Dreadnought (Red Alert 2)

	For the Red Alert 3 Dreadnought, see Dreadnought (Red Alert 3).

Dreadnought
Unit
Internal ID	DRED
Faction	Soviet Union
Role	Heavy bombardment ship
Armament	Twin V3 missile launchers
Tier	3
Tech level	6
Properties
Hit points	800
Armor type	Heavy
Production
Cost	$2000
Build time	1:20
Produced by	Soviet naval shipyard
Requires	Soviet battle lab
Combat
Ground attack	50 (Special)
Cooldown	50
Sea speed	4
Attack range	25 (minimum 8)
Sight range	7
Function
Elite upgrade	Increased strength, firepower, rate of fire, self-healing

The dreadnought is a Soviet heavy bomebardment ship in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge.

Background

This massive ship carries twin cruise missiles which reload faster than conventional land-based V3s. It is intended as a naval siege unit, beside a floating command center. This gives them the equal role as the Allied Aircraft Carrier and the Yuri Boomer submarine. Dreadnoughts have thick armour and can inflict greater damage than Aircraft carriers, but with reduced accuracy and range.

Deployment history

A close-up picture taken of the V3 Launchers

Dreadnoughts played a major role in the initial invasion of the United States. They were used along with V3 Launchers to bombard costal military bases and significant portions of New York City before the eyes of the Allied Commander and Tanya as they moved around New York City to defend it. Tanya quickly retaliated by sinking the Soviet Dreadnoughts in the harbor with C4 charges. They were also notoriously used in an attempt to demolish the Statue of Liberty, which was ironically accomplished by their land-based brethren, the V3 launchers. Other major battles in which Dreadnoughts played a significant role in were the Battle of Hawaii and the Invasion of Florida.

General Vladimir is known to use a specially upgraded Dreadnought. This type of Dreadnought stands taller than the original design and sports more communication devices. The ship was utilized as his command center before he moved inland (to the White House). Apart from its appearance and minor armour upgrades, this type of Dreadnought is not different from the base ship.

Aftermath

In the new timeline created by Cherdenko, the Dreadnought was redesigned and was upgraded with abilities to either increased rate of fire or its missiles cannot be shot down.

Game unit

The Dreadnought has little ability to defend itself from other ships and would fall to Allied Destroyers if not protected. Despite their heavy armor, they are still vulnerable to air strikes and coastal defenses should the Dreadnought venture close to shore. If there is a lot of anti-air defenses, its missiles can be shot down before they hit. The Dreadnought can, however, effectively attack ships (especially heavy ones like Aircraft Carriers or rogue Dreadnoughts). When destroyed, the missile may inflict damage in the area below it (a sign that the missiles are armed with a large fuel-air explosive).

In addition, the Dreadnought is also vulnerable to giant squids' entanglement. The Dreadnought's mass makes it hard to maneuver the waters.

Appearances

• In the Soviet campaign of Red Alert 2, Dreadnoughts are first available to the player in the mission Sub-Divide. They are not buildable in subsequent missions until Weathered Alliance, as the player has no access to naval units during those missions.

AI behavior

Dreadnoughts controlled by the AI have the following attack patterns:

Medium/Hard

• 1x targeting production structures, accompanied by 2 Sea Scorpions and 1 Giant Squid

Changelog

• Red Alert 2 patch 1.004: dreadnoughts can now break bridges with missiles.

Quotes

When selected

• Ship reporting.
• Vessel ready.
• Yes, commander?

When moving

• Captain confirming.
• Course set.
• Navigating!
• Engines engaged.

When ordered to attack

• Target sighted!
• Fire at will!
• Cruise and fire!

Gallery

• 

  Early concept art

• 

  Dreadnought in the install screen

• 

  Installer slide

• 

  Voxel

• 

  Dreadnought in New York harbor (in-progress intro render)

• 

  Alpha appearance

Cameos

English and German versions share the same cameos.

English	French	Korean	Chinese

Pre-release cameos, in order: alpha, beta.

Trivia

• In real life, the dreadnought refers to a generation of battleships that were largely in service during World War I. Many of them also survived to see service in World War II. They were large caliber gun capital ships. As well, the Soviet Navy did use a class of large cruise missile-armed warship known as the Kirov class heavy atomic cruiser. They are still used by the Russian Navy today, although only one is active and three of them are in refit. Furthermore, the Soviet Navy once designed the Project 1080 missile cruiser, armed with 200 R-17 Elbrus missiles (also known as the SS-1 Scud-B). The project, developed in the 1970s, intended to create a ship that could effectively support amphibious operations by tactical strikes against ground targets at a distance of 500 km. The concept of this cruiser is almost identical to the concept of the in-game Dreadnought.
• Cutscenes shows this ship being armed with tactical ballistic missile, however, their in-game behaviour indicates they are more akin to subsonic cruise missiles.
• On the illustrations, dreadnoughts are also equipped with smaller cruise missile launchers ahead of the main - probably anti-aircraft or anti-submarine - but they aren't used in the game.
• The Dreadnought's lines are used by most Soviet naval units in the original Red Alert 2 (same for the Allied Destroyer's case).
• Early artwork for Red Alert 2 depicted the Dreadnought as being armed with a set of large triple-barrel gun turrets, similar in design to real-life battleships (and in turn, the old Allied Cruiser). This was possibly in reference to the planned Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleships in real life (which would have been fast battleships and not dreadnoughts). The idea was scrapped, likely because the Red Alert 2 engine could not handle more than one turret.
• It is possible that the Dreadnought is actually based on Vladimir's Dreadnought, rather than the opposite way around, because during Sub-Divide the ship is regarded as "the new Soviet Dreadnought", but Vladimir's ship is seen during Hostile Shore, a previous mission to Sub-Divide. However, regular Dreadnoughts are seen during the first Allied mission, Lone Guardian, and are in-fact the very first targets that the player destroys. It is possible that the development of the Dreadnought was faster during the Allied campaign and slower in the Soviet one.
• Luckily, unlike V3 Rocket Launchers, when a Dreadnought's rockets are destroyed in the air, it can possibly damage or kill aerial units nearby via its airborne explosions (even more powerful if elite). This can be used as an unconventional (or accidental) air unit deterrent, though this can only be done by enemies with anti-air, such as Rocketeers.
• In Brain Dead , if the player uses Dreadnought to attack enemy structures near the cliff, rockets tend to miss and either hit the cliff or explode on locations much farther inland. In rare cases, rockets may even reach the southern end of the map.
• If the dreadnought is sunk while the missiles are still on board, the missiles will vanish.
  • This happens because the game uses the DREDWO.vxl (the unloaded unit voxel) instead of the DRED.vxl (loaded unit voxel) when sinking.
• Boomer's, Dreadnought's and V3 rocket launcher's missiles are not regular game Projectiles, they're actually just suicide-AircraftTypes fired at the target and spawned by their units much like Hornets and Ospreys are spawned by Aircraft Carriers and Destroyers; only difference is those last two are set to return to their spawners, the missiles aren't.
  • This is the reason why Boomer, the Dreadnought and the V3 rocket launcher' missiles can be shot down, unlike other projectiles fired by units (including LimboLaunch-ed units like Attack Dogs, Terror Drones and Giant Squids) which can't be touched even with Nukes as the Westwood C&C engine has no mechanics in place to allow interception or destruction of actual Projectiles, although that logic is added in the fan-made engine extension Phobos DLL.

See also

• Aircraft carrier, Allied counterpart
• Boomer, Yuri counterpart