Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Studio: A & E Entertainment
• VHS Release Date: April 22, 1998
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000006QXZ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #414,389 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

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5.0 out of 5 stars A history of the development and career of the battleship, April 14, 2002

By 

"weirdo_87" (Rancho Cucamonga, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battleships [VHS] (VHS Tape)

For centuries, battleships were the ultimate weapons. A navy that had them in their possession could rule the seas. After the Dreadnought entered service in the Royal Navy in 1906, an arms race began between the major world powers. This was one of the causes that lead to World War I, where German and British fleets met at Jutland in 1916. This one engagement is considered the ultimate high seas gun battle and was a blueprint for the planning of many naval fleets following the armistice.

After the war, navies began to demilitarize. Treaties reduced the size of the fleets to a specified tonnage. However, the axis powers (Germany and Japan namely) broke from the treaty and began an arms race which culminated in 1939 with the outbreak of the Second World War. Battleships participated in some great battles during the war: The Bismarck Sea Chase, the Guadalcanal Campaign and Leyte Gulf were just the major engagements that these ships were in. The surrender documents ending the war were also signed aboard U.S.S Missouri on September 2, 1945.

But the end of the Battleship era had already begun long before. During the Bismarck sea chase, for example, the deciding factor was a British plane which dropped a torpedo that crippled the ship's rudder, thus leaving the ship to the Royal Navy. A bigger event occurred in December 1941, when Pearl Harbor was bombed in a sneak attack by Japanese Aircraft. The only major American ships not at Pearl during the attack were the carriers. These and later ships were the primary instruments in bringing an end to the war. The remaining Battleships were still vital, but only for mopping up after a battle, supporting the carriers or for shore bombardments before amphibious assaults. As a major, important naval weapon, the battleships were as obsolete as the wooden vessels they had replaced.

Today, some of these battleships still exist as floating museums. In Pearl Harbor, for example, the Missouri is moored just across the way from the Arizona Memorial (Standing as the symbols of the beginning and the ending of World War II). And the Iowa class ships were recommissioned several times for service in the Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars. A battleship is, as one of the historians interviewed pointed out, has a more impressive silhouette than any aircraft carrier. With a sleek bow, rugged superstructure and guns bristling like a porcupine, you know this ship means business when it enters a foreign harbor. In my view, this makes a battleship more beautiful than any carrier.