Dreadnought (Red Alert 3)

"If Lenin could see us now..."

- Dreadnought captain, reminiscencing the good old days

The Dreadnought is the heaviest and most powerful battleship used by the Soviet Union in Red Alert 3.

Overview
This vessel is armed with 3 separate V4 missile launchers which fire volleys at enemy installations and units from a long range. The other naval vessels comparable in strength and range are the Allied Aircraft Carriers and the Imperial Shogun Battleships.

The Dreadnought lacks anti-aircraft capabilities and has little ability to defend itself from other units should they get close enough to attack. However, if used carefully, Dreadnoughts can devastate formations of enemy heavy ships at long range.

On a one-on-one basis, they are the weakest of the three siege ships; they are slower, do lesser damage per second, and have a lower damage handling capacity. Like the other siege ships, it is best used with an escort of anti-air and naval battle ships, such as the Bullfrog and Akula submarine. The V4 is, however, better capable at tracking targets than the Sky knight UCAV of the Allied Carrier or the Shirada Cannon of the Shogun Battleship.

The mechanisms of the Dreadnought can be overloaded by captains, increasing the rate of fire, but leading to severe mechanical and electrical damage in the process.

Usage
"I know why you're here. You want my Dreadnoughts, huh? Well I don't blame you, they're quite powerful."

- Nikolai Moskvin

In the Allied Perspective of WWIII, Soviet General Krukov used the new Dreadnoughts to attack the beach Giles and his Allied Commander were protecting, but ended up being sunk by the Century Bombers and coastal guns. In Operation "The Shark and the Lure", Special Agent Tanya drew the escorting Akula subs away from the Dreadnoughts into her trap, sinking them prematurely. While working with the Allies in the North Sea against the Empire of the Rising Sun, they also help destroy the Black Tortoise. Once the Empire was defeated, the Dreadnoughts later on protected Havana and Leningrad.

In the Imperial Campaign they appear as powerful foes. Especially in the mission "Barbarians at the Bay" where Soviet General Krukov and Allied commander Lissette Hanley sent Aircraft Carriers and Dreadnoughts to blow up Yuriko and Shinzo but were sunk.

In the USSR Perspective of the War, two of these new Dreadnoughts were deployed into battle in order to assist Zhana in taking back Vladivostok, recently seized by Imperial forces, once more playing a major role in the War. In the final operation, 4 Dreadnoughts attacked the Statue of Liberty again, only to end up being sunk by Tanya in retaliation, again.

History
"Stand together and fight comrades!"

- Dreadnought

The Dreadnought has served in the Soviet navy for a long time, well before the first V4 Molot (Hammer) missile destroyed its first target in Siberia. An imposing hulk of a ship, its massive size was chosen by Master Shipwright Sergei Kondakov to be the basis for a next generation naval artillery battleship.

Even with such a large ship, fitting the launch mechanism onto the ship was a daunting task. Every deck had to be reconfigured to accommodate the launchers, missile delivery lines and stores. The cuts included reducing the size of the living quarters and eliminaing an auxiliary toilet (thus earning the ship several unfavourable nicknames among Soviet sailors). However, they eventually managed to complete their task and the first battle-ready missile-armed Dreadnoughts entered service.

Kondakov didn't consider it a full success, however - the ship has to come to a full stop before launching a volley. So, to counter this, Kondakov reverse engineered the jet propulsion of the MiG figters, redesigned it to use a steam-based thrust mechanism and created a system of precise shock absorption that counteracts the kickback of the V4 Molot.