The Sopel is a Polish prototype anti-aircraft artillery that appears in Wargame: Red Dragon.
History
Opal was a Polish made armored personnel carrier based on the MT-LB. LSPZRA Sopel (LSPZRA for lekki samobieżny przeciwlotniczy zestaw rakietowo-artyleryjski – lit. light, self-propelled, anti-aircraft, combined gun and missile system; Sopel is Polish for Icicle) was a prototype SPAAG equipped with twin 23 mm cannon and two 9M32M "Strela-2M" .
Overview
Cheap and well-armed, the Sopel is an excellent addition to any Polish/Eastern Bloc commander's anti-air arsenal. Compared to its predecessor, the ZSU-23-4V1 Szyłka, the Sopel's cannons are slightly less accurate and have a lower rate of fire. They do, however, hit just as hard, and the Sopel comes with three big advantages over the Szyłka. First and foremost is range, which equals all but the highest-end NATO heliborne ATGMs. Second is the presence of a surface-to-air missile, the Grom, which can easily slap a gunship out of the sky. Third and foremost is that the Sopel doesn't need radar to operate its weapons, unlike the Szyłka, making it invulnerable (and perhaps most importantly, invisible) to SEAD. The best use of the Sopel is to back up an armoured or infantry push to fight off attack helicopters, a task at which it absolutely excels.
The Sopel does have a few key weaknesses, though. Like other non-radar AA pieces, the Sopel is less effective at engaging fixed-wing aircraft, with the Grom missile able to reach out only as far as 2100 metres (compared to the 2275m-range against planes that the Szyłka has). This means that, while it can't be harmed by SEAD, the Sopel most certainly can be harmed by air-launched AT missiles and bombs, especially of the laser-guided variety. This isn't such a problem if the commander remembers to back up their air defence grid with Newas (wheeled or tracked) - significantly more so if the enemy shows up with an AH-64D Longbow, which can handily outrange the Sopel and will almost certainly kill it in the first missile volley.
Weapons
Red Dragon
| Weapons | 
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Twin Autocannon | SAM | No Weapon |
| Name | ZU-23-2 | Grom | |
| Caliber | 23mm [AoE] | Infrared [AoE][F&F] | |
| Ammo | x 1200 | x 8 | |
| Range | Ground = 1050 m Helicopters = 2625 m  Airplanes = 1750 m
|
Ground = N/A m Helicopters = 2625 m Airplanes = 2100 m
|
|
| Accuracy | 25% | 60% | |
| Stabilizer | 15% | 60% | |
| AP Power | N/A | N/A | |
| HE Power | 1 | 4 | |
| Suppression | 92 | 160 | |
| Rate of fire | 472 r/min | 10s r/min |
| |||||
