The M2 and M2A1 Bradley were originally designed to offer a full 360° protection against 14.5mm API. The Marder 1 had a slightly better protection, with the front hull withstanding 20mm APDS.

It's the later versions of the Bradley, the M2A2 and M2A3, that were designed to resist 30mm APDS and RPGs.

It's also not surprising the M2 and M2A1 were less armored than the Marder 1, as they were lighter, at 25 short tons.

In game, the reason why you'd want the M2 and M2A1 is the pairing of the M242 25mm Bushmaster autocannon and the TOW ATGM ; the 1/1/1/1 armor is a bonus essentially.

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THANK YOU TROTSKYGRAD FOR THIS EPIC SEAL OF APPROVAL !

Just had a game where it was my 3 tungs (being resupplied via KOLOS trucks) vs 4 apaches, 8 cobras, and some hueys. Had a smattering of infantry carriers ahead of my tungs that apparently distracted the apaches and cobras enough in the opening salvos that my tungs got off all their initial rockets (and quickly reloaded thanks to the trucks), absolutely devastating the enemy. I was near 1000 points rather quickly in that engagement. I think i lost some skots and a few infantry were damaged.

Tungs are definitely cost effective. If the enemy is fool enough, they might even get in range of the guns and thats when the real fun starts.

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Otherwise known as "Frederik von Luck"

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his." ~ My general battle plan.

the Abbot.

At 40 points each, you can get a fair few of them compared to the more powerful arty, meaning you can have groups of these running around behind your lines firing into enemy forces attacking, i use them alot actually, and if you want, you can get 16 of them for the price of a few mlrs's, but these 16 will litterally run off 2 or 3 fobs the entire game alongside the rest of the army and not require fobs of their own. And ofcourse, these guys provide alot of close range fire support easily with little to no risk of FF and can put down alot more sustained fire for less cost and supply. And obviously, means you dont need to defend your arty in "main", these are cheap enough to be front line units.

Of course they are good AA - but in your example above you could have had 3 full vet OSA AKM, which would also have killed that force in that situation, and probably have done it quicker and without the need for the supply trucks. The main advantage of the tunguska is its armour, but I found that it was rarely necessary, and the speed of the OSA is far more useful. I haven't even got Tunguska in my decks any more and I can't think of a single game where I wish that I still had it available.

AA guns are always useful. I can kill some buks with one sneaky APC , but I won't approach a tungunska.
And they got stunning power too.

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I try to never deploy vehicule based SAM without some Flak guns for close up protection. SAM have a relatively long reload time and when they miss people using gunships often saturate the zone with machine gun or autocannon fire to make them panic. Having AA guns are suprisingly effective at stunning and demoralise air units and I think it would be an error to not take them. They work very well in team. Personnally, I think the Tunguska need a small buff to its missiles accuracy to make it cost effective (8 would be ok) and also perhaps a change in his AI to make it switch to his gun automatically when choppers enter his gun range (I remarked that they often don't do it and keep launching missiles). But the fact it combines both type of AA is handy. At this time however, I think the Strop 2 is more cost effective. For NATO, Flakpanzers with Roland and a few Charapal works well to keep choppers at bay.

Edit : added a precision.

Strop II is better for me since they have better missile accuracy and it is cheaper (but tunguska mg is way better)
I still use my Buk since it can take down all helos in 1 hit and its very accurate

OSA have 400m less range than top tung variation. An Apache can close that pretty quick. OSA also carries fewer missiles than Tung.

How much more accurate is a max vet OSA than a tung? Tung has 35% hit chance at max range, what's OSA's?

Full vet OSA AKM costing $80, has 50% accuracy, and a higher rate of fire than the top Tunguska with zero vet costing $75. But bear in mind that I always have some AAA or vetted Igla inf hidden away in front of them, so the lesser range isn't usually an issue for me. I always have a $20 supply truck with my SAM's, so the slightly lower missile load isn't an issue either. I find the extra 10kph speed of the OSK AKM very useful and it often bags me an enemy recon at the start of the game, and also makes me less worried about sending fast forward commands or attack forces (The Igla Inf in fast APC's also help with this.)

Like I said, the tunguska is a great unit, but Pact has many great support units and you can only have 5, so on balance I chose to drop the tunguska to allow me to field other units. I admit it wasn't an easy decision, but when it comes to missiles, accuracy and cost is very important. Vetted AKM's and Iglas are very good value considering their performance.