Since then Refractors have become standard issue for any assault on an entrenched Nod position. The tide was turned, and the pilots safely evacuated. They dropped their front shields and rushed ahead, blasting away at the Nod installation with intense beam fire. Before long the Obelisks were destroyed, and the Refractors seized the moment. The Obelisks opened fire, but the Refractor's laser-reflecting shields bounced the beams directly back at their sources. The winds died down before the Engineers had finished their work, revealing the position of the GDI extraction team. Quick thinking GDI commanders deployed four Refractors to create a wall, shielding the half-buried Orcas from the Obelisks while Engineers extracted the pilots. They were doomed to be buried alive if the storm persisted, or fried by the dreaded laser-towers if the storm abated and revealed their position. The pilots were stranded in zero visibility as the sand began to bury them within range of a line of Obelisks of Light. Several Orcas were brought down during a severe dust storm during an assault on a Nod position at the Battle of Gerlach Flats, where the prototype Refractors were initially fielded. The Refractor's first trial by fire was and immediate success. For the first time, GDI was able to field a heavy vehicle that could assault the iconic Obelisk of Light without incurring severe damage. The new design replaced the Mammoth's signature dual-cannon with a thick laser-resistant shield and a heavy ion cannon style laser of its own. The Refractor was developed to create a shield specifically tuned to counteracting the penetrating qualities of heavy laser weapons. Mammoth tanks provided excellent fire support, but remained vulnerable to the same laser weapons which already were so well suited to piercing the Crawler's skin.

Escorts became crucial, protecting the Crawler as though it was a naval flag ship. Despite its thick armor, it is a slow moving, large target for Nod's hit and run strike teams. GDI Central Command was forced to develop entire strategies around the Crawler once it took the field.

Beam weapons are especially effective at penetrating thick armor, making them strategically crucial in a combat environment full of heavy, slow, thick-skinned crawlers.

Kane altered the field of battle forever when he unleashed his terrifying Obelisk of Light in the first conflicts between Nod and GDI, but it took decades to develop power supplies strong enough to sustain heavy beam weapons on mobile platforms. If there is one defining characteristic that distinguishes the battlefields of the previous Tiberium Wars from the war zones of today, it is the ubiquitous presence of beam weapons.

Mammoth tank command and conquer