Harrier Strike
 | Call Of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 |
The Harrier II also makes a handful of appearances in Campaign, though they are seen far less often than in Call of Duty 4, with the F-15E Strike Eagle replacing them in the role of Close-Air Support. In the level Exodus, prior to reaching the HVI's house, a pair of Harriers can be seen using their VTOL capability to take off from a driving range near the AC-130 crash site.
The Harrier strike is an unlockable killstreak reward in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Requiring a killstreak of 7 (6 with the Hardline perk), the Harrier Airstrike calls in three harrier jets: two to bomb the target location, and the third hovers in place over the selected area, and will attempt to kill enemy targets with its undermounted gun. The third jet will also fire missiles at an enemy Attack Helicopter, Pave Lows, or Chopper Gunner if seen in the air and destroy them.
The Harrier Strike is an inaccurate representation of the AV-8B's abilities. Harriers are not designed to use their vector thrust nozzles to hover over an area for extended periods of time, only for take off and landing. While hovering, the Harrier uses immense amounts of fuel, overheats the engines and is very difficult to maneuver. Nonetheless, this hover mode is the main attack method used in multiplayer, where it can easily suppress large areas of the map. Also, real harriers are not fitted with turreted machine guns, instead they are usually fitted with forward fixed 20mm or 25mm gun pods.
Unlike a Pave Low Helicopter, Harrier kills from the Airstrike extend the user's killstreak. This makes the Harrier very useful for achieving higher ranked killstreaks such as Chopper Gunner or AC130. Because of the lengthy duration of the Harrier killstreak, players will often use it in conjunction with another killstreak to gain quick access to theTactical Nuke killstreak reward.
Harriers do not deploy flares and remain relatively still, making an easy target for Stinger missiles and Javelin missiles.
