The Battleships.pdf

Before the nuclear bomb , no weapon on earth

had evoked so much fear, veneration and

passion as th e battleship. In de structive power

it had no equal. Accompanying a four-part

Cha nne l 4 series of the sa me na me , The

Battleships unve ils the ep ic saga of power,

inte rn ati ona l politics , 'a nd one-upmanship that

led to the tita nic wars of th e twent ieth century,

It is a story involving rule rs, war lords and

admirals who all became intoxica te d by the

• grandeur, majesty and sheer power of these

floating fortresses.

Enr iched with eye-witness accounts and

contributions from naval experts around the

globe , The Battleships explores t he rap id

evolution of firepower and battleship desig n

from canvas to s team, tim be r to s teel, muzzle-

load ing ca nnon to l8-inch guns, a nd beyond , to

rocket lau nchers and missil es . As t he

spearhead of colon ial expansion and in defence

of the great empires the battleship re igned

supreme, and in the wake of World War I

Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the US

competed in an arms race wh ich focused on

building maritime muscle.

II was a re ign, however, that could not offset

I the technological advancements tak ing place in

the way wa rs were foug ht. In the face of

submar ines and a ir wa rfa re , t he ba ttleship

wou ld have to fight to prove its e lf an effect ive

weapon. Crippling defeats du ring World War II ,

such as the loss of the famous British ship

Hood and all but three of its crew by the guns

of the German ship Bismarck and the

destruction wrought by a Japanese air attack

on the US fleet in Pearl Harbor, were turning

points for the battleship. With the major

powers rethinking their arsenals, only the four

US Iowa Class battleships would survive to play

a s ignif icant role in the wars of the latt e r part

of th e twent iet h century.

Prob ing th e evolution, deployment and

effectiveness of one of the most controve rs ial

weapons ever created, The Battleships

explores the momentous role they played in •

shaping the modern world .

The

Batt es

1 s

Ian Johnston and Rob McAuley

III

A companion to the television series 'Th e Battleships',

pr oduced w ith the financial assistance of the Australian Film Finance Co rporatio n Ltd

and the New So uth Wales Film a nd Television O ffice.

•

Dedicate d to

Ad m ira l o f the Fleet Th e Lord Lewin KG GC B LVa DSC

(b 1920 d 1999)

and to the sa ilors o f all nati ons w ho served on b att les h ip s

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