Helicopter

Fast and powerful, the Combine Hunter-Chopper is a support aircraft used to provide heavy fire support for Combine forces and, as the name implies, is used for hunting down and destroying resistance fighters and other targets. Like the Combine APC, this vehicle is a conventional human design (similar to the Mi-24 Hind), although heavily modified with Combine technology.

The Hunter-Chopper is crewed by two Overwatch Soldiers, One pilot and one gunner.

Capabilities


The Hunter-Chopper is armed with a powerful pulse turret which sprays charged pulses. Although inaccurate, it allows the chopper to attack and damage multiple targets at once. The pulse turret fires in approximately 3 second bursts, and requires the gun to charge up before firing, which can be heard and used as a warning signal.

The Hunter-Chopper can also drop spherical contact mines which detonate after a set timer or on contact with the target. The chopper is also seen firing "dumb" rockets for more accurate and powerful strikes on stationary targets. Although these rockets are never used against the player, a Hunter-Chopper can be seen firing these rockets into a ventilation tunnel opening near the end of the "Black Mesa East" chapter.

Hunter-Choppers use the explosive mines as an offensive attack by dropping them directly in front of moving targets and on top of weak structures. The mines are also buoyant, making them quite effective against water-craft. Although it is unclear where or if they are stored in the vehicle, Hunter-Choppers seem to have a large supply of mines and they can be dropped either one at a time or very rapidly, effectively saturating an entire area.

Hunter-Choppers are very fast and maneuverable, allowing them to pursue and destroy their targets efficiently.

Employment
The Hunter-Choppers are most often seen in urban areas, including City 17. They are also seen patrolling City 17's Canals, and are used to search out and destroy refugees attempting to escape the city. On the coast, however, Hunter-Choppers are rare, where they have been supplanted by Gunships.

In Episode Two, Hunter-Choppers are seen in the forests outside of City 17. It is possible that they were used to patrol these areas before the Citadel's destruction

Half Life 2
A group of City 17 escapees in the canals through unknown means managed to get hold of a hunter-chopper's pulse turret. When Gordon Freeman arrives at their camp, a Vortigaunt fits this gun onto his airboat. Gordon Freeman is then able to use it to take down the Hunter-Chopper that has been persuing him from when he entered the City 17 Canals.

Tactics
The Hunter-Chopper is a powerful and tough enemy to defeat. Keep firing at it. Pieces of the chopper will continue to break off until it crashes.

After being severely damaged, the Hunter-Chopper will attempt to kill its attacker by releasing its entire payload of mines as a last-ditch effort.

Trivia

 * In Half Life 2 on the chapter Black Mesa East when the Combine attack the scrapyard, if the player stays in the area for a while after the Headcrab Shells have landed, a Hunter-Chopper will appear and fire its rockets at a sewage tunnel opening. This is the only time the chopper is seen firing rockets.


 * If you were to somehow acquire an RPG and fire it at the Hunter-Chopper, the chopper would start to flame for a few moments, then it would go back to normal. It takes over a dozen rockets to do any significant damage to it.


 * The Hunter-Chopper is capable of releasing an enormous number of mines without having to resupply. Far more, it would seem, than a vehicle of its size would be capable of physically storing. One theory is that the mines are collapsible, and take up much less space in their 'folded-up' state, and that they inflate/assemble as they leave the vehicle. The theory that they're 'inflatable' is consistent with the mines' other characteristics. Namely, that they have a fairly small explosive charge (probably around the rim of the mine, not in the center), and that they float. Both of these facts indicate they're hollow.