Gunsips useless?!?
Sure depends on strategy. I go for war. I start war with one AI, finish him fast, no ceasfire. then prepare well and take next AI. I must be fast, beacuse war gives unhappy faces over time and that cripples economy more than raiding enemy - since it happens in all citys parallel. to make war finish fast, you must take citys fast, including big citys and small citys. also remember that liberated citys have this "we want to join our motherland"
so taking a small citys fast is not easy - tanks not speaking artilerry are not so fast movers, so I send just one tank per city, rest is done by plains/ships and gunsips. Three tanks start to three small citys one to each, while stack of gunships manage to make a single full round. at this point arts have reached big city, with some infant protection, and surviving gunships are just getting there after arts have done with defenses. city per turn or city per two turns is a must rule. sometimes I sacrifice several units juts to take city 1 single turn faster.
also gunsips can well defend against enemy in field, and return in same turn to mobile healing base (a square with medic) to get healed fast. tanks and others are hard to consolidate for healing, thus their use is limited in blicwar.
as mentioned, gunsips are ultracool with airforce support - bombers and fighters weaked city defenses or enemy stacks, gunships finish off. a 3 star gunship with blicz (you should have them a lot, assumung cossaks rulll) can do like 4 attacks per round. so - 2 or more bombers do attack (not bomb!), that leads to a full stack of crippled units, and few most powerful and dangerous are seriously crippled, and then just 2-4 gunsips can take the stack out - all in one single turn. this leads to eleminated stack or taken town in one turn (need some tank for town), and seriously injured gunsips. have spare time? one gunsip attack per turn, retreat one square back, repeat on next turn after bombers again. leads to eleminated stack/town in 2 turns and little injured gunships.
I see it like this - a plain + a gunship is equil to two tanks combatvise - can do colletarial, can kill units, similar rate/results. sure not identical, tank cannot bombard, gunship cannot ocupy, tanks probably still bit stronger. but gunships move 4 tiles turn, tanks move just 1.5 avarage (mind rivers, hills etc). thus all in total with gunsips the liberation of country goes more than 2 times faster.
some AI with evil dictator and mass destruction ability (since I finished that project..) has 10 citys. with mostly gunship +some plains + 10 tanks army I can finish him in 15-20 turns. with tanks only it would take 30-40 turns, assuming movement penalty. in those 20 extra turns he builds extra 20 units (assuming, some math on remaining citys can be done), that adds few more turns just to kill those new units.
thus gunsip adds major strategic option for blic war in its timeframe, thats clear. blic war is best conguest/domination strategy assuming CIV4 design and balance - thats my opinion. there are people taking one city, signing peace, getting backstabbed and so on. probbaly they know their way and probbaly its wery good, dont know. If you have thise cossaks waiting to be upgraded - go for some AI in fast and sure war.