All language subtitles for Combat.Ships.S01E04.The.First.Metal.Warships.1080p.WEB.h264-CAFFEiNE_track3_[eng]

[missile roars]

Narrator: For centuries,
an extraordinary war has raged

Across the world's oceans,
above and below the waves.

Man: You could kill hundreds
of people with one broadside.

These were extremely powerful
war machines.

Narrator: Shipbuilders designed
bigger and faster vessels

To outwit and crush
their opponents.

Man: That nation that has the
most powerful battleship fleet

Can destroy the enemy's
battleship fleet

And therefore control the seas,

And if you control the seas,
you control the world.

Narrator: They carried
terrifying weapons.

Man: This was gonna be
the first time

That somebody had fired
a torpedo in anger

Since world war ii.

They needed to get it right.

Narrator: But ships
have also liberated

And rescued thousands.

Man: You could think
of gerda iii

As basically a lifeboat for
persons hunted by the nazis.

Narrator:
And inspired men and women

To acts of incredible bravery.

Man: I will take you there now,
to your cannons,

To your death,
we will sink before surrender.

Narrator: These vessels
and their crews

Have shaped world history.

Man: As the commanding officer
of a missile-carrying submarine,

I was directly responsible

For helping to prevent
world war iii.

[missile roars]

Narrator: This time, the age
of metal warships arrives.

Man: When she was launched,
she was the fastest,

The largest,
the most powerfully armed,

And probably the most powerfully
defended warship in the world.

Narrator: This is the story

Of 60 groundbreaking
and experimental years.

Man: Some of them shout,

"go on with your
metallic coffin.

You'll never amount to a thing."

Narrator: But by the dawn
of the 20th century,

The great metal battleship is
set to define a new world order.

Man: You have
this headline-grabbing ship,

It looks sinister and powerful,

It looks like the future,
and everybody wants it.

♪

♪

♪

Narrator: In March 1845,
a competition took place

That would change the future
of naval warfare.

Two wooden royal navy ships

Rendezvoused
in the english channel.

Both boasted
a cutting-edge steam engine.

Hms alecto was powered
by paddle wheels.

But hms rattler had
an experimental new propeller.

It was a tug of war...At sea.

Andrew lambert: The two ships
are lashed stern to stern,

And as the power is put
to the propulsion,

Rattler slowly but surely
takes control

And pulls alecto backwards
at two to three miles an hour.

Her wheels
thrashing around furiously,

Huge amounts of water being
thrown up to very little effect.

Narrator: Rattler's propeller
was taking the rotation

Produced by the engine

And turning it
into unstoppable thrust.

The spinning blades
created pressure differences

Between their upper
and lower surfaces,

Pushing water away
while drawing more water in

To fill the space
behind the blades.

Rattler was being pushed through
the water in superior style.

Lambert: It becomes very famous,

There are great pictures of it,
everybody talks about it.

Narrator:
The london times declared,

"the superiority of the rattler

Has been fully shown."

Lambert: Britain is
a great maritime empire,

And the royal navy
is the senior service.

It controls the trade routes

Across which
britain's prosperity

And the very food that, that we
eat in this country flows.

So, the british public
are very engaged with the sea.

The national hero
is still horatio nelson,

So, this is right at the heart
of english identity.

Narrator: And in the 40 years
since trafalgar,

Very little had changed
in the world of warships...

Until now.

But the battle between
the rattler and the alecto

Was not entirely what it seemed.

The admiralty had cheated.

The famous contest of 1845
had been rigged from the start.

Lambert:
So the rattler's engines

Were actually twice as powerful
as the alecto's engines.

It was not a test.

The navy didn't need to do
a crude tug of war

To know that the propeller
was the answer,

And she won the tug of war
quite easily.

Narrator: The admiralty
was determined to shake off

Any public affection
for the paddle wheel.

They had already concluded
that for the sake of the future,

This was a contest
the rattler must win.

Eric grove: When steam
was first applied to ships,

Merchant ships
as well as warships,

It was by using paddles,

But paddles were problematical
for warships

Because they took a lot
of the side of the ship away.

Screw propellers meant
that you could put the engines

Lower in the ship.

You had, most importantly,
had all the side

Available for the armament.

Narrator: And greater armament
would require greater defenses.

By the late 1850s,

Vessels had moved from
metal engines to metal armor.

And as a new decade dawned,
britain revealed

The most fearsome naval weapon
ever built--hms warrior.

♪

♪

Warrior was the brainchild

Of prince albert,
queen victoria's husband.

In 1858, he'd seen a french
warship under construction.

Called "gloire,"
it had one key new feature--

The wooden hull was ironclad.

Tim ash: And within 18 months,
warrior was off the slipway.

That's unusually fast
for warship building,

Then and today.

Narrator: Warrior wasn't
merely clad in iron;

It was actually made of iron.

Her size, armor and weaponry

Made her the first true
battleship of the modern era.

Lambert: She has
all the characteristics

That would define ships
of the next 150 years.

Her hull is made of metal,
her primary propulsion

Is by mechanical power
using fossil fuels.

Ash: When she was launched,
she was the fastest,

The largest,
the most powerfully armed,

And probably the most powerfully
defended warship in the world.

Pretty much overnight

All wooden warship-building
around the world,

Or warships of any size,
ceased.

Narrator: Warrior's four inches
of solid iron

Protected her from
the new generation of armaments

Already in use
across the channel.

Lambert: In the 1820s the french
developed exploding shells

That could be fired
from conventional guns,

And if these lodged
in the timbers of a battleship,

Something like hms victory,

When they exploded, they could
cause major structural damage.

Naval battles are going
to be very short,

And ships are going to blow up.

Narrator: Developments
in wrought iron manufacture

Offered the protection needed.

Grove: It could be bent.

It could be...It could be
riveted and so on,

And you could build a ship

With all the advantages of size
and length that iron gave you.

Narrator: The warrior
could absorb punishment,

But she could
dish it out as well.

Ash: The main armament
of the ship

Was the 68-pounder
muzzle-loading gun.

It could fire a choice of either
solid shot or molten shot

Or anything unpleasant
you want to put down the barrel.

The gun is very much like
what you'd see on hms victory,

Just a lot bigger.

Effective range
of the broadside,

We calculated
and researched recently,

Was about 500 yards.

That's long and far
for guns of that period.

It was the best muzzle-loading
gun in the world at the time.

♪

Narrator: Warrior's innovation
and prestige

Resonated with her crew.

Crew members weren't drafted.

They were professionals.

And during their time on board,

The ship was the center
of their world.

Ash: Now, the men in the ship
were divided into divisions,

And each division
was 18 men strong.

And each division lived
around the tables

You see behind me
between each guns.

They lived there,
they slept there.

In the gun deck they like
to keep the gun ports shut

Because they felt that kept
the warmth in,

It was dark, and
it would have been candlelight

Because, whilst the ship
had an engine,

The only thing the engine drove
was the propeller.

Warrior is fascinating
for the naval technology,

But to me an equally
interesting story

Is the human story
attached to the ship.

Because this must have been

Quite a scary piece
of technology

For somebody
in their 30s and 40s.

Because they would have been
brought up

With wooden ships with sails,

And suddenly you got to take
into battle a piece of equipment

That you've maybe not used
very much before.

Narrator: The technology
posed a challenge for her crew

And for the admirals as well.

Warrior rewrote the book
on naval tactics.

While battling under sail,

Wind and weather would determine
who would win.

No longer.

Lambert: You could now make
a 360-degree choice of course,

And you could choose
whether to approach

Or retreat from the enemy.

The wind was no longer dominant.

Ash: She was designed to fight
outside the line of battle.

In those days, navy tactics

Were still squadrons of ships
in lines together.

Warrior and her sister ship
were designed to go

On the outside, like sheepdogs.

Lambert: She would have
the ability to fight at distance

And to keep away
from any more powerful ship

That she might encounter.

Ash: And she was built foremost
with deterrence in mind.

It's a little bit like
the trident submarines today.

That was her role,
was deterrence.

She spent her life patrolling
the french coast

And saying hello, France,

And they went
in a different direction,

And therefore she was
successful.

Narrator: In the early 1860s,

Britain had the largest navy
in the world,

And in the warrior,
the deadliest battleship.

But across the atlantic,

Americans were producing some
very different metal warships.

Smaller, more experimental,
but no less deadly.

During the run-up
to the american civil war,

The nation's economy was divided
by the mason-dixon line.

In the agricultural south--

Largely dependent
on slave labor--

Cotton was king and the
country's most valuable export.

But in the north,

The industrial revolution
had taken hold.

New technologies
in manufacturing

Were reshaping it into
a vibrant commercial economy.

And shipbuilding
was no exception.

But in 1861, just a few months
into the civil war,

A ship was taking shape
in gosport navy yard, virginia.

It was unlike
any vessel ever built.

An observer described it

As looking like
"a crocodile intent on evil."

Its name was the css virginia.

At that time, the confederate
south had no navy to speak of

And was unable to break
the union north's blockade

Of southern ports.

♪

By building
a radical new vessel,

Confederate leaders hoped
to take on the enemy

And turn the tide.

John quarstein:
Stephen russell mallory,

Secretary of navy
for the confederacy,

Tells the confederate congress
that we want to build a ship

That heretofore has never been
seen in naval service--

Iron-plated with rifled guns
and a ram.

Craig symonds: If we could come
up with a ship that could...

That was invulnerable,
that could not be sunk,

An ironclad warship,

It would completely rebalance
the power at sea

Between north and south.

Narrator: But the confederacy
was short of materials.

To build a ship from scratch
would be impossible.

But they had an idea.

They would use the hull
of a ship--the uss merrimack--

Which had been abandoned
and burned by the north

In the early days of the war.

Quarstein: The confederates
are able to raise her.

Using the machinery
inside of the merrimack,

They cut her down
and start to transform her.

Symonds: So they struck off
all the masts,

And there were guns
along both sides

And one gun in both the bow
and the stern,

But three different
gun ports for it,

So it could be pointed
slightly at an angle

Or straight ahead
or straight astern.

Quarstein: The workmen
of gosport navy yard

Pledged to work four hours extra
into the night

Because it was desperate
to get this ship completed.

Narrator: The merrimack,
rechristened the virginia,

Was covered with two layers
of two-inch iron plates.

On her bow was the terrifying
1,500-pound cast-iron ram.

The virginia
was an important project,

But surprisingly, not a secret.

Symonds: It was obvious
they were doing this.

There were no real secrets
in those days.

You could read about it
in the newspaper,

So in the north, the union
secretary of the navy,

Gideon welles, thought,
"well, we have to have

A countermeasure to this,

We'll have to have
our own ironclad."

Narrator: Welles put out
a request for bids.

One came from john ericsson,
who had helped the british

Develop their
screw propeller system.

His design was named
the monitor.

With its deck only 18 inches
above the waterline,

And at just 179 feet long,

The monitor was designed to give
enemy gunners a small target.

But ericsson's
most innovative feature

Was a revolving gun turret

Made of eight layers
of one-inch iron plate

And turned
by a small steam engine.

Having won the contract,

The designer was given
just 100 days to build his ship

And have it ready
to take on the virginia.

Wisteria perry:
Now, unfortunately,

It takes him 118 days,
but, honestly,

I don't think anyone
is gonna care that he was late.

Something brand new,
40 brand new inventions,

And when you're looking
at the monster

That is the css virginia,
you know,

You're definitely wanting
to defend wherever you can.

♪

♪

This is actually
a picture of the crew.

All different ages,
all different nationalities,

Including siah carter, who was
one of seven african americans

On board the uss monitor.

Narrator: On March 6, 1862,
the monitor left new york

To travel south
and find the virginia

Before she could wreak havoc
on the blockading union fleet.

Her skipper was john l. Worden.

A member of the monitor's crew

Recalled the frustration
of the voyage south.

William keeler: Oh, how we
longed to be there,

But our iron hull
crept slowly on,

And the monotonous clank, clank
of the engine

Betokened no increase
of its speed.

No supper was eaten that night,
as you may suppose.

Narrator: Sure enough,
they were too late

To intercept the virginia.

Under the command
of franklin buchanan,

The confederates' new battleship

Cautiously emerged
for the first time

From gosport navy yard.

Its destination

Was hampton roads harbor.

And its target?

The union fleet

That was blockading it.

On March 8, 1862,

The virginia headed
for hampton roads harbor,

Intent on scuttling
the union's blockade.

Even supporters
of the confederacy

Doubted this strange vessel
could succeed.

Quarstein: People throng
along the water bank.

Some of them shout, "go on
with your metallic coffin,

You'll never amount to a thing."

Buchanan addresses the crew.

"the confederacy expects
every man

To do their duty today."

And then he points
at the union fleet and shouts,

"those ships must be taken.

Some of you all have complained

I have not taken you
close to the enemy.

I will take you there now,
to your cannons, to your death,

We will sink before surrender."

And with that, the virginia
comes into hampton roads.

A lookout on the minnesota

Shouts down to the officer
of the watch, saying,

"sir, I think you should take
a glass, a telescope,

And take a look over there,

'cause I think that thing
is a-coming."

Narrator:
The great hope of the south

Was about to be tested in battle
for the first time.

Symonds: The virginia
came out of hampton roads

On the 8th of March

And destroyed two existing
union warships,

Utterly destroyed them,

Ramming one,
sending it to the bottom,

Setting the other on fire
with hot shot

And completely destroyed it.

So this was a devastating blow.

Narrator: It was the first time
an ironclad

Had sunk a wooden ship.

This is one
of the virginia's guns

From the first day
of what became known

As the battle of hampton roads.

It bears the scars of the fight
with the uss cumberland.

Quarstein:
This is a hot shot gun,

Set up to fire red-hot shot,

So they've loaded it, and they
are bringing it into action

When a shot from the cumberland
will strike right there,

Knocking off the chase
of the gun,

Firing the gun so it goes
into recoil,

Injuring several confederates.

Narrator: But this small success
was as good as things got

For the uss cumberland.

Symonds: It was the worst defeat
for the united states navy

In its entire history
until pearl harbor.

And up in washington the
government was very near panic.

Secretary of war edwin stanton
kept going over to the window

And looking out to see if it
was coming up the potomac river

To shell the white house.

Narrator: The confederates
had every intention

Of destroying
the entire union fleet.

But at midnight,
a strange-looking ironclad

Slid into hampton roads
from the direction of new york.

It was the monitor.
The battle wasn't over.

♪

At dawn, the virginia set out
to cripple the uss minnesota

That had run aground
the previous day.

The crew of the virginia
had no idea

That the tiny monitor
was hiding behind her,

Eager to test out
her new weapons.

Quarstein:
On the morning of March 9th,

The minnesota is right out there
run aground.

So that's where the monitor is,

On the other side
of the minnesota.

Back over there where you see
the aircraft carriers

Is where the virginia
is going to be anchored.

Now, she starts to send a shot
through the minnesota's rigging,

And then all of a sudden
the little monitor emerges.

Keeler: As we passed down
through the turret,

The gunners were lifting
a 175-pound shot

Into the mouth
of one of our immense guns.

"send them that with
our compliments, my lads,"

Says captain w.

Narrator: But back
on the confederate ship,

Commander roger jones
has some useful information.

Quarstein: He actually has
the plans for the monitor

From the scientific american
magazine.

So he knows
what he's up against,

And so basically he knows he has
to go against the minnesota.

The monitor gets in his way,

And as a result of that they go
in concentric circles, right.

Now, the virginia takes
a half hour to turn around,

The monitor in about 12 minutes,

So you can see how the monitor

Can cut off the virginia
at every turn.

Keeler: Below, we had no idea
of the position

Of our unseen antagonist,

Her mode of attack,
or her distance from us,

Except what was made known

Through the orders
of the captain:

"that was a good shot,
went through her water line!"

"that last shot brought the iron
from her sides!"

"look out! Now, they're going
to run us down!

Give them both guns!"

Symonds: And they fought,
and they fought all day long

Almost for four full hours,
slugging it away,

Nearly touching one another
at times,

Firing the heaviest ordnance
they had available,

Putting dents in the
armor-plating of either side,

But in neither case causing
the kind of damage

That would require the other
to give way.

Narrator:
Both sides claimed victory.

But the fact that the monitor
was able to keep the virginia

From sinking
any more union ships

Was a sizable feat
for the little metal boat.

Although the monitor held off
the virginia this time,

Just nine months later
it perished

At the hands
of a far greater enemy.

Perry: The monitor,
unfortunately,

December 31, 1862,

Hits a storm off the coast,

And they actually start to start
offloading the sailors.

There's another ship
that's following behind it,

The rhode island,

And, sadly, the monitor sinks

To the bottom
of the atlantic ocean,

Taking 16 sailors with her.

Narrator:
The monitor was found in 1973.

Its heavy iron turret was
brought to the surface in 2002.

Together with its guns,
the turret is preserved

In an archaeological metals
laboratory

Near the site of its battle
with the virginia.

Quarstein: It was amazing.

I remember when I first
touched the side of the turret,

It was like a dream come true.

Narrator: Inside the turret
were dozens of items discarded

As the monitor began to sink...

Including mustard bottles,
forks and even clothing.

Quarstein: This was found inside
the turret of the monitor.

We actually have
the complete coat.

The sleeves, and the backs
and part of the front.

This fold right here
is the user's fold.

It's a precursor
of what we call a pea coat...

Probably worn
by a petty officer.

Narrator:
The monitor's crew took part

In a new kind of naval gunfight.

From now on, they referred
to this type of gunboat

By the name of the original.

"monitors" would be used
for the next hundred years.

But it would take a very
different type of warship

For the world to truly
take notice of america.

In the years
after the civil war,

The u.S. Navy was in tatters.

By the 1880s its pitiful fleet
was an international joke.

Irish playwright oscar wilde
mocked the navy

As "a ruin and a curiosity."

Grove: The american navy
was in no really great state

After the american civil war.

It was concerned with
coastal defense using monitors,

Commerce raiding and so on.

Narrator:
But just a decade later,

The united states and its navy

Would transform the country
into a global superpower.

Man: Fire!

[boom]

Grove: In the 1880s
they began to build

Some new steel cruisers,

And they were moving
towards building battleships,

Their first battleships.

Narrator: One of the finest
early examples is preserved

At a museum in philadelphia.

The uss olympia.

♪

The olympia is
a "protected cruiser."

Her vulnerable areas
are shielded,

But not her entire hull.

John brady: They didn't feel
that the ship could carry

The weight of full armor,
a ship this size and power,

So what they came up with
was a defense mechanism,

To build a turtle of armor
inside the ship

That protected the boilers,
the engines, the steering gear,

The powder magazines,
all the essentials.

The sides of the ship

Were protected actually
by the coal bunkers.

So the idea being that they are
each a watertight compartment,

And the shock of an incoming
shell or torpedo

Would be absorbed
by the coal itself.

Narrator: By the 1890s, america
had become one "united states,"

East coast to west coast.

The nation began to look
beyond its borders

To new frontiers.

Grove: The americans
were becoming

A significant naval power--

Not in the same class as France
or russia or britain--

But they were beginning to flex
their muscles somewhat.

And the obvious target
was Spain.

Spain was an empire
in terminal decline.

Narrator: But the spanish empire
still stretched

From the far east
to the gulf of mexico,

And cuba, in particular.

Here was an island that might be
quite valuable as a u.S. Base.

In late January 1898, one of
america's newest battleships,

The uss maine,
sailed into havana harbor

As a show of support
for cuban revolutionaries.

Symonds: We thought of ourselves
as the example of a people

Who had thrown off
european control

And gained their independence.

We wanted the same
for the cubans;

That was our sort of explanation
to ourselves.

Narrator: But on February 15th,

The uss maine suddenly blew up
in havana harbor.

266 men were killed.

It was claimed a spanish mine
was responsible, but in truth,

The most likely cause
was a fire in a coal bunker.

The american press, however,
demanded revenge.

"remember the maine!"
became the battle cry.

Grove: This led
to president mckinley

Declaring war
on the spanish empire

To liberate cuba
from the spanish yoke

And also to give the americans
the opportunity to have a go

At the spanish position
in the pacific.

Symonds: When war
was declared in 1898,

Because of the belief
that the first thing you must do

Is destroy the enemy
main battle fleet,

The united states decided
it would destroy

The spanish fleet
in the philippines,

Which had nothing to do
whatsoever with the cubans.

Narrator: The united states'
asiatic squadron

Was closest to the philippines.

It was led by 60-year-old
admiral george dewey.

On board the olympia,

He received clear orders
to attack the spanish fleet:

"you must capture vessels
or destroy.

Use utmost endeavors."

Dewey's fleet of nine ships
sailed for the philippines.

Waiting for them off the coast
of the capital, manila,

Was the elderly spanish fleet,

Commanded by rear admiral
don patricio montojo y pasarón.

Lambert: The spanish
admiral montojo realized

That his force
of colonial cruisers,

Many of them built of wood,

Quite obsolete
with short-range weapons,

Would be completely outclassed
by the americans.

So, he put them as close
to the shore as possible

So that when they sank

The crew might have a chance
of getting ashore.

Narrator: Admiral montojo
ordered his ships

To take a traditional
line-ahead formation

To prepare for the americans.

On the early morning
of may 1, 1898,

The olympia led dewey's fleet
into manila bay.

With her four 8-inch guns
mounted on turrets,

Ten 5-inch guns for broadsides,

And 21 smaller 15-caliber guns,

The flagship
was an impressive sight.

And unlike his predecessors,

Dewey didn't have to worry
about the wind.

Steam power offered him
a variety of tactics.

Lambert: As he comes into
manila bay, dewey has a choice.

He can either anchor up
opposite the spanish fleet

And just exchange fire with them
until he wins,

Or he can reduce the risk
to his own ships

By keeping under way

And making his ships
a more difficult target

For the spanish gunners.

Narrator: Admiral dewey stood
in his white dress uniform

On the olympia's bridge,

And after 15 minutes of fire
from the spanish,

Told the olympia's captain
to "fire when ready."

Man: Fire!

[boom]

Lambert: His ships open fire

And then circle around
and open fire again.

They just bombard the spanish

Until the spanish ships strike
their flags, blow up or sink.

Narrator: The olympia's guns
were vibrating the ship so much

That in the engine room,

The stokers found it hard
to stay upright.

Up above them,
the gunners' shoes

Kept their feet from burning
on the hot deck.

Like the battle of hampton roads
36 years earlier,

Manila bay has been described
simply as a gun duel.

Lambert: Manila bay is one
of the last battles

Of the 19th century.

There are no submarines,
there are no aeroplanes,

There are no soldiers.

It really is just a fight
between two fleets.

Narrator: But the marksmanship
in this gunfight was terrible.

The americans fired
5,859 shells,

But less than 2%
hit their targets.

The spanish results
were even worse.

After a battle
lasting six hours,

With many of his ships
sinking but still firing,

Admiral montojo surrendered.

Lambert: The spanish fleet
had been shot to pieces,

Half of it had sunk,

And the rest of it
was of not much further use.

Narrator: 330 men died
on the reina cristina,

And 90 were wounded.

The wooden castilla
caught fire and sank

With the loss of 25 men.

The olympia, however,
sailed for manila,

With the ship's band playing
spanish tunes for the locals

Who'd come to stare
at the victorious fleet.

Back home, admiral dewey
became a national celebrity.

Brady: He's probably
one of our first real pop stars,

If you will.

He was on everything--

Advertisements for medicine
or music boxes.

People had pictures of him
in their homes.

He was a real hero.

Narrator:
But the greatest legacy

Of the battle of manila bay was

A decision dewey made not long
after the smoke had cleared--

A decision that affects american
foreign policy to this day.

Dewey asked
for an army of occupation.

Symonds: He should then perhaps
have steamed away

And gone back to his base
at hong kong.

But he did not, he stayed there,

And the americans
came to the belief

That, "well, look, we've created
this vacuum of power.

We destroyed the spanish fleet,

Now there's nobody else there,"
except the germans,

Who came sidling in
to manila bay,

And said, "well, listen,
if you, you have to go

And take care of things,
we'll look after things here."

And the belief was,
well, if we leave,

The germans will take it

Or someone else
with nefarious purposes,

Or, or it'll turn into chaos.

No, no, we have
a responsibility to stay here

And supervise the philippines.

This was clearly not part
of any of the motive

That had begun the war
in the first place,

But it led
to american stewardship

Of the philippine islands,

Which created
an american overseas--

For lack of a better word--
empire.

Narrator:
The peace treaty with Spain

Gave the united states
the philippines, guam,

Wake island and puerto rico.

Within weeks
of the battle of manila bay,

The united states also
took possession of hawaii.

Symonds: The annexation
of hawaii, of guam,

And of the philippines

Created a series
of stepping stones

Across the pacific

That made it easier
for americans to have access

To the markets of china,

And so in,
in a very important way,

The battle of manila bay
made america a global power.

Narrator: And america's
new status would be the catalyst

For rapid naval development.

Just 12 years after manila bay,

The united states
would order a vessel

That made the olympia
look like a victorian relic.

It would copy a revolutionary
new battleship design

From that old naval superpower,
britain.

It was to be the age
of the dreadnought.

In the early 1860s,
the hms warrior was home

For one of her
first lieutenants,

A young rising star
named jackie fisher.

Gordon: He used to go for walks
in the south downs

Barking out gunnery orders
to train his voice

So they could be heard,
you know, 200 feet away.

He was determined
that he was going to be

The smartest gunnery officer
in the navy.

Narrator: And throughout
a meteoric career,

Fisher always embraced
the latest innovations.

By 1904, he was first sea lord
and in a position

To radically change
the design of battleships.

His goal was
to create a new ship

For a nation struggling
to maintain its position

As a naval power.

Gordon:
The british navy was huge.

At the 1897 diamond jubilee
naval review,

It was calculated that
there were more ships present

Than the next six navies
combined...

But we had kind of been first
in industrialization,

And we'd reached a sort
of technological plateau,

Or so it seemed, and others
were beginning to catch us up.

Narrator: Fisher's new vessel
would draw its inspiration

From britain's naval past.

Gordon: What did warrior bring
to the naval scenery?

She was fast and she was strong.

And jackie fisher
remembered that.

Narrator: The new battleship
took shape

In portsmouth dockyard...
In secret.

It was built in only 130 days
and named hms dreadnought.

Gordon: When it was launched
in early 1906,

The world was just astonished.

Lambert: At the end of what had
been a 55-year design process,

We end up with a ship

That does all the same things
that warrior had done.

It was larger than
any contemporary warship.

It had more firepower
than any contemporary warship.

It used advanced technologies.

Narrator: And as a former
gunnery officer,

Fisher was keen to overcome
one clear flaw in earlier ships.

Gordon: Battleships had
this multiplicity of armaments.

Every gun was aimed
and fired at the turret

By the officer in charge.

You couldn't spot and correct
your fall of shot

Because everyone else
was shooting,

And who knew which splash
belonged to which gun.

Narrator: Instead, dreadnought
would give control

Of ten identical 12-inch guns
to just one gunnery officer.

Gordon: And he could fire
in salvos,

He could press the button
that fired the guns,

He was above the smoke,
he was above the spray,

He had a better view,

And he could watch
the shell splashes of each salvo

To adjust and correct
the next salvo.

So suddenly it became possible
to engage enemy ships

At considerable range.

Lambert: It raised the game
in terms of naval design.

It was a ship that meant that
every other warship in the world

Was now obsolete,

And every battleship
built afterwards

Would be called a dreadnought.

Narrator: And the dreadnoughts
were fast.

They were the first large ships
to be powered

By the latest engine--
the turbine.

A turbine works by forcing
pressurized steam

Over a series of angled blades
in a sealed container,

Which power
the ship's propeller.

The world soon followed
britain's lead.

But of all the dreadnoughts

Built in the early years
of the 20th century,

Only one survives--

The mighty uss texas.

♪

♪

When she was launched,
the texas,

Like other dreadnoughts,
was a technological marvel.

Andy smith: Well, I like

To think of a little sailor,

16, 17, 18-year-old boy,

Coming aboard this ship in 1914.

Put in perspective,
if he lived in united states,

If he lived in England,
if he lived anywhere,

Most likely he didn't have
electricity all the time,

Probably didn't have
running water all the time,

Probably lived in a house
that was one or two rooms,

Probably shared a bed
with his whole family.

So he comes on board this ship,

And it's lit up from bow
to stern with electricity,

There's running water
whenever he wants it,

Three hot meals, his own bed.

It would be like stepping
into the space shuttle

Or a moon capsule right now.

It's just, it would almost be
foreign to the average person,

Just alien technology almost.

Now, from the perspective
of what the ship was

And how it compared
to other ships,

There's nothing like it
on the face of the planet.

She had bigger and more guns
than any other ship,

She had bigger and more armor
than any other ship,

And she could move faster
than most ships,

So if she came into a fight,

You knew the fight
was pretty much over.

Narrator: The texas still has
her original engines from 1912.

The american designers
chose triple expansion engines,

Which had worked well
on ocean liners.

High pressure steam passes
into the first cylinder,

Moving a piston,

Which turns the crankshaft
linked to the propeller.

The lower pressure exhaust steam

Then passes
into a second cylinder

To power its piston,

And the process is repeated
in a third cylinder.

Smith: We joke sometimes and say

You can see these engines
two places--

Here and at the bottom
of the atlantic on the titanic.

'cause the titanic had
these basic same engines,

Same type of engines,
had two of these,

And then a turbine engine
for the middle prop,

And they were state of the art
at the time, I mean,

They used them on the titanic

Because they were efficient and
they could move the ship fast.

Important for a cruise liner
as it is for a battleship.

Narrator: The arrival
of hms dreadnought in 1906

Changed warships forever.

Gordon: It caused a pause
in shipbuilding

As everyone else
scratched their heads

And said how the hell
do we respond to this?

Narrator: From that moment,

Britain enjoyed
an edge over her rivals.

But for France, germany
and the united states,

The response was staring them
in the face.

Gordon: You have this
headline-grabbing ship,

Which looks fantastic,

It looks sinister and powerful.

It looks like the future,
and everybody wants it.

The trouble is, britain's lead
in cutting-edge battleships

Has now been reduced to one.

Symonds: And so that changed
the starting line

In the naval arms race

And gave secondary powers,

Particularly germany
and the united states,

A chance to catch up
with the british,

Because the dreadnought

Had rendered,
with one fell swoop, obsolete

All the existing battleships
in the world.

♪

Narrator:
By the early 20th century,

Global power was symbolized
by the might

Of the great metal battleship.

An era that had started

With britain's
unquestioned superiority

Was now more finely balanced.

And with new rivals,
came new inventions...

Like the torpedo
and the submarine.

The power of the dreadnought
would soon be tested

And the art of naval warfare
changed once again.