Combat Ships

For centuries, an extraordinary war has raged

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

You could kill hundreds of people with one broadside.

These were extremely powerful war machines.

Shipbuilders designed bigger and faster vessels

To outwit and crush their opponents.

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.

They carried terrifying weapons.

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.

But ships have also liberated

And rescued thousands.

You could think of gerda iii

As basically a lifeboat for persons hunted by the nazis.

And inspired men and women

To acts of incredible bravery.

I will take you there now, to your cannons,

To your death, we will sink before surrender.

These vessels and their crews

Have shaped world history.

As the commanding officer of a missile-carrying submarine,

I was directly responsible

For helping to prevent world war iii.

This time, fighting across oceans,

As the world goes to war.

There was a loud hiss

As the gun turrets hit cold north sea,

Because the gun turrets were hot.

Very few people escaped.

Not one, but two world wars

See technology race ahead

And former great warships left behind.

It was a big victory for germany,

Sinking a battleship, and to do it undetected

Was something of pure magic for the germans.

But this is also a tale of heroic acts

And daring missions that few thought would succeed.

And they were met with a scene

That was likened to dante's inferno.

Everything was on fire, even the sea itself.

As britain's royal navy

Entered the first world war,

It boasted of a century without defeat.

Britain's position as the world's preeminent naval power

Was secure.

But on may 31, 1916, in the north sea near denmark,

A pivotal naval confrontation took place--

The battle of jutland.

250 warships, british and german,

Deciding who rules the ocean

And who's going to win the first world war.

The german warships

Kept the royal navy under heavy fire.

The hms indefatigable suffered a direct hit.

The subsequent explosion sent wreckage 200 feet into the air.

Her crew probably had been completely wiped out;

Because when there's a massive magazine explosion,

No armored doors and bulkheads will hold that back.

Then, just minutes later,

Hms queen mary--

The last battle cruiser built before the war--

Suffered a similar fate.

There was just a huge, couple of hundred feet,

Of dense black smoke, all kinds of bits and pieces,

Bodies, paperwork.

There was a loud hiss

As the gun turrets hit cold north sea

Because the gun turrets were hot.

Very few people escaped.

From his own ship,

Admiral sir david beatty could only watch.

"there seems to be something wrong

With our bloody ships today," he muttered.

If the germans win this battle, the war could be lost.

Such a scenario had been unthinkable

Only a few years earlier.

Before the first world war

There was a naval building race

Between the british empire and the german empire.

And the british had won it.

They produced more battleships and battle cruisers,

The ships that mattered, than the germans did.

In 1906,

The royal navy's revolutionary hms dreadnought

Kick-started the competition.

She has all big guns,

So standardized armament,

She's driven by turbine engines,

Which gives her a phenomenal speed,

And she is a game-changer;

She raises the bar on battleship design;

And all the ships that follow her

Become known as dreadnoughts.

By 1914 and the outbreak of war,

Britain had 29 dreadnoughts to germany's 17.

And with control of the english channel,

And a major naval base at scapa flow

In the orkney islands,

The royal navy could contain the german navy

And prevent it from reaching the atlantic.

Since the start of the war,

The british grand fleet in scapa flow

Had helped contain the germans.

It was commanded by admiral sir john jellicoe.

John jellicoe was a consummate professional,

A very kind man.

Loved by his men,

But a very quiet, sort of cerebral commander.

Jellicoe's massive dreadnought fleet

Had preserved britain's maritime supremacy

Through the start of the war.

To the south, at rosyth,

Was a smaller but faster fleet led by battle cruisers,

Under the command of admiral beatty.

Beatty was immensely charismatic, very good-looking,

Courageous, a great tactical commander.

Nelson was his absolute hero.

By January 1916,

These two very different men had a new foe.

Across the north sea, admiral reinhard scheer

Was put in charge of the german high seas fleet.

Scheer was dynamic

And had a plan to tackle the all-powerful royal navy.

Like the british at rosyth,

The germans had a small but fast battle cruiser squadron.

Scheer's plan was to use this squadron

To lure small sections of the royal navy into combat.

His battle cruisers, though, would quietly be followed

By the full might of the high seas fleet.

They would try to trap part of the british fleet,

Perhaps the battle cruisers

Operating ahead of the main fleet, sink that.

Draw it onto the guns of the main german fleet,

Sink that.

And this would even things up in strength.

On may 31, 1916, the germans made their move.

The battle cruiser fleet under rear admiral franz von hipper

Sailed north, with scheer's main fleet 60 miles behind.

In britain, the admiralty intercepted

Some german wireless communications.

But they only found out about hipper's departure from port.

Their response was rapid.

Jellicoe set sail from scapa flow;

Beatty from rosyth.

On the afternoon of may 31st,

It was the two

Battle cruiser fleets

That spotted each other first.

When the german

Battle cruisers realized

The british battle cruisers were present to the west of them--

Bit of a shock--

They turned round, and they headed back southwards.

Rear admiral hipper was seeking the protection

Of vice admiral scheer,

And the british naturally turned south to follow them.

Beatty was acting

In characteristically decisive fashion,

Unaware he was being lured into a trap.

From the beginning, the german guns proved more accurate,

And within 40 minutes, beatty had lost two ships...

And 2,000 men.

But the accuracy of the german gunners

Is not the sole reason the battle of jutland

Was such a disaster for the royal navy.

This is m33, a gunboat from the first world war.

Its shell room is typical of the era--

A store for explosive shells

And the cordite charges that propel them.

These things are volatile.

They're extremely explosive,

And they are stored, in a dreadnought,

Right down in the bowels of the ship,

Protected by the thickest armor, so it should be safe.

What you find at the battle of jutland

Is that, in order to speed up their rate of fire

And compensate for their poor gunnery,

The british battle cruiser fleet have started compromising

With what today we'd call health and safety.

They've started to take these cordite charges

Out of the fire-proof cardboard cylinders.

So there's a lot of this stuff lying around.

And there is a hit on a turret, there is an explosion,

And the flash from the fire

Races down inside to the cordite magazine

And ignites this cordite in a catastrophic explosion,

And the ship is destroyed in seconds.

Worse was to come, however.

As admiral beatty chased hipper south,

His lookouts had a shock.

The leading german fleet,

Scheer's fleet, was seen coming over the horizon

Under a huge pall of black coal smoke.

Beatty had no idea

The main german fleet was at sea.