The USS Douglass is a missile ship with 14 kilometers of range. It is a low battle rating coastal vessel that can completely change the outcome of battles if used correctly, when even pitted against players several tiers above it.
The ship is so small that the current mechanics of the game allow the ship to unrender and become completely immune to enemy targeting because of it’s size. This is unfair as it is.
The weapons of the ship can ammo rack vessels of large size with precision, consistently, and without too much training.
The missiles also somehow seem to be both proximity, and impact, so which is it?
Then to top this all off, the ship can sit on capture points and rapidly reload, and indiscriminately fire upon enemies from distances they cannot even see the assailant firing at them, because of the unrendering.
This boat is simultaneously capeable of completely denying any enemy CAS, or even strategic bombers high altitude, and heavily armoured ships at a distance alike, because of it’s incredible range and ability to fire both proxy and impact.
Why is it such a low BR? Is it not possible to increase the BR of coastal ships in Bluewater battles, like planes and helicopters already have been?
This boat singlehandedly ruins the entire EC experience, to an already aneamic game mode, where the few players who genuinely enjoy ships already are having the hardest time enjoying themselves anymore because of poor decsion making and unfair ships being added without being checked, or straight up using illigitmate figures and data.
My very first real (after the 10 against bots) game on this account, I played to unlock naval and got jump-scared by having my little reserve I-15 blown up in the spawn by a SAM from a Douglass. My first thought was, “Yep, this is the WT I remember”. lol
The Doug is just emblematic of how the different trees BR ratings don’t mesh well.
Douglas is entirely reliant on its measly 4 missiles, having only 3.0 guns and performance to back them up. It used to be a real pain when it had infinite reloads in NAB but now it has to find a cap to sit in which makes it a mighty fine target. In the few maps with large mooring/reload areas it’s more useful, but these are generally higher BR and very open to return fire.
The worst part is that the real Douglas had no post launch guidance as she was modified to test the small ship open launcher concept not the fire control. Gaijins Douglas+SACLOS system is entirely fictional. Also because they used anti-radiation seekers they would be useless against anything without radar. Essentially the ship is real, however it’s functionality is anything but.
The douglas, like the Bravy and the other missile ships, cannot kill anything above destroyers even with attempts at magazine sniping with missiles unless it’s some god awful light cruiser with an exposed magazine.
Hell, some destroyers are resistant to missiles.
It’s annoying in EC, yes, but it’s not particularly gamebreaking.
The problem begins when people start Jing out after launching the missiles to respawn another one.
You do get that Ships have EMCON restrictions for a reason. Also the Seeker of the RGM-66D are Anti-Radiation, not Anti-Radar. So any Radio reflection that emits in a pretty large range could be targeted Surface targets included as NLOS with sufficient data since they can accept Inertial launch constraints by feeding forward info to the onboard Triangulation runout leg in order to set up its proper Terminal interception profile common to the ST-ARM and HARM.
It’s an open question though as to if it could have picked up on the reflections from the AN/SPG-34 (The Mark 33. 3"/50 Gun’s FCR (Mk 63 FCS) which is clearly retained in the below image) spotlighting a target which has some channels (SPG-34 excerpt above specifies that the Bandwidth is 5.2 though 10.9Ghz) that are within the specified detection band of the Stripline seeker (see below excerpt from ADA486715).
Alternately it could be swapped out for either of its sisters, USS Ready (PG-87) or Antelope (PG-86) and receive the Mk 87 FCS (Derived from the Mark 86 FCS, uses the AN/SPG-60 FCR) which would absolutely be capable of providing Guidance commands to Standard missiles via their Command Datalink.
Yes, but replacing it with with the actual SARH mode isn’t too much of a priority, and really won’t be that much of a downgrade in S2A performance, S2S certainly would take a hit.
In real life there was no SARH mode. The missiles were AGM-78 Standard ARM rather than the RIM-24A portrayed in game. Douglas couldn’t have controlled them without a suitable FCS so using the fire n forget 78s as a substitute made sense at the time.
But it’s irrelevant in game so late in the day. Gaijins not going to change it, and I can’t see them withdrawing it from sale. It got nerfed heavily with its infinite reload removed and it’s likely y that will be it.
Can the SPG-34 not track a surface target for some reason? Even if it was fired in a LOAL mode it’s still a massive source of reflected energy in the bandwidth of the Seeker.
I’ve done ENCOM in real life. Anti-Radiation missiles generally home on Radar only, not on radio or other sources. The majority of RF emission control is about countering ESM as a basic stealth measure and not allowing ships company to give away their position by phoning their mothers (I worked with the Sneaky Beakies and Phone intercepts are a common ways to direction find).
This isn’t solely relegated to radar, but incudes some (omni-) directional datalinks as well, if they are active for long enough to get the intercept’s baseline set up.
Absolutely, Since ~2006 with the introduction of Rev 7 of the HTS (ALQ-213) pods its been enough to get a JDAM (or worse, anything that can take GPS co-ordinates, or a Link-16 cue in short order) put within a few feet of you solely relying on the passive emissions.
ARM seeker heads have limited frequency detection, early ones such as in particular could only listen in on single bands. Whilst ESM might pick up data links it’s highly unlikely a missile seeker would as operational Radio and Radar frequencies rarely overlap (for practical reasons, and because it can get technically messy) . You can home quite easily on Radio RF, but the kit required is usually larger than what would fit in a seeker head.
most of these missile ships go for planes - its so annyoing beeing shot by a guided missile in my ww2 plane just 10 seconds after spawning. Totally nonsense! You find the douglas very often behind islands lurking for air targets.
This was solved with the ERASE program, and implemented with the Shrike "-10"s introduction(~ mid - Late '60s) of the broadband “Stripline” seeker common to the Digital (AGM-78B and later variants) of ST-ARM, of which the RGM-66D is derived. Provided coverage of S,C & X band (NATO E though I band), so did include some contemporary GCI links, knocking a hub or repeater offline could have a significant impact on the ability for interceptors & air defenses to respond to a strike package especially when using Soviet style, closely managed intercept doctrine.
What else is it supposed to do though? A single 200RPM 76mm and a Bofors, doesn’t make engaging surface combatants easy, if they have anything more substantial than a .50 considering the exposed first stage ammo on the foredeck and complete lack of armored plating its practically a certainty that it will get ammo racked upon taking fire.
sure - but its too op for planes in this BR - one might dodge some missiles but usually in a plane one is focussed on naval targets not on incoming missiles… same for Bravy Saetta and charles adams/lütjens
