Bangkok--20 Apr--Image Impact
Program Title: Battlefleet
Channel: HISTORY on TrueVisions A23 and D48Telecast
Date: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 8.00 p.m. (Thai)
The use of one’s battlefleet to establish control of the sea, or to frustrate an enemy’s attempt to do so, has been a key aspect of naval warfare for two and a half thousand years. The sole aim of the great sailing line-of-battleship which ruled the seas from the mid-16th to mid-19th centuries was to close with and destroy the enemy’s battlefleet — as Nelson demonstrated so triumphantly at the Nile and Trafalgar.Dramatic changes in technology such as the arrival of steam and long-range artillery did not change this basic Battleplan. And amazingly, even greater advances such as air power and submarines did not alter the fundamentals.
For sea power is different to land warfare — it takes place over great distances; the enemy can be unlocated for months; and then suddenly the clash of battle happens in an instant.This programme analyses the fundamentals of this very different type of Battleplan and looks at two very different examples of fleet action; and shows how although the weapons were changing rapidly, the aims of the commanders remained much the same: At Midway, in June 1942, the whole course of the Pacific War was transformed in less than five minutes, when US divebombers devastated Japan’s vital aircraft carriers — the pride of its battlefleet and the key to its future Battleplan for survival. And at Leyte Gulf in October 1944, when the Japanese Imperial Navy staked everything on an assault by its battleships against the US landings on the Philippines, but was finally shattered by US naval air power.