Original subtitles

Warships of the ultimate symbol of a nation's military might.

These things are monstrous.

One does of technology.

Enormous vessels crewed by thousands bristling

with massive guns and powerful aircraft

they can deliver terrifying this structure and turn the tide of history.

The chef are built to win the war.

There was no other reason.

From the beginning of the twentieth century

to the present day.

These are the stories of classic warships.

From dreadnoughts to baseball.

To Japan months monster see warrior yamato.

The American super ships Wisconsin Lexington and enterprise

to today's cutting edge royal Navy carriers is.

These are the world's greatest warships.

On September the second nineteen forty five.

Officers of the Japanese high command boarded a mighty American battleship to

officially surrender to the allies.

Is my honest.

Run this solemn occasion.

A better world.

Shalimar a job with a bloody carnage of a pie.

Ceremony took place on board and Iowa class battleship.

A huge floating fortress and fitting theater

to end the bloodiest war in human history.

In a war that saw the rise and fall of the greatest warships the world would ever see.

Bristling leviathans capable of brutal violence but also

facing a fight for survival from a new deadly threat.

These

with a giant battleships of world war two.

Template for these ships of the nineteen forties

was laid down decades earlier before world war one.

With the revolutionary hms dreadnoughts

nineteen o six.

Fifteen years of non-stop arms race and then the war

itself resulted in huge fleets of these warriors ships.

It's the first world war comes to an end

dreadnought battleships are still the currency

by wage nations measure their power and prestige.

The cost of having serious naval status

was crippling already weak post-war economies.

Something has to be done.

All the main naval powers.

The united states great britain and.

Japan France and Italy are invited to Washington for a conference

and the treaty that re results from that

puts a cap on naval spending a naval allocation for all the signatory palace.

You get arms limitation to try and.

Reduce the number of battleships the size of battleships.

And the capacity and capability of battleships.

A ten year hiatus on battleship building was also agreed.

Plus a maximum weight of thirty five thousand tons.

So when building started again in the mid nineteen thirties.

Battleship designers were confronted with a dizzying array of challenges.

A battleship as a compromise between three primary factors

that gunnery

armor protection and it's propulsion system.

Naval author Mark steel is an expert on battleship specifications.

The Washington naval treaty was an effect for most of

the nineteen thirties up until nineteen thirty seven

and without thirty five thousand and to limit it was very hard

to build a balance ship with heavy firepower.

Good protection and a high speed

you can never fit all of these systems of bought a single hole

to the degree that you might like.

What everyone's doing is looking for innovative ways.

Of trying to keep within treating them as.

By the same time give your ship the biggest punch you can.

The punch came from guns that by the late thirties were more powerful

than ever.

So what you're looking at here is a fourteen inch naval gun this is

almost as big as guns get in the royal Navy

this can fire shell that is a white a small car.

So that's what naval warfare is his playing time their hurling

basically vw beetles across the say at each other

and twenty two miles range

so they're firing over the horizon they're firing much further from you can see.

For its newest battleship.

The royal Navy wanted ten of these guns on board

but unless turrets to keep the weight down.

So to of the turrets would need to house an unprecedented for guns.

Hms king George the fifth.

An age thirty five thousand.

Island.

Ten fourteen inch guns.

Sixteen five point full

fourteen inch guns in one target.

Now

that is an interesting concept he saves a huge amounts of weight usually have

two guns per turrets hey you're saving.

Face the two hundred and fifty tons of stay away from the turrets alone.

It was a very very clever and inventive way

of trying to solve a very difficult problem.

They were accustomed to building twin gun turrets.

They built the triple turrets arrangement

but they'd never tried to quadruple before.

With the king George the fifth class the British though they build the best wash it

possible and the treaty restrictions.

The Navy begins to take proper shape.

And beyond but not everyone was playing by the rules

of an active to be widened.

Hitler's Nazi party had risen to power pledging to rebuild Germany military might.

It already defiantly tone of the hate the versailles treaty which are strict to

Germany to a tiny coastal patrol Navy.

Now

on the Eve of world war two.

The launch of Bismarck makes a powerful statement.

Be small it wasn't only in military weapon was also a status symbol indicating.

The re gaining of German see power.

Also a symbol for German technological achievements.

Hitler had agreed with britain to stick to the Washington treaty maximum tonnage.

Thirty five thousand tons of Germans deal is

launched in the presence of the pharaoh himself

the truth was.

Bismarck weighed over forty one thousand tons.

They cheat engine their ship sizes that extra six thousand tons.

Is translated into quite a load of extra military valley.

Bismarck was one quarter of a kilometer long.

Thirty six meters across her been.

As wide as an eight Lane motorway.

She was crewed by of two thousand men.

Steam turbines drove three huge screws giving the Bismarck of thirty not until the

speed and a cruising range of over sixteen thousand kilometers.

The eight thirty eight centimeters guns could fly their

shells over nineteen kilometers with deadly accuracy.

A thick belt of rock hard on protected her waterline

turrets and magazines.

Bismarck was quite simply the most advanced

most fearsome ship ever built.

Is now Hitler could unleash his rule-breaking secret weapon on the Atlantic convoys.

Britain's wartime the lifeline.

I.

I may nineteen forty one.

German armies controlled half of scandinavia

north Africa most of Europe.

But not brit.

After the refs

held his efforts sporting his plans to invade.

Hitler knew he was still defeat britain to win the war.

He focused on its achilles heel.

The vulnerable but crucial Atlantic convoys.

Or new that britain was dependent vast amounts of or supplies coming from america.

And also coming from the British empire up around Africa.

Into

britain.

The German Navy employed her vessels not in a vain see battle in the north sea.

Bot against the British lines of communication

because these have been.

Identified as the week strategic point

of britain.

German naval command made a bold decision.

Bismarck along with only the a heavy cruiser a support was tasked to attack

allied shipping.

As from its main base scapa flow in Scotland.

The royal Navy still controlled the north sea.

So Bismarck's naked along the coast of Norway and past Iceland.

Where it could get the vulnerable convoys shuttling between britain and america.

Now those convoys a perfectly structured

to protect

the merchant ships

from submarines what you want to do when you have a submarine threat is put all your

merchant ships together and surrounded by

smaller ships that can sink submarines.

Jumped on.

The only time that job is done as if a battleship cats among st them because of

battleship can sync any one of those the classical so long range

and then Polish off

every merchant ship

firing its main guns at a range of twenty two miles.

As Bismarck set sail

her captain and lindeman was in optimistic mood.

I have their contacting feeling that

this ship will be able to accomplish animation designed to me.

Where for the first time in years or ship most fighting qualities.

I at least a match for and the enemy.

At this moment succeeded

got into a convoy and sunk a dozen ships.

And then got home safely that would have been something.

Real problems dealing with.

Like Hitler.

Winston Churchill new the stakes were high.

Britain could not lose what he called this

battle of the Atlantic.

Without victory he said.

There is no survive.

Next Bismarck made her dash for the Atlantic past Iceland.

He or she was detected by British patrols.

Realizing this may be their only chance to capture.

Hms prince of wales a brand new king George the

fifth class battleship was ordered to set sail.

Prince of wales.

Was still being finished off in scapa flow

there were a civilian

engineers on the ship finishing off its guns

but it was dispatched straightaway to go in

search for the Bismarck.

Andrew chung this curator of the ship's plans

archive at the royal maritime museum in greenwich.

These ones top secret sketches compare Bismarck's designed

to the design of the hms king George the fifth class.

What the admiralty was extremely keen to know was how Bismarck compare pads to the

king George the fifth class battleships which of

course I'll most modern battleships at the time

what we're looking at is a very basic general arrangement drawing of the two ships

what is really remarkable about the two ships is not the difference is between them

but how incredibly similar they both are in terms of the weight of

offensive power they both kerry.

But with an extra and illicit six thousand tons to play with

Bismarck's designers have been able to build in a clear advantage.

Bismarck is a much wider ship then the king George the fifth.

This is what allowed the Germans to build and

significantly more water tight compartmentalization

and this made the ship not only a better and more stable gun platform but also made

her that much harder to flood and therefore sink.

On may twenty fourth nineteen forty one

the prince of wales along with post-world war one battle cruiser hms hood.

Caught up with Bismarck.

Hood was britain's largest warship.

She was fast

lightly armoured and a soft target for Bismarck.

Artillery

and a level of training offer a gun crews was excellent so only shortly after.

Bismarck had started to fire at hms hood.

The first shells hit.

Bismarck's huge shells had penetrated

dec igniting the after magazine where ammunition with explosives were stored.

Sailor on board the prince of wales witness to see.

Hold of the our ship with embedded in a flash of blame

my.

Which wrote high into the air in the shape of a giant matter.

Older made to pop or better record with a vicar of blame it.

On the water surface.

There was no time to abandon her.

Out of hoods crew of one thousand four hundred and eighteen.

Only three survived.

Brand new prince of wales had made a poor showing to.

A revolutionary full gun turrets proving highly unreliable.

Quite often the quadruple tolerates.

Didn't work.

I

There are gaps in the operating of the fourteen inch TV.

Despite failings.

One shell landed at telling blood.

Since the wheels managed to strike Bismarck

up near the by which.

The ability to get independent thousand tons of fuel oil.

From the Botox tanks.

Those heads.

Ended Bismarck's sortie into Atlantic and the decision was made

to run down towards the plans

to try and get repaired.

Bismarck was on the run

and her commander

admiral logins new the royal Navy would be out for revenge.

Taman of the battleship Bismarck.

You have covered yourself with glory

the shrinking off their better crews out.

As not only military but psychological value.

For she was the pride of great britain.

Henceforth

the enemy will try to concentrate tasteful false us

and bring them interact action against us.

Been up that by flying boat.

Come on.

Which will echo done the put it all the time.

Almost everything the royal Navy has will float

is put into the Atlantic to try and find Bismarck.

That many assets looking for base Mark.

It's very hard for her to get away.

She was leaving and altria behind her she went

which would make it easier for her to be located.

Eventually

she was attacked by British swordfish to beaumont

these old fashion

by planes came in and eighty miles an hour.

Drop their torpedoes.

One so fish torpedo disabled Bismarck's rudder.

Locking her into a tight to.

With his ship now a sitting duck.

Luncheon sense a defiant final message to his superiors.

Shape.

Unable to manoeuvre.

What about fight to the last child.

Decisive blow it comes at the end bulk of the hopefully

she's up with a and she is pummeled from long range.

By British battleships.

Hms king George the fifth

sister ship of the prince of wales

was one of the first on the see.

Have full them to what better

and along with hms Rodney

they scored hundreds of hits on the stricken battleship.

Even Bismarck's formidable lama could only take so much.

A British eyewitness recalled.

Considering the punishment she had received already.

She fought back inefficiently.

On one can but admire the courage.

Of those man.

Passed within a couple of miles of her.

Just as she sank

at eleven hundred hours.

By then.

She was just a smoking crack.

At neighbor but that but I've ended up

about eight in oh.

At home in britain.

The sinking is a huge boost for flagging me wrong.

And the find up can get.

You get.

Taken as for Germany the losses also profound.

The basement the most cherished as.

The blossom off.

German shipbuilding technology a powerful ship.

The largest ship afloat

almost unthinkable and now this vessel is lost

and this is of course a massive psychological setback.

Loss of Bismarck had a profound effect upon.

Hitler's strategic thinking via via his Navy.

He.

Felt very keenly the loss of prestige.

That had resulted from this mission which to be

honest had been a really bad idea in the first place.

Adolf Hitler really has very very little interest in Navy's famously said at one

point to have on land am a heroin see am a coward.

At the decided his u-boats could take care of

the Atlantic convoys from beneath the waves.

Next month he turned back to what he knew best.

Fighting online and.

In June nineteen forty one.

Hitler or the invasion of the Soviet union.

Within four months his armies were at the door to Moscow.

The Soviets needed how.

UK s and britain started to send convoys of ships loaded

with crucial supplies of bombs equipment and food

from Scotland by the freezing northern ocean to the northern sea ports of rush.

Cowboys were getting through

and Hitler find his armies fighting Soviets in American trucks

Canadian tanks and British aircraft.

He needed an effective weapon to try and stop

the components.

Therapists launched in nineteen forty one

was slightly bigger and faster than Bismarck.

She was hit the last great battleship.

She would not follow in her sisters wake.

He doesn't want to risk another prestige ship.

On an operation that would probably only result in its destruction.

It results in tirpitz being sent to the relative security of the Norwegian fjords

and we see a very interesting reversion almost the first world war naval thinking.

I have this incredibly powerful warship

but we dare not use it in case we lose it.

By parking his last great battleship and a fjord

Hitler had stumbled upon a way to make tirpitz very effective

without risking her etsy.

I.

Beheld Norway had a paralyzing effect on the British.

Admit that the British had to keep the number of the heavy ships.

In scapa flow.

As a direct the tenant to the

is coming here.

The beneficiaries with the Japanese

because the British had to have to fleet carriers and three battleships.

Tied up in scapa flow

watching tirpitz when they would desperately needed in the far east.

War was still in the balance and Churchill wanted to it sunk.

It would take the best minds and bravest man two years to do.

Most beat on.

Sinking of the tirpitz.

Would be a new victory

the destroy action of this

last great visible symbol.

Of German see power.

June nineteen forty two.

It was Jack jackboot was still firmly on Europe's throat.

Is u-boats were wreaking havoc in the Atlantic.

But what was left of his surface Navy

was deployed with great care.

Tirpitz sculpt in the fjords of Norway.

Menacing the convoys that supplied the Soviets

as they pushed back against the German invaders.

Churchill in the admiralty feared the damage a

rampaging tirpitz could inflict on these convoys.

One was unlucky enough to be at see when a message

that tirpitz was on the move was intercepted.

A protective esco was sent to into set to.

Leaving the convoy defenseless against u-boats and the no fathom.

Threat of tirpitz coming out was enough for them

to order the scattering of convoy pq seventeen

with the result that that's a convoy was slaughtered.

The.

Great irony being that tirpitz hadn't even really salty to tall to come after the

convoy but it illustrates the the the fear which the

presence of their ship and genders in British naval mines.

So again you see this wolf and the function

of of capital ships of of huge battleships.

As symbols of power.

Tirpitz induced panic and caused the loss of twenty four out of thirty five ships.

Churchill's obsession with attacking and destroying

the ship he called the beast intensified.

A location was known

but getting a tirpitz was at different matter.

She was very well protected

floating in a kind of of cage

with a kind of steel nets around to protecting her against.

Attacks from u-boats or submarines.

It was a huge a number of anti after of batteries around

in addition to her own considerable.

Anti aircraft armament.

And.

They had also devices to to set up kind of artificial.

Mr or a fork just to

to cover the vessel from from air attack.

Even if all this was overcome.

Tirpitz had a formidable last line of defense.

So well I'm sat on here

is a pace of solid crop stale fourteen inches thick

and this is part of the main on about from the German battleship tirpitz.

When you build a battleship you can't Alma the entire

thing it would be so heavy it would sink like a stone

so will you can do is pick the most important parts of the ship and protect them.

So this belt was designed to run for hundreds of fate along the side of the shape

and that's there to protect

the engines the boilers.

The ammunition magazines and the shell rooms

this is basically the tirpitz is coated on.

Doesn't attacks by aircraft from carriers

long range bombers had made a little impact

but.

Like all battleships.

Tirpitz had a soft underbelly.

It was this lightly armoured lower a whole

will be targeted next to.

Say you see attacks by x craft miniature submarines which

can sneak in through the defenses without anyone seeing

and plant charge is underneath tirpitz

and the the compatible

kind of

and damage a hull and that that works fairly well but doesn't sink the ship.

With turpin soon the fully operational once again

the British come on turned to a man knew how to

track record of destroying hard to hit targets.

Bonds Wallace was the man behind the dumb-ass think bouncing ballrooms that had caused

havoc in Germany's industrial heartland.

A and Murray is an expert on his work.

Mountains Wallace's as up the best petition of

into something that that of the twentieth century.

He had such unusual ideas.

Many of which were proven to work successfully.

To destroy tirpitz.

Wallace initially adopted his dumb-ass to gone to attack a ship's hull.

He called his idea.

Highball.

The workshops at Portsmouth historic dockyard have painstakingly restored a highball

that he and his team retrieved from locks driven in Scotland.

It was here bombing runs were practice by specialist

pilots and aircraft in preparation for an attack on to.

Mosquito was a small bomber but had new armament.

Extremely fast.

Squadron all probably night kind.

Of those aircraft with a fluent up the fiord

drop at at the correct distance so the the

would have.

Skip then.

Hit the.

Fake armor on the side of the.

Ship.

But it wouldn't have exploded they are it would

have continued to spin and it would have ruled dive in underneath the keel of the

ship we the the steel was orderly.

Probably an inch or two at the most

and it would have detonated they are had.

In a large hole in the bottom of the shit.

That was all good in theory

but the Germans will one step ahead as proven by tirpitz next morning

when the Germans very inconveniently.

Had the ship

positioned in a fiord where it was very difficult to attack

by.

Aerial torpedo or with high ball because it needed up

a real Annabelle run up and an approach to the the ship in the field and it would

have been very difficult to attack hit broadside on unfortunately.

The am industry asked Wallace to think again.

He revisited an older more conventional design for a dumb-ass stink bomb.

One that didn't bounce.

Wallace had originally proposed a very large.

Bomb which would have gone deep into the ground.

So the administration said

could we try some of those.

They had success with six ton.

In which was called tall boy.

It's all boy was one of the most

awesome weapons built in britain during the war.

Only a stripped down Lancaster heavy bomber had the power

to carry that twelve thousand pound earthquake ball.

As.

A normal bomb would just have been

a single metal casting full of explosive with

a straight tail on the back

to boy was machined to have a lovely smooth casing

and they were balanced so that the the week was distributed equally

Wallace also borrowed an idea from the the ok Charles

which was.

On the the tail fins of the ball

he actually angled them

at five degrees so as the bomb

fail and that would have been falling for something like thirty seconds

the bomb would actually have spun.

And that sort of gyroscope weekly stabilized that

gave it a nice straight

flight path all the way down to the grind.

On November twelve nineteen forty four

the twenty fourth mission against tirpitz was launched.

To Lancaster squadrons dropped twenty nine two boys from high altitude

the fjord.

Massive explosion

say of the the magazines insight the targets and.

Tongued over within a few minutes.

So tirpitz.

Like Bismarck was lost to history.

Thousands of miles away.

War was raging in the pacific

where the American Navy was unleashing an all

new battleship of the Japanese imperial fleet.

It remains an icon of American warship building at its best.

The Iowa class battleship.

The Iowa's have a very good claim for being the finest

battleships ever produced.

They have the right balance of Alma

speed and armaments it's absolutely nailed days.

They were the first u s battleships completely free a free t restrictions which meant

that the u s could pull the whole of its production capacity of these vessels.

Almost every battleship before has have to compromise somewhere.

Those ones get the balance absolutely perfectly.

This is USS Wisconsin.

One of four Iowa class battleships launched in nineteen forty three.

Still afloat as museums.

Follow me into the czar room.

Clayton Allen looks after Wisconsin now permanently

moored in the naval port of Norfolk Virginia.

We are the last battleship in the u s

Navy battleship fleet

maybe sixty four

there are no more battleships in the us Navy.

So what we're seeing here is Broadway

it's the longest continuous passage on the ship.

It's two hundred and fifty feet long and six feet wide

and the sailors adopted that named Broadway because

on a hot summer see me night

and all the lights are lit up and so they're trying to connect a home.

The original design complement for this ship was to have nineteen hundred men

but because of a threat a kamikaze they added more gunners mates that way we could

pull watch in the guns twenty four hours a day

and of the thousand extra minute

so about a crew of twenty nine hundred and.

Crew working inside the ship and pre operational areas were well protected.

This is what we call the citadel

and if we were under attack you would want to be inside this space

inside this seventeen inches of armor

the lookouts the helmsman Lee helmsman

the captain

the officer the deck all these men are protected

and they have to be inside here during combat.

These were very advanced chips even by the standards of world war two.

They were very heavily armed with nine sixteen inch guns.

Most importantly with their electronic eyes that sense

that suits in terms of search radars gunnery radars.

Now we're going to go down in the heart and soul.

We're going down seven decks.

Welcome to the engine room one we have for engine rooms

collectively each engine room at maximum speed can produce

fifty three thousand shaft horsepower.

So at thirty three knots or thirty seven and a half miles an hour

at two hundred and twelve thousand shaft horsepower

that's amazing when you're pushing around

fifty eight thousand tons of ship men and armor.

With a range of twenty five thousand miles.

Wisconsin could almost circumnavigate the globe.

As we use a lot of fuel

two point three million gallons of fuel every two weeks.

We try and

maintain the tank levels and eighty percent

we never want to have to tell the

Pentagon sorry we need to get fuel before we go there

all you do is say yes we're headed there now.

When Wisconsin and

the war in April nineteen forty four.

All those formidable capabilities would be fully tested.

Radar and anti aircraft batteries were crucial in protecting against kamikaze attacks

on the vulnerable us carry of.

But it was when American soldiers have to fight the Japanese hand-to-hand the

Wisconsin's big guns would make that mop.

In preparation for an invasion of Japan.

Us marines fought a bitter campaign to play

the Japanese occupiers from islands across the

pacific region.

From the Marshall islands to Guam.

From iwo jima and finally talk in our.

For trying to work our way to Japan.

We know we need to conquer some key island chain

so that we can have a foothold for aircraft

and so to help with that we did shore bombardment in okinawa.

Again and iwo jima.

Looking for pillbox is that kind of thing and softening the beach at.

Tell mum power served as Wisconsin's fire control officer.

Or in.

Main battery plot.

We're going to control the fire.

Of.

The turrets here was in charge of making sure

we got a proper solution on the target we were assigned.

Tom bombarded sure targets of Vietnam using the same guns as his predecessors when

they supported island landings in the second mobile.

Guys are on the beach.

And they need help.

Okay they don't have time to wait for.

An aircraft authority or that kind of thing.

That's where we are very accomplished that is

once we find the target

we can land on that target over and over again.

If we were putting troops to sure.

They have no better friend than a.

Our class battleships.

Japanese defiance was finally landed when to atomic bombs were delivered by aircraft.

Greatest ceremonial owner of the war was given to a ship.

The Iowa class USS Missouri.

Her for that was the stage for the allies vanquished enemy to finally surrender.

War had been a brutal humiliating disaster for Japan.

Pops nothing embodied the catastrophe mold

and the story of the most powerful battleship.

Ever built.

She is the most superb battleship that humankind has ever produced.

Unfortunately that title slips from her grasp very quickly.

I.

And nineteen forty as war had raged in Europe.

Japan was defiantly building as military

strength for the coming struggle against the usa.

Imperial Japanese Navy was already assembled an impressive fleet.

Then they launched the mightiest battleship the would ever float.

Yamato.

Battleships of got progressively bigger and more capable and

the Japanese build

the largest super super treadmills in the world.

Acknowledging they could never have build a america or in quantity.

Yamato designers opted to go big.

They built a battleship there were seventy thousand tons

which gave them a qualitative over match guess

a likely American battleship of the day.

That was the only chance a Japanese saw

and be successful against the Americans and a major feat engage.

Tomatoes whole was huge.

Longer than three boeing seven four seven years of nose to tail.

She was.

In twenty three thousand tons of armor.

In places of a sixty centimeters thick.

But it was her peerless fire power which made yamato so fearsome.

Nine eighteen inch guns arranged in three turrets

with a lie largest ever mounted on a ship.

Yamato was designed to secure a maintain naval supremacy

in the pacific for Japan.

Yamato in some respects in the context of her time was the most superb.

Battleship that humankind has ever produced

unfortunately that title slips from her grasp very quickly.

The pacific theater is a very different wool

and battleships play their role

but there's nowhere don't think way you can see it

more sharper focus on the fact that battleships have to be part of.

A combined cohesive fleas.

In the vast pacific theater.

The aircraft carrier escape.

Able to deliver ordinance accurately have a huge rages.

After that carry carrier fleet was decimated at the battle of midway.

Japan's ability to protect its most valuable

ships from usa heritage was greatly diminish.

Japanese battleships are being forced to operate more and more without a cover

and what is he exposes is have incredibly vulnerable

day all if they're not part of a balance place.

Admiral Yamamoto.

Rather disparagingly likened yamato to an ancient religious scroll

the sorta thing old people in the superstitious hang up on their walls to give them

comfort but otherwise have no practical value whatever.

Despite being fitted with one hundred and sixty two anti aircraft guns

yamato was kept at bay by the constant threat of attack by American planes.

By the time the Americans reach

in our just two hundred and fifty seven kilometers from Japan itself.

Yamato was finished as a tactical weapon.

All that was left.

Was for her three thousand crewmen to join that kamikaze pilot compatriots.

The ultimate sacrifice.

She sent on a do or die mission really.

To to join penetrate the American fleet.

That is surrounding okinawa and supporting the landings there

she sent in without air cover.

The theories she will go in at high speed all guns blazing and actually ground

herself deliberately as an unsinkable

a battery.

One before reaching okinawa

over a one hundred u s aircraft unleashed a relentless attack.

She put up quite a fight but her weaponry was ineffective.

Her crew will not have the quality that

characterized the imperial Navy at the bigger.

War

and she effectively suffered the same fate of any Japanese warship that tried to put

out of its harbor in the spring of nineteen forty five.

Finally.

After seventeen directions

the pride of the Japanese Navy detonated.

A mushroom clouds six kilometers hi Rose into the sky

the flash of light was seen from Japan itself.

All hans were lost.

Yamato is inevitable demise alongside those of bismol can tirpitz

signaled the battleship at had its day.

Old big on.

Power alone was no longer know.

Aircraft carriers with the future.

But there was one extraordinary exception.

America's mighty.

Iowa class battleships.

The for Iowa's was so capable of fitted so well into the all powerful us carrier fleas

the they alone of all world war two battleships how to.

The post-war Korea's.

In the decades that followed

the Iowa's bombarded shorelines in Korea Vietnam

and following an extensive refit

were again brought back into service by Ronald Reagan in the nineteen eighties

the Russians at the time think and nineteen

eighty had about seventeen hundred active duty ships

and we had four hundred

and so there's a build up the fleet and to keep the costs down

they decided they would bring back ships that were sitting in ready reserve

and we could.

Build referred that and making a modern ship

it was three hundred eighty five million bring this ship back to life and modernize

it bring on computers and that kind of thing

but it did some tests and tried to computerized the guns but

frankly.

You can't fix what isn't broken

and it works really well manipulated by hand.

Wisconsin last fired her guns and launch missiles bombarding Iraqi positions join the

first Gulf war in nineteen ninety one.

Before being decommissioned later that yet.

But Wisconsin and her three sisters ships were

preserved as regal reminders of a bygone era.

To me it's amazing

you know built and thirty nine months by hand.

Forty five thousand tons of steel you could use a ship again today.

We going to throw these chains off

and spruce her up a little bit

and train up some.

Good Americans.

Will they know but that's a different story

could they yes that amazes me.

Battleship may have lost its crimes of the aircraft carrier.

But while they ruled.

These imperious castles of steel shape the history of naval warfare.

In battleship went from being

the yard state the currency by which Navy's measured their worth and importance

right through to a plateau where they became.

A vast the important powerful useful naval assets and then kind of tipping off the

end where they became a subsidiary.

A nice to have platform.

Able to provide I'd

gunfire simple for change the show.

Do they will ever forget them

the twentieth century really the first half of the twentieth century

is dominated by the battleship.

Next time.

The mighty dreadnoughts

the story of how one man's vision lead to a revolutionary wash it

would spark an arms race.

Message was modernize.

Modernize

or die.

An arms race that would lead to the first will war.

The greatest see battle the world had ever seen.

Story of warships so powerful.

That they changed the world.

And the incredible mighty dreadnought monster worship of world where one is bang

next latency at nine.

Next night we stay in the high seas joining the crew

of a royal Navy destroyer heading off of and seven.

Expedition

to see me.

And.