(tense music) - [Narrator] With 80 warships, France's navy is one of the
most powerful in the world. It's ships are engaged in all theaters of military operation. - [Voiceover] The sea is
clearly the center of the world. So whoever wants to dominate the land must dominate the sea. - [Narrator] As both
firing platform and ship, these vessels contain an
extraordinary concentration of technologies. - [Voiceover] The warship
is one of the most complex systems that
humankind is capable of designing and operating. - From the galleys of the 17th
century to the armor plated ships of the second world war, we will travel through four
centuries of history to discover the technologies which today's
warships have inherited. - [Voiceover] A lot of
research was required to obtain a ship capable
of functioning well at sea whilst fulfilling its military role as an artillery platform. - [Narrator] We'll explain why
the cannon profoundly changed ship's architecture and
transformed the art of war. - [Voiceover] A 380 millimeter
gun is capable of firing a one ton missile at
900 kilometers per hour, every one and a half to two minutes. - [Narrator] You'll discover
the combat technique of the first warship, the galley. - [Voiceover] The strength of
the galley lay in its impact. - [Narrator] And how they
built genuine walls of wood to protect against cannonballs. You'll understand why
warships were slow to adopt the steam engine in the 19th century. - [Voiceover] You immediately
think, "Steam, that's it." No, no. Perfecting it
took a very long time. It was complicated. - [Narrator] And the reasons
why torpedoes and aircraft brought an end to a century of domination by the steel monsters. Welcome to "400 years of
History and Technology." Welcome to "Warships." (upbeat music) (waves crashing)
(drums beating) Off the coast of Africa
in the Indian Ocean, warships with futuristic
silhouettes are cruising. Among them is the most valuable
element of the French Navy, a giant, the aircraft
carrier, Charles de Gaulle. The ship launches the Rafale into action, the latest generation of combat aircraft. - [Voiceover] It's a 40,000
ton ship which carries around 30 aircraft, made up of the Rafale, the Hawkeye, which is the
early warning aircraft, and then helicopter to carry
out logistics, transport, and to protect the
aircraft in their takeoff and landing phases. - [Voiceover] An aircraft
carrier transports aircraft, which carry out missions
of reconnaissance, no fly zone enforcement,
interception, bombing, anti-ship warfare, everything
an aircraft is capable of. - [Narrator] It is the largest
ship in the French Navy, at 261 meters long and 64 meters wide. The Charles de Gaulle
is the only surface ship with a nuclear propulsion system, which needs refueling
just every seven years. The 12,000 square meter flight deck, equivalent to two football pitches, is home to around 30 Rafale
aircraft and one Hawkeye. And it's two steam catapults
can launch its aircraft in just 15 minutes. - [Voiceover] I don't
think there's anything more sophisticated than a warship. It's the largest object
manufactured, constructed, made by humans that exists in the world. - [Voiceover] It's a tool
that's very expensive to design and construct. It requires a huge amount
of know-how in every aspect. It's the most accomplished
tool from the technical and technological points of view. You could compare it today
to the conquest of space. - [Narrator] Thanks to
the aircraft carrier, France can deploy its
military power and defend its strategic interests
anywhere in the world. No target is out of reach. - [Voiceover] The warship
is a part of France that can go anywhere in the world. Its capable of cruising in
any ocean on the planet, reaching every continent
and 80% of the population. - [Voiceover] When you
have an aircraft carrier, you position it close to the
coast and with your aircraft, you can go a lot further so you have a much greater
ability to strike inland. - [Narrator] The jewel of the French Navy is always accompanied by its escort. A minimum of six ships,
which make up the task force. - [Voiceover] An aircraft
carrier is never alone at sea. It's surrounded by whole Armada, which will allow it to
escape from submarines or airborne threats, if
there happens to be any. - [Narrator] To protect
the aircraft carrier, one anti air frigate, two
multipurpose frigates, specialized in anti-submarine combat, one replenishment oiler ship and one nuclear attack submarine, which will be the fighter and
protector of the task force. - [Voiceover] Danger
can come from anywhere because contemporary Naval
warfare is in three dimensions, surface, air and underwater. And no ship can defend itself against these three dimensions. - [Narrator] While ships join
battle today at a distance of over 1000 kilometers,
four centuries ago, they confronted each other in
deadly close combat battles. One ship was perfectly designed for that type of fighting, the galley. In the 17th century, France had 40 galleys in a
corps commanded by a general of the galleys. The corps was made up
of three types of ship. The ordinary galley,
the ultimate battleship, the patronne galley for
the commanders of the corps and the royal galley for the use of the king, queen and royal princes. The ship originated in the Mediterranean in the year 600 BC and was
designed for close combat. - [Voiceover] The galley
was a combat weapon. The idea was to surprise the enemy ships, to sail around them, to surround them if
they were isolated ships and then to ram them. - The strength of the
galley lay in its impact because you had to smash
into the enemy galley at right angles. - [Narrator] Smashing
into the opposing ship meant ramming it at full speed. So the galley was shaped
to glide over the waves. The slender hull, eight times
longer than it was wide, offered exceptional
hydrodynamic performance. It's low height in the water gave the oars maximum lever effect. Finally, this ship weighing just 250 tons, had two means of propulsion. - [Voiceover] Galleys had one or two masts with triangular sails. And as soon as there was a bit of a wind, they put the sails up, but the main characteristic
of the galley was the oars. The human propulsion. (water splashing) - [Narrator] An ordinary
galley had 51 oars, 26 on one side and 25 on the other. Each oar was 12 meters long and
weighed up to 130 kilograms. With five rowers per oar,
255 men were required to crew the ship. - [Voiceover] They would stand up and use all their body weight, and
they would hold their oar in which there were wooden
structures called palliment, on which they'd grip with their hands. And then they pushed
them all the way forward and pull it back towards them. And that's how they
made the galley advance. - [Voiceover] A good rower
was a man with big thighs, rather than big arms, because
basically it's the strength in the legs, the thighs, which make the ship move faster. And the arms just go with the oar. - [Narrator] At full speed, the galley could reach six
knots or 11 kilometers per hour, fast enough to seriously damage
the opposing ship on impact. While the slender hull
allowed it to go fast, it's low height in the
water meant it couldn't sail outside the Mediterranean. - [Voiceover] Galleys
stayed close to shore. They weren't seagoing ships.
In winter they stayed in port. If it was windy, they couldn't sail. So galleys weren't used often. - [Narrator] The reason
the galley fell from favor wasn't it's poor nautical qualities, but it's limited firepower. - [Voiceover] The problem with a galley was that you needed space for
the oars and the artillery. So the galley's artillery
is packed into the bow. When two fleets of galleys
confronted each other, they did so facing each other
because of their cannons. The idea was to weaken the
enemy before close combat. - [Voiceover] It was fairly tokenistic because once you fire a
cannon, you have to reload it. And it was very difficult to
reload a cannon on a galleon. - [Narrator] From 1680
galleys were no longer used in the front line as they
didn't have enough canons. The ship was abandoned after
reigning over the Mediterranean for two millennia. The firepower of today's
warships is impressive, like that of the multi-purpose frigate that protects the aircraft carrier. - [Voiceover] The Fremm is without doubt the best surface combat ship
today in the frigate class. It's able to handle all
the current threats, with its extremely powerful weapons. - [Narrator] On the sides,
two 12.7 millimeter guns ensure close protection. At the stern, two 20 millimeter
remote controlled guns allow automatic firing
with target locking by day and by night. More imposing on the bow,
is a 75 millimeter gun with a range of 30 kilometers. It can destroy land,
sea or airborne targets. Against aircraft, there
are 16 Aster missiles, which can reach 3,500 kilometers per hour. Finally, the frigate has
16 Naval cruise missiles to strike targets over a
thousand kilometers away. Ships armament is the result
of a long technical evolution. The first cannons, also
called "mouths of fire," appeared in the 14th century. Made from strips of wrought
iron assembled by hand, it wasn't rare for them
to explode on firing. So for a long time, people were reluctant to load
these weapons onto ships. In the 15th century, cannon manufacturing methods improved. Made from a new bronze alloy, they became safer and more precise. They were installed in large
numbers on sailing ships with high freeboard or
height above the water, unlike galleys, they had no oars, and so had space for artillery
weapons along their sides. So began a new era, that of sailing ships and their powerful artillery, which were to dominate the seas
for the next three centuries and change the art of war. (gulls squawking) The history of these warships
began in the late middle ages. - [Voiceover] It started
in the late 15th century and early 16th century with
the appearance of the galleon, which was very archaic. It was quite a big rounded, bulging ship, with castles fore and aft. - [Narrator] The wide decks
could take a large number of artillery weapons. However, their weight raised
the ship's center of gravity and destabilized it. The solution was found
in the late 15th century with a simple but revolutionary idea, the invention of the gun port. - [Voiceover] The gun port
was a rectangle of wood, which the shipwrights cut into the hull. When the gun port was closed, you couldn't distinguish it
from the rest of the hull. Then in battle you raised this shutter, you pushed the barrel into the hole, loaded the cannonball and fired. - [Voiceover] The
introduction of the gun port was fundamental. If the canons had stayed on the decks, it would have been impossible
to increase their weight because of the ship's stability. If you put heavy weights high up, obviously the ship will
have a tendency to list, or even to sink. Placing the cannons below decks, lowered the center of gravity and therefore you could
increase the weight, and also the caliber of the cannons. - [Narrator] The caliber of the artillery progressed rapidly. In 1638, the largest
canon was a 12 pounder. It fired a cannonball weighing six kilos. Seven years later, the
18 pounder cannon appear. And in 1682, the most powerful
piece of artillery was made with a caliber of 36 pounds. This three meter long colossus
fired a cannonball weighing 18 kilos over 300 meters. - [Voiceover] The cannon alone weighed three and a half tons. With all the equipment, it was
closer to six or seven tons. So it was huge. And that was why 16 men
were needed to service each 36 pounder. - Canons of the same caliber
were installed in batteries. The lightest were
positioned on the upper deck and the heaviest on the lower deck. Each battery was made
up of two broadsides, one on either side. At the end of the 17th century, the largest ships had
up to three batteries giving them the impressive
number of 100 cannons. - [Voiceover] As these
ships were more stable the cannons were more effective. They could fire further
and with more precision. They could fire further
because they were higher in the water, so that's ballistics. And they could have more precision because as the platform's more stable, they could be aimed more accurately. - [Voiceover] Combat at sea was changing. They weren't trying to board
each other's ships anymore. They weren't trying to
get close to each other. On the contrary, they
were keeping at a distance and fighting in what would
become the famous line of battle, which developed in the late
17th century and would continue in all its glory until the
end of the 18th century. (cannons booming) - [Narrator] From 1664 boarding
with its risky outcome, gave place to the tactic
known as line of battle. - [Voiceover] You had about 40 or 50 ships divided into three groups, the vanguard, the battle
corps and the rear guard, which had to fight the
enemy in the same way. And the two squadrons
sailed past each other, then turned around and did the
same in the other direction. So you had battles lasting
10 or even 12 hours. - [Voiceover] You weren't seeking to systematically destroy the others. You wanted them to retreat, showing that you were the strongest. You occupied that area
and you were sovereign in that particular place. - [Narrator] This war
of intimidation involved the most powerfully armed
ships, the ships of the line. In the vanguard were the
ships with three decks and more than 80 cannons. In the middle, the ships
with 50 to 68 cannons. And in the rear, those
with fewer than 50 cannons. - [Voiceover] In the line of battle, you obviously tried to have
the ships following each other, with the same nautical performance and approximately the same fire power, so you didn't create a
weakness in the line. You need to try to imagine
great fortification in which you systematically placed cannons of the same power. - [Narrator] For the
largest ships of the line cannons and cannonballs
combined exceeded 300 tons. That significant weight meant
that the design of the ships had to be revised. - [Voiceover] If you place a
lot of artillery in the hull, what do you have to do? You have to make the hull
longer or else you won't have enough space for the cannons, and you won't have enough
space to operate the cannons. So you make it longer. But as you lengthen the ship, you also need to make it wider, because if you make it too long, it will become fragile and will have poor nautical qualities. So you have to increase its width. If you do that, you also have to increase
the size of the masts. So you need to find larger
timber with a greater diameter. - [Narrator] The French Navy,
like its foreign competitors, wanted to construct the best warship. Today, warships go through
a long development phase. Armaments, speed and
maneuverability are considered in response to the
needs of modern warfare. - [Voiceover] We have
very powerful software, which allows us to design
the ship in three dimensions and very quickly to be able to integrate all the equipment and
systems on board the ship. - [Narrator] Steel
hull, propulsion system, electrical and computing networks are built in at the shipyards. The ships are meticulously
assembled using gigantic cranes, 104 meters tall equivalent
to a 35 story building. And gantry cranes capable
of lifting 300 tons or 15 trucks at the same time. In the 17th century, warships
were constructed by hand. It all started with the keel,
the backbone of the ship. - [Voiceover] Constructing a warship was extremely complicated. You had to create a hull, starting with a keel onto
which you join wooden frames, like the ribs connected to one's sternum. - [Narrator] These ribs or
frames gave the hull its shape. It was much less slender
than that of the galley because the builders were looking less for the best movement through the water, than the efficient
distribution of the artillery's significant weight. In order to erect an impenetrable barrier, the distance between
each frame was smaller than the width of a cannonball. - [Voiceover] Onto this wooden structure, they nailed the planking on the outside. So very long planks of wood, which were placed along the hull from the keel to the upper deck. Inside, there was more strengthening, an inner skin if you
like, called the ceiling. So it was reinforced by
planks of wood on the inside. - [Narrator] Frames, planking
and ceiling formed a hull, which could be up to a meter thick. That's why it was called the wall. This wall was pierced for the gun ports. They were arranged at an equal
distance, 2.4 meters apart. And so as not to weaken the hull, they were arranged in
a checkerboard pattern. The position of the gun ports
was of crucial importance as shown by the tragic fate of the Vasa. Disaster struck during the
Swedish ship's maiden voyage on the 10th of August, 1628. - [Voiceover] The boat was very unstable. The gun ports were too low
down and the water very rapidly flooded into the hull,
making it sink very quickly. - [Narrator] That day, the
thousand sailors on board lost their lives in the port of Stockholm. The sinking of the Vasa
highlighted the importance of the height of battery. - [Voiceover] This is the
distance between the water line and the bottom of the
lower battery gun port. There must be a certain distance
or else the ship will take on water through the gun
ports and will end up sinking. So this height of battery
can't be too small, but it can't be too big either, or the stability of the
ship will be affected. It will lack stability. It won't have a good
attitude in the water. - [Narrator] After a year in the shipyard, the hull was finished and launched. The final stage could begin,
the fitting out of the ship. This wasn't about
positioning the artillery, but rather installing the
masts, sails and rigging. The masts reach 30 meters high, the equivalent of a 10 story building. To help with their installation, the shipbuilders used a crane
called a masting machine. - [Voiceover] They had what
was called a masting machine, which was about 70 meters tall. It was made up of big masts,
tied together with ropes, which were made to lift very heavy loads and to install the lower sections
of the masts in the ships, in the vertical position. Then they added the upper
sections of the masts, which were ringed with iron, and then they could add all the sails. (tense music) - [Narrator] The surface
area of the sails determined the ship's speed, a decisive element during battles at sea. - [Voiceover] As ships
became bigger and heavier, as they carried more artillery, they needed more efficient sails, because the sails are the engine. So they increased the surface area to make the ship go faster. - [Voiceover] You could divide
the sails into two groups. The big rectangular or
trapezium shaped sails were mainly used for
propulsion, for speed. And the smaller triangular or square sails were used more for maneuvering the ship. - [Narrator] In full sail,
these heavily armed ships could reach nine knots or
17 kilometers per hour, that was 30% faster than galleys. It took about a hundred
craftsmen a year and a half to build these lords of the sea. Each ship was unique because
the master shipbuilders guarded their trade secrets jealously. - [Voiceover] The
extraordinary thing about these wooden ships was that
the builders handed down their technical expertise,
through six or seven generations. - [Voiceover] The designers
of the ships stuck to the tried and tested methods. It's like recipes and cooking. Once you have the right
balance, you don't change it. There's the, know-how,
the knack, all of that. - [Narrator] Whilst the
recipes, most often produced efficient ships, they sometimes made ships that were incapable of putting to sea. Given their cost, the Navy
couldn't afford a failure like the Vasa. - [Voiceover] The number
of people it took, between the master
shipbuilders, the shipbuilders, shipwrights, the cannon
manufacturers, the foundry workers, the sail makers everything
you need on a ship, from planking to hemp,
cannons and armaments, it was quite extraordinary. - [Voiceover] A ship cost 1 million pounds in the late 18th century, which was equivalent to
300 kilograms of gold. - [Narrator] For the time,
this extraordinary cost forced France to draw up
construction standards that would guarantee
the excellence of ships. Arsenals like Toulon,
Brest, Rochefort or Lorient played an essential role. They developed new technical
solutions and trained the best shipbuilders using
extremely detailed models. - [Voiceover] These big models,
usually one to ten scale, almost a kind of simulator,
you stood around them. You were there to learn. You were there also to
see the effect of the wind on the sails. They were instructing
the master shipbuilders. So they were a real 3D training school. - [Narrator] In 1765, France founded the School of Maritime Engineering. It trained the future
engineers who would replace the old shipbuilders. These men of science
used the new mathematics and insisted on drawings. It was the birth of
modern Naval architecture. - [Voiceover] In the 18th
century times had changed. Certain inefficient ships
had been abandoned for good. And the 74 gun ship of the
line had been perfected. It was the battleship par excellence. - [Narrator] It's name was the Temeraire. It was the first war
ship built according to a Naval architectural plan. The plan was the work of two men, Jean-Charles de Borda
and Jacques-Noel Sane. - [Voiceover] Borda was the academic, the mathematician, the scholar. And Sane was the highly
skilled and competent engineer who made his career following the training route at the time, as a shipbuilding engineer. - [Narrator] Together, they optimize the 74 gun ship of the line,
conceived 40 years earlier. They found the best compromise
between the firepower and nautical qualities. - [Voiceover] It was the
result of a lot of research to obtain a ship that was
capable of functioning as well as possible at sea, while fulfilling its military role as an artillery platform. - [Narrator] The ship's
dimensions were impressive, 57 meters long, 15 meters wide. It's tallest mast was 85 meters high. - [Voiceover] When you imagine
a ship moored at a key level with a person, with its banks of sails, it was pretty impressive. If you place the 74 gun ship
of the line with all its sails unfelled in front of the Arc de Triomphe, the Arc would be completely
hidden, completely invisible. - [Narrator] It weighed 2,950 tons. This giant was powered by more
than 40 sails with a total surface area of 2,600 square meters or six basketball courts. This powerful propulsion
allowed it to reach the unheard of speed of 11
knots or 20 kilometers per hour. The ship also had
exceptional maneuverability, a crucial advantage in battle. - [Voiceover] These nautical
qualities were desirable because in battle changing tack was a very complex operation. Tacking took half an hour of maneuvers, assuming that the enemy
wasn't firing at you from all directions. So the desire for maneuverability, was essential in terms of war. - [Narrator] The ship could
change tack in just 15 minutes. That was half the time of its opponents. This prowess was made
possible by the addition of one element on the mizzen sail, located at the stern
of the ship, the boom. - [Voiceover] Gradually
this sail was perfected. The bottom of the sail was
attached to a piece of wood, called a boom, which
kept the sale more rigid. And that was great because it
meant you could trim the sail very accurately and adjust
it by a few degrees, more or less. - [Narrator] Faster, maneuverable, the ship was powerfully armed. It's 74 guns were arranged into batteries. In the lower battery,
there were twenty eight 36 pounder guns. In the upper battery, thirty 18 pounders and on the upper deck,
sixteen eight pounders. In the hold, it carried 4,400 cannonballs and 22 tons of gunpowder,
enough to last six months. This ship was a formidable
artillery platform. Sane and Borda's ship of the line, was the centerpiece of the French Navy. - [Voiceover] The ship was
built according to blueprints, which standardized the model. That meant they could develop construction according to pre-established
standardized models, with a ship that would be identical. - [Narrator] In one century
around a hundred ships were produced in the shipyards. This success inspired foreign navies, which sought to copy them. - [Voiceover] In the 18th century. industrial espionage was rife. There were British engineers
who tried to come to Toulon, to spy and also to Rochefort. This espionage also happened when an enemy ship was captured. So technical knowledge and
know-how circulated widely. - [Narrator] These 74
gun ships of the line and their variations, the
80 gun and the 118 gun, showed their power by
exhibiting their artillery. Today the stakes are very different. 21st century war ships
seek to be stealthy. - [Voiceover] The object
of stealth isn't to make the ship invisible, that's impossible. It's to make it less visible
so that it's radar imprint on an enemy screen looks like
a small ship or another ship rather than a threatening,
high tonnage warship. - [Narrator] On enemy radar screens, the battleship appears no
bigger than a fishing boat. This achievement is made possible
by the shape of the hull, which is able to attenuate radar waves. - [Voiceover] The main means
of detecting a ship at sea is radar. The radar emits electromagnetic waves, which will touch the metal
sides of the frigate. And this wave goes back to
the radar and the enemy radar gets an indication of
direction and distance. (radar beeping) The frigate has super
structures on the incline to avoid reflecting the wave
and also completely flat sides because any cavity represents
a cage that amplifies the radar signal and
re-emits it with more power, so you can be detected
from much further away. So really thanks to its shape,
a Fremm today that weighs 6,000 tons is seen as a
boat of a few hundred tons. It's hardly visible on an enemy radar. - [Narrator] Stealth is a key advantage when ships confront each other
without seeing each other. It allows you to strike the
adversary before being spotted. But when the battle is
a deadly head to head, the advantage will be with the one that has the greatest fire power. (gun blasting) In the early 19th century, the distance separating two
enemy ships during a battle was less than 500 meters. At that distance, the
only thing that counted was the number of cannon. - [Voiceover] At Trafalgar, there were more than 5,000
cannons facing each other. To reach those numbers, you had to wait until the first world war. You didn't have that many cannons and they were big ones, 36 pounders. Whereas on land, Napoleon in
the same period at Austerlitz, probably had 146 cannons and
they were only 20 pounders. It was another world. - [Narrator] Naval warfare was changing. It was no longer a matter
of intimidating your enemy, but annihilating them. - [Voiceover] Destruction,
the desire to annihilate one's enemy started to
appear in the middle of the 18th century. There were battles that
demonstrated how they were trying to sink enemy ships, or
even really to kill men. - [Voiceover] The French
fight to de-mast ships. They sought to immobilize the
enemy by aiming at the sails. They made the masts collapse. On the other hand, the English
were much more dangerous because they fired to kill. So they aimed at the
level of the ship's rail. The English cannonballs splintered
about one meter of wood. So the poor French sailors
were hit full in the chest or the eyes by these splinters
and the French losses were much greater than the English losses. - [Narrator] In 1779,
the English perfected a new artillery weapon, which they introduced on
their ships a year later. It was called the carronade. - [Voiceover] A carronade
was a short cannon placed on deck offering
very accurate firing over a short range. It was very destructive. The carronade could easily
pierce an enemy's hull, but also fire across the decks. - [Narrator] The carronade
loaded with shrapnel, fired at the enemy decks
at less than 300 meters. The results were devastating. The French soon copied it and
installed this deadly weapon on their own ships. Whether they were carronades or cannons, a lengthy process was required before these artillery
weapons could be fired. First, you had to clean
the inside of the barrel to remove any powder
from the previous firing. Then the powder charge was inserted. Next, the cannonball wedged
between two wads of old ropes was compacted in the barrel. The gun was moved close to
the gun port using a system of ropes and pulleys. 15 men were needed to manipulate
this heavy 3.5 ton gun. Once in position, the gun
commander would discharge the powder and light the match cord. - [Voiceover] I use the
example of a formula one car coming into the pits to change its tires. You have to be as quick as possible. Loading a cannon was no different. You had a team around a
cannon and they have to react very fast and be perfectly coordinated. That coordination only came with practice. - [Narrator] The English
were capable of firing a 38 pounder gun in eight minutes. The less well-trained French
took two or three times longer. Once the cannons were ready, the ship's side had to be
positioned towards the enemy. - [Voiceover] The commander's
task was to maneuver his ship, or even his fleet if he was an admiral, into a favorable position
to fire the first shot. And even to be able to fire a second as quickly as possible, in the knowledge that
the ships were moving. - [Voiceover] When you have
about 30 cannons firing more or less at the
same time, first of all, it's very noisy. And then there's a lot of smoke. You can't see the cannon next door. The smoke is overwhelming. You have to try to imagine it. There were about 300 men in
a space already saturated with gun powder. You can't imagine what it was like, but it would burn your throat. There was the heat, of course, the fear, the noise of battle and
explosions, because opposite you, the enemy was also firing. And when he hit his target
of the enemy gun ports, the wood exploded, which sent splinters and
particles whirling about the batteries striking the men. The wounds show this quite clearly. - [Narrator] In addition to the dead, there were dozens of wounded men. So that the crew wouldn't
panic at the sight of so much blood, the decks of some ships were painted red. - [Voiceover] The English
ships had trained crews used to very strict discipline. And if I could put it this way, they were replaceable. They had three times more Naval reserves than the French did. I think the difference
in the late 18th century, wasn't so much in technology
but in human resources. - [Narrator] With more
sailors, but also more ships, England had the most
powerful Navy in the world. France wanted to make things more equal, and in order to do that invested
in technological advances. - [Voiceover] The idea
was to equal the quantity and financial resources of Great Britain by technological breakthroughs. France systematically used
technological innovation to compensate for financial, economic and industrial inferiority in
comparison to Great Britain. - [Narrator] Sir Henri-Joseph
Paixhans, an army general, graduate of the Ecole
Polytechnique and French artillery specialist developed a
new weapon, the shell gun. Both shorter and heavier, this gun fired explosive shells. - [Voiceover] The explosive
shell firstly traveled faster, so it was able to smash
through the wooden walls and it exploded inside the battery. - [Narrator] It proved its
formidable effectiveness in 1838 in the war between France and Mexico. - [Voiceover] Using these shells, France destroyed the
fortress of San Juan de Ulua. So every Navy then understood the threat to wooden Navy ships. - [Narrator] While the Paixhans
gun was quickly adopted by navies the same wasn't true
of the other major invention that would transform
warships, steam power. - [Voiceover] There was
resistance to change. There was a natural skepticism towards new technological breakthroughs. And you could see that
with the arrival of steam. Changes in mentalities, ways of thinking, don't happen at the same rate
as technological changes. There can be relatively
quick technological changes, but then people have to adapt. - [Narrator] The first
steam engine was installed in a boat in 1807. With 18 horsepower, it operated
two enormous paddle wheels. - [Voiceover] The invention
of steam power was applied at sea by an American,
Fulton, giving more power. And he made the first
steam boats with a range that made them useful
for trade or for war. - [Narrator] In 1838, an English liner powered by both sail and
steam made the crossing from Liverpool to New
York in a record time, 15 days instead of the 40 days needed by other sailing ships. In spite of this exploit, the great Naval powers
were slow to adopt steam. - You immediately think,
"Steam, that's it." No, no. Perfecting it
took a very long time. It was complicated. First of all, you needed different
types of people on board. You needed mechanics. You need people who worked in forges, people in the iron trade. - [Narrator] The steam
engine was a complicated and delicate mechanism,
which raised questions over vulnerability and fuel stocks. - [Voiceover] For the
military use of steam, the major obstacle was
the protection of the ship because the external wheels
providing the propulsion, were extremely vulnerable
to enemy artillery. - [Voiceover] But there
was another problem. In the holds, they needed
enormous stores of coal. So they not only needed
space in the holds for that, which was to the detriment of the canons, but they also needed
external infrastructure, places to pick up coal around the world. - [Narrator] Another
revolutionary invention solved the problem of
vulnerability, the propeller. Located below the waterline, it was protected from enemy fire. It quickly appealed to Naval commanders. Every warship is now driven by propeller. It allows them to travel
at remarkable speeds. The problem is that they
generate considerable noise, which can be picked up by enemy submarines using their sonar. - [Voiceover] They have antennae, which trying to detect the
presence of mechanical objects, such as boats among the sounds of the sea. Civilian boats can be
detected from far away because their priority isn't to avoid detection by submarines. On the other hand on the Fremm frigate, the hull has been specially
designed to limit the noise of water flowing off the hull. The stabilizers have been
removed and a much quieter method of stabilizing the ship is used. The engines obviously have to run. And the pumps cause vibration, all that sound is insulated from the hull, in order to reduce the
noise admitted by the ship. - [Narrator] Engineers have also worked on the shape of the propeller. It's hydrodynamic qualities,
make the ship even quieter. It was a French engineer,
Stanislas Dupuy de Lome, who designed the first war ship
in the world to be driven by steam and propeller, the Napoleon. Five years after its launch, it demonstrated its 500
horsepower in the Crimean war, when the Russian Navy faced
the French and English navies. - [Voiceover] People
understood the usefulness of steam power when the Napoleon
gave a tow to the flagship, the Ville de Paris, which wasn't a traditional
three masted ship. So only driven by sail,
because there wasn't much wind and the currents were against it. And the British were stuck at
the entry to the Dardanelles, because they didn't have a
sufficiently powerful steamship. It was a brilliant
demonstration of the superiority of steam over sail. - [Narrator] This exploit
removed the French Navy's reticence with regard to steam power. - [Voiceover] In 1855, a
committee met and said, "A warship that isn't
steam-powered, isn't a warship." So a page was turned. It didn't mean that all
sailing ships were got rid of, but it did mean that people from then on considered that steam was
essential to the operation of a warship. - [Narrator] In 1855, a new
type of ship was introduced. Continuing its experimentation, France constructed an iron clad platform, armed with 50 pounder Paixhans guns. It was called the floating battery. - [Voiceover] It was
called the floating battery as they couldn't call it
a frigate or a corvette or anything else because these were ships with no nautical qualities at all. It was a sort of fortress on water. It was a big ironclad
shoe box, which fired guns and that was it. It had no form. It wasn't
a ship of the line. It wasn't a ship. Let's
be honest about it. - [Narrator] During the Crimean
war three floating batteries were towed to face the
fortress of Kinburn. On the 17th of October, 1855, they reduced the fortress
to ashes in four hours. For their part, the
floating batteries sustained little damage in spite of
being hit by 126 shells. This success confirmed the
intuitions of the engineer Stanislas Dupuy de Lome. - [Voiceover] Dupuy de
Lome was a brilliant, young Naval engineer. He was sent to England
several times to observe British technological progress. He was struck by the
achievements of the British steel industry. And In 1845, he proposed the idea of an entirely ironclad frigate. - [Narrator] This new
type of ship was launched on the 8th of March, 1859. It was the first ironclad in the world. Its name was Gloire. - [Voiceover] It was a ship
that was extraordinarily technologically advanced,
such that for about 20 years, France was ahead of England
in Naval architecture, which was rarely the case. - [Voiceover] The Gloire
marked a break with the past, because it was a combination
of three types of innovation, which were one, artillery
with exploding shells, two, propeller driven propulsion
and three, armor plating. - [Narrator] The Gloire brought
to an end three centuries of domination by sailing ships, and the age of the ironclad started. The steel warlords would
rule the seas until the start of the second world war. The Gloire was an imposing more ship, almost 78 meters long and 17 meters wide. But it was above all, a very heavy ship due to its
armor plating, 5,630 tons. Plates of wrought iron
11 centimeters thick were fixed to its wooden hull. They went all the way round the ship at the level of the waterline. These plates added 844
tons of extra weight. Dupuy de Lome was forced
to reduce the weight, if he wanted to retain
its nautical qualities. - [Voiceover] Dupuy de
Lome needed to save weight so the forecastle on the
aftcastle disappeared, and you had a continuous deck
with all the guns and battery under an armor plated deck. - [Voiceover] Normally it
would have had two decks, but with the weight of the armor plating, he had to remove one battery. And that was why it was
called an ironclad frigate. - [Narrator] Although fewer
than on earlier ships, the guns were much more powerful. The Gloire was armed with 36 shell guns, which were now able to be aimed
through almost 180 degrees using a system of rails. In addition to it sails,
the ship had a steam engine, which produced more than 2,500 horsepower. With a powerful engine and reduced weight, the ironclads could reach
the impressive speed of 30 knots or 25 kilometers per hour. This first ironclad in the
world was a successful blend of the floating battery
and the ship of the line. Today, the challenge still
remains to find the ideal balance between armor plating
and nautical qualities. - [Voiceover] Armor
plating is big, its heavy, and so it has an impact
on speed and range. It's all a matter of compromise. So you armor plate the
sensitive parts of the frigate. You can't armor plate
the whole of the ship as they used to do in the past. - [Narrator] The latest
generation of frigates have lightweight armor plating, but they're still incredibly strong ships, due to their innovative technical design. - [Voiceover] The Fremm
frigate is separated in two, it's as if you have two
frigates, one at the front, and one at the back. And between those two
sections of the ship, there's a double dividing wall which isolates the front from the back. If a missile strikes
the front, for example, you'll find exactly the
same systems at the back and the ship will be
able to continue fighting to a certain extent. - [Narrator] The incredible
resistance of today's ships is a legacy from the 19th century. In the late 19th century, ironclads became the
capital ships of navies. - [Voiceover] The capital
ship as the ship around which the whole fleet is organized. The whole fleet exists
to showcase this ship because the idea we have of Naval warfare is that the war will be played out at sea, in a decisive battle. And from that confrontation, a victor will emerge and the
victor will control the sea. - [Narrator] In order to
win the decisive battle, the warring Navy is engaged
in a technological race between armor plating and
guns, between shield and sword. - [Voiceover] Guns were
getting bigger and bigger, you'd have absolutely massive guns, which could fire two or
three times in 15 minutes. And in parallel, the
protection was increasing. - [Narrator] Steel replaced wrought iron, and the plates became five times thicker. The armor plating went up to one third of the total weight of the ship. The problem was that these
ironclads were much slower and less maneuverable. - [Voiceover] One of the
solutions was not to armor plate the whole length of the ship, but only the vital parts to
reduce the number of plates, to two or sometimes four, which were installed
around a fortified castle. That would be in the center and you'd have a blockhouse or a dungeon
in the industrial style. - [Narrator] On deck,
the artillery weapons were first of all, protected
behind an armor-plated wall, then later integrated
into a rotating turret. That technology perfected
by the English in 1869, revolutionized warships. - [Voiceover] The
invention of the gun turret was a revolution in ship construction, which would completely
change the appearance of the platform. - [Narrator] From 1879
onwards, guns were up on deck and the gun ports disappeared. The form of French
warships was getting closer to that of modern ships. All the ingredients were there, for the arrival of a new type of ship. But this time the revolution
didn't come from France, but from England, when in 1905,
they built the dreadnought, meaning "fearing nothing." - [Voiceover] When the
dreadnought came into service, all the ironclads that
existed before were named pre-dreadnought in order to show that there was a significant
break between the ships that existed and this dreadnought. And the really revolutionary
thing about this ship was the fact that it
was driven by turbines. And went fast, and was well-protected and possessed a uniform main battery, with heavy caliber guns. - [Narrator] The English had
understood before anyone else that this was the age of big guns. With a range of 22 kilometers, the advantage was that
they could engage the enemy from as far away as possible
with maximum firepower. The aim was to combat a
deadly threat, the torpedo. - [Voiceover] Torpedoes in the beginning, were really almost
homemade, trial and error. They put an explosive
charge on the end of a spar on a small motor boat, and then they sailed towards
a big ship to make it explode. - [Narrator] This rudimentary
weapon was quickly improved. In 1864, the English engineer, Robert Whitehead attached
a motor to long tubes, carrying an explosive warhead. Undetectable, the torpedo moved
along level with the water and exploded below the armor
plating of the ironclad. - [Voiceover] This threat
would be realized, strengthened upgraded in the 1870s
with the introduction of the torpedo boat. The torpedo boat was
potentially a deadly enemy of the ironclad. It was a small boat with two,
sometimes four torpedo tubes very fast, very low in the
water with a small hull. And it would approach
ironclad ships very fast, launch its torpedoes and disappear. - [Voiceover] The only problem at the time was that no one knew how
to guide the torpedo. So they had to be launched
in the right direction. The torpedo boat had to line
itself up for a certain time so that it's torpedo would
go in the right direction and stay in that direction. - [Narrator] The short
range of the first torpedoes meant that torpedo boats had
to get close to the target. They were therefore exposed
to the dreadnoughts guns. By 1910, fully automatic gun turrets, significantly increased firing rates. The shell was placed in a small
hoist with a powder charge transported to the top of
the turret and inserted into the gun barrel. This operation could be carried
out in less than one minute. These turrets were installed
on French ironclads from 1911 onwards. Another important, but
invisible change took place concerning propulsion. (guns booming) - [Voiceover] The question of
propulsion remained central with one major development. First of all, the change from coal to oil
during the first world war at the instigation of the Royal Navy. Firstly it offered the
possibility of manufacturing more efficient engines,
including diesel engines. And it also allowed faster refueling. Refueling with coal was a dreadful chore, which was simplified by the change to oil. - The ironclad was constantly improving in order to keep its
supremacy up until the start of the second world war. - [Voiceover] It was a race
to build the biggest ships. Ships became heavier and heavier, more and more imposing. So obviously for their propulsion, they needed boilers that were
capable of getting sufficient power to drive the boat at speed. - [Narrator] In 1939, France fitted out its most imposing warship,
an ironclad 264 meters long weighing 37,000 tons, the Richelieu. (reporter speaking foreign language) The ship was armed with
the biggest guns ever built by France, 380 millimeters diameter. - [Voiceover] You have to
imagine that a 319 millimeter gun is capable of firing a missile
weighing about one ton, 900 kilometers per hour, muzzle velocity, every one and a half to two minutes. The ships fighting each other, were getting further and further apart. Between the very beginning
of the 20th century and the second world war, the range of Naval artillery
increased sixfold, pretty much. So that allowed ships to fight each other from much further away. - [Narrator] But the second world war sounded the death knell
for these colossal ships. With their undersized air defenses, they were incapable of
withstanding airborne firepower. (explosions booming) At Pearl Harbor, the
American fleet was decimated by Japanese airplanes, launched from aircraft
carriers a few hours earlier. - [Voiceover] With the
use of aircraft later, the question of range
becomes less relevant. Actually the factor that
will increase the capacity or the length of the
ships will be the range of the aircraft. So you'll be fighting
each other at distances much greater than ships
were able to, up till now. - [Narrator] At the end of the war, the ironclads were dethroned
by the aircraft carrier, which became the capital ship. But what about the warships of the future? - [Voiceover] There's a real
challenge to plan and design a ship for the next 50 years. - [Voiceover] It takes
time to implement any idea, especially for a weapon system, to be able to operate within a
collection of weapon systems. So the Navy is for the long term. - [Narrator] As both
firing platform and ship, the warship is one of the most
complex technological tools ever designed. The galley, the 74 gunship
of the line and the ironclad have marked the history of France. The aircraft carrier Charles
de Gaulle and frigates are their worthy successors. In the past fighting was face-to-face. But as today, thanks to
missiles and combat aircraft, it's possible to destroy targets thousands of kilometers away. This incredible evolution
isn't about to stop. Already engineers and
officers are planning the warships of tomorrow. (upbeat music)
