Broken Arrow Glossary
Game terms explained: KE/HE, armor, doctrines, deployment economy.
- KE (Kinetic)
- Kinetic energy damage and armor — sabot/velocity-based rounds from tank guns and autocannons. Compared against the target's KE armor at the point of impact.
- HE (Explosive)
- High-explosive / chemical-energy damage and armor — ATGMs, HEAT and artillery. Reactive armor packages help most against HE.
- Directional armor
- Each unit has four separate armor facings — front, side, rear, top. Front is thickest; rear and top weakest. Flanking and top-attack exploit this.
- Battle Group
- Your army deck — the set of unit cards built from one faction and two specializations, spending 9,500–10,000 points.
- Doctrine / Specialization
- A sub-faction theme that gates which units and modifications you can field. A deck combines two: e.g. USMC + SOF (USA) or VDV + Motorized (Russia).
- Sustainable deploy value
- Income drops to zero once ~50% of your deck's total cost is deployed, so the army you can keep on the field ≈ deck cost / 2.
- Transport
- A truck, IFV or helicopter attached to a unit card. Adds its own cost (per transported copy) and changes how the unit reaches the front.
- Modification group
- An independent set of options for a unit (optics, armor, weapon), each with a cost delta. You pick one option per group.
- Availability (count)
- How many copies of a card you take. Deck cost multiplies the card cost by this count, so high availability is expensive.
- ELO bracket
- A skill band used to segment the meta. Faction and unit performance often differ between low, mid and high ELO.
- APS (Active Protection System)
- A hard-kill defensive system (e.g. Trophy, Arena) that intercepts a limited number of incoming missiles before they hit. Has a charge count and resupply time — once spent, the unit is vulnerable until rearmed.
- ECM (jamming)
- Electronic countermeasures that reduce the accuracy of guided missiles aimed at the unit. Effective only against guided weapons — dumb rounds and kinetic shells ignore it.
- Optics / Spotting
- A unit's detection range. Spotting distance scales with the spotter's optics against the target's stealth; forests and buildings shorten it further. Recon units have the strongest ground and air optics.
- Stealth
- A modifier that shrinks the range at which a unit is spotted. High stealth lets infantry and recon sit in cover and reveal the enemy first.
- Decoy / Flares
- Countermeasures (flares, decoys) that spoof incoming guided missiles. Limited charges with a cooldown and resupply cost — used reactively when a lock is detected.
- Upkeep
- The mechanic that lowers your income as you deploy more army value on the field. With the default multiplier, income reaches zero at roughly half your deck's cost deployed — see sustainable deploy value.
- Income (supply points)
- Points earned over time (per second), used to deploy and reinforce units. Boosted by capturing zones and killing enemies, throttled by upkeep.
- Refund / Recycle
- Sending a unit back to base returns part of its cost as points, scaled by remaining health. A repurchase delay applies before you can re-buy that card.
- Airdrop
- Deploying airborne-capable units by parachute from a transport plane (C-130, Il-76) instead of driving them in. Lets airborne doctrines insert behind the front.
- Suppression
- Incoming fire that pins units — lowering accuracy and movement — without killing them. Artillery and HMGs suppress; suppression-resistant units recover faster.
- Top-attack
- Munitions (Javelin, top-attack ATGMs, cluster artillery) that strike the thin top armor of a vehicle instead of its thick front — a reliable way to kill heavy tanks.