Gunship

The Gunship is an 11 killstreak featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops. It is an Mi-24, a model better known by its NATO reporting name of Hind-A.

Call of Duty: Black Ops
The Gunship costs, and is awarded upon achieving an 11 killstreak, or a 10 killstreak while using Hardline. The player has full control of the gunship including movement, miniguns and missiles. However, like in Payback, the player cannot control altitude. As such, the Gunship flies at a very low altitude over the maps, which can lead to it being easily shot down. To compensate for this however, the player can simply fly out of the way of an incoming, freefire rocket. To balance gameplay, the Gunship only comes equipped with 2 missiles at a time (however they will automatically regenerate after a while), but has unlimited rounds in its nose cannon that doesn't overheat. The helicopter used as the Gunship is the Hind.

The gunship is used in the level "Payback" however the gunship in Payback has a total of 8 rockets instead of the Multiplayer limit of 2.

In the new patch, the Gunship has a red diamond render delay. This means when enemy players spawn there will be a delay before the red squares (or diamonds) are seen around their bodies making it more difficult to spawn kill. This update also affects the Chopper Gunner killstreak.

The Gunship is often best used on objective gametypes, especially modes where Spawn Trapping can be utilized, as the Hind can be piloted and hovered above the enemy spawn for maximum kills, instead of in Killing-based modes (Team Deathmatch and Free-for-All) where the enemies' spawns often change, needing the helicopter to be moved.

The effectiveness of this killstreak depends entirely on the competence of the enemy. Most players will switch to a missile class as soon as the announcer calls in a Hind, effectively destroying it seconds after it is called in. However, if the enemy does not shoot down air support at all, then the Hind can easily destroy the entire enemy team in seconds. A wise tactic to prevent being shot down is to target enemies that are staying still, as they are most likely trying to get a lock on the Hind with a launcher, as opposed to targets running for cover.

It also may be effective to locate the enemy spawn and hover there until it changes, making it so that players using ghost are visible and easily shot, or likely to be shot in fire meant for other enemies. The missiles can also be used to clear out larger chunks of land of possible enemies.

Most players find themselves stuck between this and Dogs. The dogs are more effective on a more enclosed map, such as WMD where the are multiple buildings blocking the bullets and rockets from the gunship, while it can prove more effective on a more open map, such as Nuketown, where it is smaller, and the enemies spawn outside, although the choice is totally up to the player.

If you hear an enemy call in a SAM Turret, make sure it is either hacked or destroyed so the Hind can move freely.

Be careful when flying the gunship, as some players are too distracted with the weapons, that they accidentally fly out of bounds, which causes the tail rotor to explode. After a short amount of time, the gunship will explode, ending the killstreak.

Quick, and well-skilled players that are experienced with the Gunship can outright evade locked missiles from Launchers even when all the flares have been depleted, assuming they are a distance from people utilizing launchers, and not close where as there would not be much time to maneuver around the rocket.

Trivia

 * This Killstreak is not available in the Wii version of the game, similar to Redemption, where the level starts with the Huey damaged after the Hind's assault. This is strange as the Hind in the singleplayer level "Payback" is still piloted. The same goes for Chopper Gunner. It is hinted that this is due to the fact that the Wii is unable to load the entire map as it lacks the necessary RAM. It is quite possible that in Payback, the map is much more linear as opposed to some of the bigger maps on Multiplayer such as Jungle.
 * Like all of the other helicopter killstreaks, the Gunship's skin varies depending on which side the player is on. It appears to friendlies with a desert camouflage scheme and a green nose turret and tail band, while to enemies it is shown having a gray camouflage scheme and red markings.
 * If you go into Theater Mode, you can see that their is no pilot in the gunship. Also, behind the player is sitting in front of air.
 * If the player were to view a person using the Gunship in a kill-cam or a game winning kill-cam, the red squares surrounding enemy players would not appear; this goes for the Chopper Gunner as well.
 * Beneath the exterior of the gunship is a second, far less detailed version of the helicopter which is used as the actual cockpit in first person, and is at a much steeper angle than the perceived gunship.
 * The map shown for this killstreak's picture in the killstreak menu is Summit.
 * If the player gets killed by a Gunship missile, then the killcam will show the missile's path on the kill, instead of the usual first-person view of the Gunship.
 * The Gunship HUD is different in Multiplayer compared to the HUD in Payback. The reticule is an orange circle with outer lines, while in Multiplayer it has the same aiming reticule as the Death Machine and Chopper Gunner.
 * Regardless of faction your Gunship will always be a Hind and your announcer says "Hind standing by" or something similar.
 * Like the Chopper Gunner it is possible to get headshots with the Gunship.
 * There have been reports of glitches that the Hind will move without the player being able to control it. It may still use its rockets and nose cannons. [Confirmed]
 * There are two unusable Gunships behind the Spetnaz spawn in Discovery.
 * There is an unusable Gunship behind the Black Ops spawn on Summit.
 * The altitude at which a Hind is flying at depends on which map the user is playing in. Maps with small buildings such as "Villa" and "Nuketown" will have low flying Hinds, while maps with tall buildings such as "Berlin Wall" will have Hinds flying at greater altitudes.

Videos
400px

Gameplay with the Gunship