * Vehicles of the People's Liberation Army
 * Armored Tiger Cargo
 * Armored Tiger Tanker
 * Armored Tiger Semi