Original subtitles

NARRATOR: How did the ancients create the ultimate weapons

of mass destruction more than 2,000 years ago?

Could the energy of the sun be used to torch invading ships?

Did a cannon powered by steam crush an enemy fleet?

STEVE WOLF: Holy crap.

Look at that.

NARRATOR: And did the ancients build a warship so mighty,

it could rival today's most advanced aircraft carriers?

DEREK MULLER: The Forty is a monstrous vessel,

but it's truly an impossible feat of engineering.

NARRATOR: Monuments more colossal than our own, ancient

super weapons as mighty as today's, technology so precise,

it defies reinvention.

The ancient world was not primitive.

Their marvels were so advanced, we still use them.

Travel to a world closer than we imagine, an ancient age

where nothing was impossible.

[theme music]

Weapons and warfare, the backbone of world superpowers.

But when we think of ancient civilizations,

we imagine simpler arsenals.

But is that really how it was?

Was it possible that the ancients

could harness the laws of science

to create the ultimate super weapons?

Today when you think of super weapons,

you think of modern militaries armed with supersonic fighters

and nukes.

But did you know that the ancients also had their very

own super, super weapons?

NARRATOR: A series of brutal battles

reveals the remarkable power of ancient technology.

More than 2,000 years ago, the city-state

of Syracuse on the island of Sicily

held all out against Rome.

Sicily is a great prize for its natural resources,

for its grain.

NARRATOR: This doesn't escape the attention of Rome

and its ever expanding empire.

General Marcellus is sent to Syracuse with a mighty Roman

Navy.

His mission is to capture the city.

DARIUS ARYA: Syracuse has a big problem.

It's now being attacked by a major super power.

And the Romans arrive and lay siege

to this important kingdom.

It's going to defend itself.

It's going to use tactics and engineering.

NARRATOR: The Syracuseans had a secret weapon.

His name was Archimedes.

Archimedes was a brilliant inventor and a mathematician.

He was born around 2,300 years ago on the island of Sicily,

slap bang in the middle of three continents of Europe, Asia,

and Africa.

NARRATOR: Archimedes was feared throughout the ancient world

as a mastermind of warfare.

We know that the Romans were petrified of Archimedes'

inventions.

We're told that the general and his soldiers

fell to despair when they knew that his inventions were going

to be employed.

And so we find that Archimedes is actually inventing weapons

of mass destruction.

NARRATOR: The first lethal invention in his arsenal

was known simply as the Archimedes' claw.

BETTANY HUGHES: Sicilians did not

have a huge amount of manpower.

So Archimedes had to use his brainpower

to win out against the Romans.

NARRATOR: The Archimedes' claw is a very simple but highly

advanced weapon for its day, with fulcrums and pulleys

controlling large metal hooks.

A group of men could grab and tip enemy ships,

making them capsize.

But that's not all.

BETTANY HUGHES: We're also told that it could then physically

pull the ships out of the water, which

must have been petrifying.

NARRATOR: But the claw was just the first

of Archimedes' many game changing ultimate weapons.

In Florence, Italy, on the wall of the Uffizi Gallery,

is an intriguing painting.

This 14th century depiction is a vital clue

to what could be Archimedes' most sinister weapon,

a death ray.

The existence of this webinar and its viability

have long been the subject of debate

among scientists and historians.

Could Archimedes have created a lethal weapon using

only the power of the sun?

BETTANY HUGHES: We do know that Archimedes used reflective

technology.

And in Sicily, there were lots of these highly polished bronze

or copper shields.

And Archimedes could possibly have harnessed the power

of the sun, reflecting those rays back out

onto wooden ships.

HUNTER ELLIS: The Archimedes' death ray is essentially

the first directional weapon.

You can harness the power of the sun, focus it into a tight beam

like a laser, creating the death ray.

NARRATOR: If the death ray could channel enough solar energy,

it would set the enemy fleet on fire.

Ever since war at sea began, fire

has been a devastating weapon.

It has destroyed even the most advanced modern warships.

It's a fear that former Navy pilot Hunter Ellis knows well.

HUNTER ELLIS: Fire is definitely one of the worst things you can

have on board a ship.

And history has proven that.

Even on these modern day aircraft carriers that

are made of steel and titanium, I mean,

we've experienced horrible fires in our past

with the forest on the ranger.

Fire at sea is nothing in any captain

ever wants to deal with.

So imagine if Archimedes was able to harness

the power of the sun and turn it into a death ray.

NARRATOR: There are other examples

of how the sun's rays were utilized in the ancient world.

One of these was at the harbor of Alexandria in Egypt

where a huge mirror in the Pharos Lighthouse

guided ships into the harbor.

We know the ancients clearly understood the potential

of reflective light.

But the question remains.

Could Archimedes harness enough solar power

to pose a threat to enemy warships?

Perhaps the answer lies hidden in the New Mexico desert.

One scientist believes that the Archimedes' death ray is not

the stuff of science fiction.

[ominous music]

CLIFF HO: We're here at the national solar thermal test

facility at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque,

New Mexico.

I'm a mechanical engineer here, and I do research

on concentrating solar power.

What you see here is a field of heliostats.

Heliostats are mirrors that track the sun to concentrate

and focus the sunlight onto a receiver

to generate steam, which spins a turbine to create electricity.

NARRATOR: If solar power can generate electricity,

can also be used as a lethal weapon?

Dr. Cliff Ho believes it is the shape of the shields acting

as mirrors that holds the secret to whether this super weapon

could have worked or not.

CLIFF HO: It may have been that Archimedes employed

curved mirrors.

And not necessarily just flat, but maybe a little bit

of a curve here to give you a focusing effect.

Now even though these mirrors look flat,

there is actually a little bit of a curvature

to give you a focusing, more concentrating effect.

And you can see on the back, the way we do that on our mirrors

is we have a bolt here.

We can pull back on the center plate.

And we have bolts on each of the four corners

that's used to push in slightly to give you

a little bit of a curvature.

So each of our mirrors on each of the different heliostats

have a different focal length, depending on how far they

are from the intended target.

So the ones that are further away from the target

have less curvature.

The heliostats that are closer in have more of a curvature.

NARRATOR: Dr. Ho believes that the impact

of the curved shields is a factor that has been previously

overlooked and would have made the death

ray a reality and more lethal than previously imagined.

CLIFF HO: So with regards to Archimedes,

all the previous studies I've seen have actually only looked

at flat mirrors.

And as you can see, having focus mirrors

can really do wonders for increasing the concentration

on the target.

Having that curvature would have given Archimedes

a bit of an advantage in terms of burning the ships.

Having a large number of smaller mirrors can also do the

[suspenseful music]

I understand it could have been polished bronze or copper

shields.

And by using the reverse side of that shield,

having that concave surface, would have given it

a focusing effect.

Archimedes could have been using advanced optics

2,000 years ahead of our current modern time.

NARRATOR: There is no doubt that Archimedes was far ahead

of his time.

But could he really have used 21st century technology

to beat the mighty Roman Navy?

[theme music]

In their effort to repel the invading Roman Navy,

the ancient city-state of Syracuse

was totally overmatched.

But they did have one secret weapon, Archimedes,

one of the greatest human minds that has ever lived.

His ingenious ultimate weapons were thousands

of years ahead of their time.

The Archimedes' claw, an ingeniously simple weapon,

had an enormous reach that instilled fear

in Roman sailors.

But it was Archimedes' death ray that had even greater potential

for reaping mass destruction by concentrating

the deadly rays of the sun to torch Roman warships.

Archimedes theory was if you polished a surface finely,

like take one of your soldiers' shields,

polish it finely and then capture the rays

and focus it into a tight beam like a laser,

creating the death ray.

NARRATOR: But the lethality of the weapon

has remained unproven until now.

At the Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque,

Dr. Cliff Ho has a one of a kind test

to see if Archimedes could have achieved

this weapon of destruction.

CLIFF HO: So is it possible that Archimedes could have actually

developed an ancient solar death ray?

I've actually developed some equations and models

to scientifically evaluate this.

What we're looking at here shows the reflections off

of a single mirror about the same size

and shape as a shield.

And from that, we can determine how many mirrors are required

to achieve the required heat flux to ignite wood.

NARRATOR: Dr. Ho has calculated that it would take

200 to 300 shields working together to set a wooden ship

ablaze.

CLIFF HO: If we simulate a large array of these mirrors

and reflect the sunlight onto a target,

it turns out that the concentrated heat

flux on the target is sufficient to ignite wood.

I think it's possible that Archimedes could have developed

this ancient death ray over 2,000 years ago.

With the right number of mirrors,

the quality of mirrors, and some steady hands, it's possible.

I think would have been difficult to do,

but it's possible.

NARRATOR: But Dr. Ho has the power

to take his tests to the next level.

This secure facility houses one of the most powerful solar rays

on Earth.

Known as the Solar Furnace, this high tech array

uses exactly the same principle of reflective solar energy

that Archimedes used more than 2,000 years ago.

CLIFF HO: We're here at the Solar Furnace

where we do high temperature testing of various materials.

This large parabolic mirror here is nearly 400 square feet

of reflective surface area.

When the sunlight is reflected towards this parabolic mirror,

it then focuses that light onto an area that's

only a few inches across.

So what we're going to attempt to do

is to demonstrate the immense power the concentration

of sunlight that can be focused onto this brick.

This is a very high temperature material

that melts at about 1,500 degrees

C. I think this is a good example of Archimedes' mirrors

in terms of using a large array of mirrors

and focusing down that sunlight into a much smaller area.

It's a very intense highly concentrated beam

of sunlight, which can create very, very high temperatures.

LAB PERSONNEL: We're going to be bringing the furnace up to 100%

in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 1.

Going 100.

NARRATOR: Every time the Solar Furnace is turned on,

extreme caution needs to be applied because

of the awesome power of the machine.

LAB PERSONNEL: Opening.

NARRATOR: The solar blinds are slowly opened.

Within seconds, the mass reflected

light from the mirrors begins to melt the brick.

The effect is astounding as the beam reaches the intensity

of the surface of the sun.

The Solar Furnace melts the fire brick, an amazing demonstration

of the sun's deadly force.

[suspenseful music]

CLIFF HO: So you can see with just that brief exposure

to that very highly concentrated sunlight,

you can just feel the heat radiating from the brick.

And it's created this molten glass that's dripping down.

And that means we've exceeded temperatures of over 2,700

degrees Fahrenheit.

So compared to burning wood on a ship,

the ignition point of wood is about 700,

800 degrees Fahrenheit.

So we're well over that auto ignition temperature of wood.

NARRATOR: The test leaves little doubt that Archimedes had

the knowledge and most likely the ability

to create a solar death ray that could have brought the Roman

Navy to a fiery end.

But he didn't stop there.

Up next, Archimedes builds a powerful cannon

We think of super weapons as modern inventions.

But in the ancient city of Syracuse,

renowned inventor Archimedes was building an arsenal

of ultimate weapons more than 2,000 years ago.

We've seen how he harnessed the sun into a lethal death ray.

But there is evidence that he did much more than that.

It's believed that he invented the first gun in history,

the steam cannon.

Archimedes is said to have fired projectiles at deadly speeds,

thrashing enemy ships using nothing but the power of water.

The mystery surrounding this weapon

can finally be explained.

[cannon firing]

Only one ancient image of Archimedes design survives.

BETTANY HUGHES: It's actually Leonardo da Vinci

who credits Archimedes with the invention of the steam cannon.

This would have been an amazing bit of technology,

a huge copper tube sealed at one end.

It was heated up.

Steam would then be injected to the bottom.

And it would eject out these projectiles around 2,600 feet.

NARRATOR: James Dean uses the most advanced 21st century

technology to shed light on this 2,000-year-old mystery.

This simple tube is the basis of an impossibly sophisticated

ancient super weapon.

This is steam power 2,000 years before the Industrial

Revolution.

The heating chamber is cooked up to over 212 degrees Fahrenheit

or 100 degrees Centigrade.

When a small amount of water is introduced,

it rapidly turns to steam.

And the pressure from these expanding gases

fires the ball now at incredible speeds.

It's the same principle that fires muskets and cannons, even

the AK47 or the M777 howitzer.

But would this design from 2,200 years ago have worked?

NARRATOR: To understand the impact this weapon could have

had on the mighty Roman Navy, we must look at the devastation

that cannonballs could inflict.

Experimental model maker Richard Windley

knows exactly why the canon produced such great fear.

RICHARD WINDLEY: If they were fired

at ships with enough energy, they would probably

pierce the holes.

They would probably send splinters

flying in all directions.

We know, for example, that in Nelson's time,

far more men were killed through flying splinters than actually

being hit by the cannonball themselves.

Imagine pieces of sharp wood, maybe a foot long,

traveling at very, very high velocities.

They just pierce a body absolutely with no problem

whatsoever.

NARRATOR: But could Archimedes cannon

pack the punch needed for such destruction using

only the power of steam?

In Austin, Texas, we have challenged Steve Wolf

to reconstruct this ancient super weapon.

Steve will have to find a way to compress steam

under enormous pressure, a dangerous task.

In his workshop, he uses available parts

to see if he can recreate the impossible

and prove that Archimedes was thousands of years ahead

of his time.

Once he has finished the weapon, he

aims to test it with live fire.

STEVE WOLF: Well, the fundamental design

that we used is essentially the same as we

saw in the Archimedes' drawings that da Vinci had.

What we have is a vessel that's capable of holding

a lot of pressure.

And we add a little bit of water to it.

And then we start a fire underneath it.

And the fire heats the vessel.

And that causes water molecules to leave the liquid

and populate the rest of the tank.

And as the temperature increases, the pressure in here

increases.

So we have pressure acting against the entire inside

of the tank here.

NARRATOR: But could Archimedes control the pressure

of the compressed steam inside the cylinder

and fire a cannonball at lethal velocity?

JAMES DEAN: Here's one method that's been suggested.

This piece of wood holds the ball in place.

While the pressure is trying to push out,

the wood exerts a counter force.

But what holds the wood in?

More wood across here like this holds the wood rod in.

And it's tethered like this.

So this mechanism pushes the rod back down again the bolt

to allow sufficient pressure to develop.

Once the pressure is high enough, it snaps.

The rod comes out and the bolt shoots away.

NARRATOR: Mounted atop the city defenses,

the steam cannon would have been a formidable weapon.

But we still have no proof that it could have fired.

Steve Wolf is getting close to a working model.

I've been working on the steam cannon here, test the concept.

And the results were really great.

Here we go in 3, 2, 1.

Wow.

NARRATOR: With the preliminary testing complete,

Steve is ready to go live.

STEVE WOLF: Many people think that building a cannon that

would fire off steam power is impossible.

I'm pretty sure it works.

Today's the big day when we to find out.

To put this cannon through its test,

we've got a fire projectile that's really

capable of causing damage.

And I've got a five-pound magnesium ball here.

It's about the size of a billiard ball.

Very heavy, very hard.

If this thing came at you, you'd better be running.

And if you've got a ship, I don't

think there's any ducking.

NARRATOR: Can Steve get enough heat into his steam cannon

to get the required temperature?

STEVE WOLF: I've got kindling here.

I've got logs.

I've got a little diesel on there just for safe measure.

We're going to light this up.

If we get this metal over 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100

degrees Celsius, then any water that we put in here

is going to turn to steam, which means that the heat coming

through here is going to excite that water.

The molecules are going to move around so fast that they fly

apart from each other, ceasing to be a liquid

and becoming a gas.

So when we add heat to this liquid in a sealed vessel,

we're creating a ton of pressure.

And pressure is what it takes to fire cannonballs.

We're going to see the pressure on this gauge climb.

When we're ready to fire this, we open this valve here

just by yanking that this way.

So we're going to create a tremendous amount of force

going this way.

It's going to push against the back of the cannonball.

We usually talk in terms of speed.

But I prefer to think of it in terms of effectiveness.

Are we firing that ball fast enough

to go through the hull of a ship that's attacking us?

And that's really what matters.

NARRATOR: Over 2,000 years ago at the siege of Syracuse,

the mother of modern guns was born.

But did it really work?

We've seen evidence of the impressive arsenal

that Archimedes built at the siege of Syracuse.

It's clear that he could have harnessed the power of the sun

to create a lethal death ray.

But could his steam cannon have enough impact

to obliterate a Roman warship?

We're about to find out.

Only one ancient image of Archimedes' design survives.

BETTANY HUGHES: It is amazing to think that Archimedes,

over 2,200 years ago, was sitting in his home in Sicily

and dreaming up a super weapon.

NARRATOR: In Austin, Texas, Steve

Wolf has been building a steam cannon to see if the technology

could really have worked.

Its time to light this homemade super weapon up.

This is the first time he attempts to fire it.

STEVE WOLF: We're going to find out today whether Archimedes

was right, whether the steam cannon could have fired.

And I couldn't be more excited.

NARRATOR: Archimedes' design is based on using water heated up

to extreme temperatures over an open fire to create steam.

When the steam is released, it propels a cannonball.

Working with steam under this kind of pressure can be deadly.

STEVE WOLF: We're going to fire a five-pound cannonball 150

feet using nothing but a couple of ounces of water.

We open the valve, and that's all it takes.

NARRATOR: Steve has to heat the cylinder

enough so that the steam climbs to a pressure of at least

150 PSI.

OK, pressure's climbing.

Here we go, baby.

We're going to test this thing.

Fire in the hole.

Fire in the hole.

[cannon firing]

Holy crap.

Look at that.

[laughing] Awesome, check it out.

Proof positive.

They said it couldn't be done.

They said it was impossible.

Archimedes, you were right.

And 200 feet, beautiful.

That blows me away.

Archimedes had it all right.

And I think we just proved it.

NARRATOR: It's incredible to think that Archimedes could

have achieved such a low angle of trajectory.

And even more incredible is that the same technology powers

the most formidable super weapon today, the Nimitz class

aircraft carrier.

[thrilling music]

Hunter Ellis, an ex-fighter pilot,

is on the USS Ronald Reagan looking

for the legacy of Archimedes.

So Archimedes designed a steam cannon 2,000 years ago.

But steam still plays a very important role

in modern warfare.

This is the catapult 2 charging panel room.

This is what fires the aircraft off the ships.

So basically, a steam catapult is the modern day steam

cannon in a sense.

I have over 400 catapult shots.

And still no words do it justice.

It is the most amazing feeling in the world.

You're taking a 45,000 plus-pound aircraft.

You're launching it at 160 miles per hour in under two seconds.

It is a modern day phenomenon.

[jet launching]

This right here is essentially your projectile

of the modern day steam cannon, the steam catapult.

As an aircraft comes up, it attaches itself with a launch

bar into the front side of the shuttle right here.

It will hook into the front.

And then when the aircraft is ready to fly,

that steam will be released, driving the piston

through the cylinder, carrying the shuttle that's

attached to the launchpad, which is attached to the aircraft.

And as it hits the end right here, the aircraft is released.

And it goes flying.

This is the valve room for catapult 1,

which is the bow cat in a Nimitz class carrier.

Below us, all the high pressure steam from the nuclear reactors

is boarded up into this valve right there

where it's stored at about 450 PSI.

You can hear the aircraft above us throttling up.

He's now getting into position on the catapult.

[aircraft launching]

And right there is the magic that makes those airplanes go.

Archimedes beat us to the punch by 2,000 years.

NARRATOR: It's clear that modern weapons systems are

able to generate enormous power through steam.

But could Archimedes have created enough energy

to fire a cannonball with lethal force?

Leonardo gave a maximum range of 800 yards

for the steam cannon.

That really does seem impossible.

But experiments at the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology created a pressure of 3,000 to 4,000 PSI,

giving a muzzle velocity of around 800 feet per second.

This weapon would have been devastating at closer ranges.

NARRATOR: Military historian Mike Loades

has come to see if Steve Wolf's steam cannon can shoot

a projectile with enough velocity

to penetrate a boat's hull.

MIKE LOADES: So what defines a super weapon is

it's a weapon that has capabilities greater

than any other weapons of its time.

And if this works, it's certainly that.

It sounds like an impossible idea.

But that's what marks out the minds of men like Archimedes.

They make the impossible possible.

NARRATOR: For the first time ever,

Steve pushes the weapon dangerously close to 175 PSI.

Will it work or will it explode?

STEVE WOLF: We're at 150, 175.

3, 2, 1.

[cannon firing]

[explosions]

NARRATOR: The cannonball pierces the wooden hull

with no problem, proving that the steam cannon was indeed

a super weapon well ahead of its time.

Archimedes was on to something.

Yeah, he was.

Yeah, m yeah.

That was wild.

MIKE LOADES: That was great fun.

But it was also a powerful demonstration of what

a powerful thing this is.

It really is.

MIKE LOADES: And the real power of this

is there is nothing more powerful than an idea.

All of this progress simply based on water

going from a liquid to a gas.

That idea.

Phenomenal.

NARRATOR: Steve Wolf has done the impossible

and created a steam cannon based on Archimedes' design, which

is both lethal and accurate.

But even with the intimidating arsenal created by Archimedes,

Syracuse eventually fell to the mighty Romans.

And Archimedes was slain.

But the influence of his designs is still felt today thousands

of years later.

We now know that ancient civilizations created

impossible super weapons way ahead of their time.

But there is one military supership,

built by an Egyptian pharaoh 2,000 years ago,

that historians believe could be the forerunner

of the modern aircraft carrier.

Could the ancients have built this impossibly huge mega ship?

Sources reveal this floating super weapon

of the ancient seas could carry more than an aircraft carrier

today.

How similar is this ancient Goliath of the sea

to its modern equivalent?

HUNTER ELLIS: I'm aboard the USS Ronald Reagan.

It's one of the largest and most powerful super weapons

of all time.

NARRATOR: The Nimitz class nuclear

powered aircraft carrier, one of the most advanced super weapons

ever to exist.

It is the top of the ladder of any military weapons system.

HUNTER ELLIS: Honestly, there's nothing

more intimidating than an aircraft carrier.

It's a moving runway.

It's 4 and 1/2 acres that you can take anywhere

in the world and deploy thousands of warriors

in a moment's notice.

That's going to strike fear at the heart of your enemy.

[jet zooming]

NARRATOR: As a fighter pilot, Hunter Ellis

knows the capabilities of the modern aircraft carrier.

And he can only imagine the impact

a warship of this magnitude would have had thousands

of years ago.

HUNTER ELLIS: Now just imagine if you could take something

the size of an aircraft carrier with the lethality

of an aircraft carrier and apply that in ancient times,

the pure intimidation factor you would have with that would be

phenomenal.

NARRATOR: It was called the Forty probably

because of the number of oarsmen at each rowing station.

This mega warship was built for the Pharaoh Ptolemy IV

2,200 years ago.

HUNTER ELLIS: The Forty was a massive ship for its day.

And the Forty was 420 feet long, 57 feet wide, 72 feet high.

And you think about trying to build a ship out

of wood that size and that day, it's a technological marvel.

It's unbelievable that something like that existed.

NARRATOR: The Forty holds a number of records.

No ship ever had a greater troop capacity.

It is the largest catamaran ever built.

And it is the largest human powered vessel ever known.

Dr. Derek Muller is in Egypt, the home of the Forty,

to discover how important ships were in the ancient world.

DEREK MULLER: Wow.

Here at this temple in Southern Egypt,

you can see here there is a boat.

And this boat belonged to Ramesses II.

So you can see that boats were a very important part

of Egyptian culture.

Over the centuries, boats just became more and more

important until the Ptolemaic times

when they were building truly ginormous ships the likes

of which we've never seen again.

The Forty would have been the largest wooden boat in history.

Truly an impossible feat of Engineering

and the greatest example of mega building in the ancient world.

NARRATOR: The Forty was built by pharaoh Ptolemy

IV over 2,000 years ago in Alexandria,

while Egypt was under Greek rule.

It was at the pinnacle of an ancient arms race.

DAMIAN ROBINSON: The Forty is all about power.

It's about demonstrating Ptolemy IV's extreme wealth, the wealth

of Egypt, the threat of its armies and its navy,

and also his military might.

NARRATOR: But how could the Egyptians have power

to ships such as the Forty, which

weighed nearly 4,000 tons?

HUNTER ELLIS: Today's Nimitz class carriers have the benefit

of nuclear power.

We have two giant reactors sitting below us here

that are able to move this vessel that displaces 95,000

tons at speeds of over 30 miles per hour.

But think about the ingenuity it took to create the rowing banks

for 4,000 rowers, 50 oars a side,

to be able to move that giant 420-foot wooden ship

from your coast to the enemy's coast.

NARRATOR: There is much debate and historical records

about how the staggering number of oarsman on the Forty

could possibly have worked in sync.

JAMES DEAN: One theory is the oars with different lengths

at different angles, allowing rowing without tears.

If you ask me, the nightmare is at the rowing end.

The longest 57-foot oar would be angled

to avoid other oars like this.

But how can up to eight men row at this angle?

With the rower nearest the water sitting,

the end rower would be standing with the oar

well above his head.

It would have been impossible to reach it.

Perhaps the hull of the ship bodes slightly like this.

This would mean the oars don't need to be angled so steeply.

That would overcome this seemingly impossible problem.

NARRATOR: If it was possible for the Forty

to be fueled by such tremendous manpower,

it would have been one of the most intimidating weapons

of the ancient world.

But what was it like on board for the men

to row such a huge vessel?

HUNTER ELLIS: Picture thousands of years

ago this massive warship, the Forty.

It's almost impossible to imagine what would be going

through the mind of one of those rowers

knowing that they were going to have to row constantly

for 10 hours straight each day for the next several days.

Squeezing 4,000 men into those tight conditions,

even for a ship that large, must have been unfathomable.

The physical labor and just the mental exhaustion

that they would go through, you have to picture

these rowers as being some of the most battle-hardened people

imaginable.

NARRATOR: Historians have generally

thought that the Forty was simply a vehicle

for mass transport of troops.

But could new evidence prove that the Forty was also

an overwhelming offensive weapon?

In the ancient world, dominance at sea

was the mark of a superpower.

The greatest technology and design

went into warships, the ultimate super weapon

of the ancient world.

But what was the strategy behind these ancient superships?

New evidence indicates that the greatest warship of all,

the Forty, might have had even more weapons capabilities

than previously thought possible.

[suspenseful music]

DEREK MULLER: The Forty is a monstrous vessel,

a huge catamaran with two hulls and a massive deck

across the top, 400 feet long and about 100 feet wide.

It is a wooden ship the likes of which we have never seen again.

NARRATOR: In ancient times, control of the sea

was the hallmark of any great superpower.

Captain Bolt, commander of the USS Ronald Reagan,

knows the importance of naval domination.

CHRISTOPHER BOLT: The importance of a navy to any nation

is hard to measure.

The fact that 70% of the Earth is covered by water, and then

in the modern world, 90% of trade goes by water.

And I imagine the numbers were very similar 2,000 years ago.

So you think about controlling, we

call them sea lines of communication.

Those are the trade routes.

The navies are what keep them open for who you want to have

access, and closing those lines of communication

with those you don't want to have access.

So that's how important the navy is to world history.

NARRATOR: The Forty was topped with a vast deck, even bigger

than a football field.

It has always been thought that the space was intended

for troop transport.

But it might have had a more sinister function.

Could the Forty have carried deadly catapults

in its arsenal?

DAMIAN ROBINSON: In the Hellenistic period,

they invented torsion artillery, which

was able to hurl stone balls at great distance

at oncoming ships.

So consequently, sea battles may well

have started with an artillery barrage

before eventually, the ships come together

and the marines take over with the fighting.

NARRATOR: In addition to artillery,

it is now believed that seven massive beams at the bow

of the ship had the power to act as a giant battering

ram with unprecedented force.

RICHARD WINDLEY: Many harbors were protected by chains.

And if these rams were set at various points,

this would be a very good way of breaking through this harbor

protection system.

The force of a vessel of this weight and this magnitude,

hitting the a chain with a ram, it would just simply burst

straight through it.

And then the harbor would be unprotected.

NARRATOR: This bronze beam, known as the Athlit ram found

off the coast of Israel, is an example

of the destructive power of the giant rams mounted

on the bow of the Forty.

[jet zooming]

HUNTER ELLIS: The Forty had seven different rams of varying

length and they were used offensively against the enemy

in their ports.

So imagine harnessing the power of 4,000 rowers

and using those rams to drive right

into the heart of your enemy.

NARRATOR: A 4,000-ton ship armed with bronze rams and powered

by 4,000 men could have reduced enemy ships to splinters in no

time.

But could the seven rams on the Forty

even wreak havoc on shore?

We know that rams were used in siege warfare on land,

such as the Helepolis in ancient Greece

or the huge siege ram used at Masada.

If the Forty was used to take down fortified harbors or city

walls, this is an impossible piece of ancient siege warfare

never seen before.

HUNTER ELLIS: If you could compare similarities

between Forty and an aircraft carrier

they're both massive warships, massive troop carriers

for their day, employing thousands of warriors.

And also if you look at the Forty with the seven rams,

you can think of an aircraft carrier as having 60 plus rams.

The difference is these rams can be launched, and reach out

and touch you.

NARRATOR: The Forty was the ultimate super weapon

of the ancient world.

No other ship deployed such massive manpower

or had such destructive capabilities,

making it a legend of impossible engineering.

The world would never see a ship like the Forty

ever again, a true piece of impossible engineering.

There was no shortage of sophisticated weapons

in the ancient world.

Archimedes built a deadly arsenal harnessing

the natural powers of the sun and even water

to hold off the Roman Navy.

And the Egyptians built a warship that even surpassed

some capabilities of the modern aircraft carrier,

proving that even for the ancients,

nothing was impossible.