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?
Holy crap, look at that!
And did the ancients build a warship so
mighty it could rival today's
most advanced aircraft carriers?
The forty is a monstrous
vessel, but it's truly an
impossible feat of engineering.
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.
Ancient impossible ultimate weapons
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 weapons?
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 out against Rome.
Sicily is a great prize for
its natural resources, for its grain.
This doesn't escape
the attention of Rome and its
ever expanding empire.
General marcellus is sent to
Syracuse with the mighty Roman Navy.
His mission is to capture the city.
Syracuse has a big problem.
It's now being attacked by a
major superpower, 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.
The syracusians 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.
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.
The first lethal
invention in his arsenal was
known simply as the Archimedes claw.
Sicilians did not have a huge
amount of manpower, so
Archimedes had to use his brain
power to win out against the romans.
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.
We're also told that it could
then physically pull the ships
out of the water, which must
have been petrifying.
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 weapon 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?
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.
The Archimedes death ray is
essentially the first directional weapon.
You could harness the power of
the sun, focus it into a tight
beam like a laser, creating the death ray.
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.
Fire is definitely one of the
worst things you can have on
board a ship, and history's 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 forrestal
and the ranger.
Fire at sea is nothing 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.
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.
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.
If solar power can
generate electricity, can it
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.
It may have been that
Archimedes employed curved
mirrors, not necessarily just
flat, but maybe a little bit of
curved mirror 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 this 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.
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.
So with regard to Archimedes,
all the previous studies I've
seen have actually only looked
at flat mirrors, and as you can
see, having focused 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 trick.
Dr. Ho also believes that Archimedes
possessed the raw materials to
get the job done.
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.
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?
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 soldier's
shields, Polish it finely and
then capture the rays and focus
it into a tight beam like a
laser, creating the death ray.
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.
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.
Dr. Ho has calculated that it would take
200 to 300 shields working
together to set a wooden ship ablaze.
If we simulate a large array
of these mirrors and you 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 it would have been
difficult to do, but it's plausible.
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.
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.
It 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, so a very intense, highly
concentrated beam of sunlight,
which can create very, very high
temperatures.
We're going to be bringing
the furnace up to 100% in ten... Nine...
Eight... seven... six... five...
Four... three... two... One... going 100.
Every time the solar furnace is turned on,
extreme caution needs to be
applied because of the awesome
power of the machine.
Opening.
The solar blinds are slowly opened.
Within seconds the massed
reflective 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.
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.
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.
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.
Only one ancient image of
Archimedes' design survives.
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
that was heated up.
Steam would then be injected
into the bottom, and it would
eject out these projectiles
around 2,600 feet.
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 out 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?
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
Cannon produced such great fear.
If they were fired at ships
with enough energy, they would
probably pierce the hulls.
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.
You 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.
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
re create 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.
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.
But could Archimedes control the pressure
of the compressed steam inside
the cylinder and fire a
cannonball at lethal velocity?
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 wooden rod in, and
it's tethered like this.
So this mechanism pushes the rod
back down against the ball to
allow sufficient pressure to develop.
Once the pressure is high
enough, it snaps, the rod comes
out, and the ball shoots away.
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 three, two, one...
Wow.
With the preliminary testing complete,
Steve is ready to go live.
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 we're gonna find out.
To put this cannon through its
test we've got to fire a
projectile that's really capable
of causing damage.
I've got a 5 pound magnesium ball here.
It's about the size of a
billiard ball, very heavy, very hard.
If this thing came at you, you
better be running, and if you've
got a ship, I don't think
there's any ducking it.
Can Steve get enough heat into his steam
Cannon to get the required temperature?
I've got kindling here, I've
got logs, I've got a little
diesel on there just for safe measure.
We're gonna 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 gonna
turn to steam which means that
the heat coming through here is
gonna excite that water.
The molecules are gonna 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's what it takes to fire
cannonballs.
We're gonna 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 gonna create a
tremendous amount of force going this way.
It's gonna 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.
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.
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.
In Austin, Texas,
Steve wolf has been building a
steam cannon to see if the
technology could really have worked.
It's time to light this homemade
super weapon up.
This is the first time he
attempts to fire it.
We're gonna find out today
whether Archimedes was right,
whether the steam cannon could
have fired, and I couldn't be more excited.
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.
We're gonna fire a 5 pound
cannonball 150 feet using
nothing but a couple of ounces of water.
Gonna open the valve...
And that's all it takes.
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 ready to test this thing.
Fire in the hole!
Holy crap, look at that!
Awesome, check it out proof positive.
They said it couldn't be done.
They said it was impossible.
Archimedes, you were right and... mwah!
200 feet, beautiful.
That blows me away.
Archimedes had it all right, and
I think we just proved it.
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.
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 two
charging panel room.
This is what fires the aircraft
off the ships.
Well, basically the 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.
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 this
shuttle right here.
It'll hook into the front, and
then when the aircraft is ready
to fly, that steam will
released, driving the piston
through the cylinder, carrying
the shuttle that's attached to
the launch bar, 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 one, which is the bow
cat on a nimitz class carrier.
Below us, all the high pressure
steam from the nuclear reactors
is ported 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.
And right there is the magic
that makes those airplanes go.
Archimedes beat us to the punch
by 2,000 years.
It's clear that
modern weapon systems are able
to generate enormous power from 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.
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.
So what defines a super weapon?
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.
For the first time
ever, Steve pushes the weapon
dangerously close to a 175 psi.
Will it work, or will it explode?
We're at 150, 175!
Three! Two! One!
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, and so are we, huh?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wow, that was great fun, but it
was also a very powerful
demonstration of what a
powerful thing this is.
It really is.
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.
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 super
ship 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?
I'm on board the USS Ronald Reagan.
It's one of the largest and most
powerful super weapons of all time.
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
honestly, there is nothing
more intimidating than an aircraft carrier.
It's a moving runway.
It's four and a half 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 in
the heart of your enemy.
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.
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.
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.
The forty was a massive ship for its day.
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 in
that day, it's a technological marvel.
It's unbelievable that something
like that existed.
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 wow.
Here at this temple in Southern
Egypt you can see here there is
a boat, and this boat belonged
to ramses 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,
right, truly an impossible feat
of engineering and the greatest
example of mega building in the
ancient world.
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.
The forty's 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.
But how could the
Egyptians have powered a ship
such as the forty, which weighed
nearly 4,000 tons.
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.
There is much debate in historical records
about how the staggering number
of oarsmen on the forty could
possibly have worked in sync.
One theory is the oars were
different lengths at different
angles allowing rowing without tiers.
If you ask me the nightmare's 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
bowed slightly like this.
This would mean the oars don't
need to be angled so steeply,
that would overcome this
seemingly impossible problem.
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?
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 ten 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, 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.
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 weapons of the ancient world.
But what was the strategy behind
these ancient super ships?
New evidence indicates that the
greatest warship of all, the
forty, might have had even more
weapon's capabilities than
previously thought possible.
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.
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.
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 for those you
don't want to have access.
So that's how important the Navy
is to world history.
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?
In the hellenistic period,
they had 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.
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.
Many harbors were protected
by chains, and if these rams
were set at various heights,
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 chain with a ram, it
would just simply burst straight
through it, and then the harbor
would be unprotected.
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.
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 in using those
rams to drive right into the
heart of your enemy.
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.
If you could compare
similarities between the 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 its seven rams, you
could think of an aircraft
carrier as having 60 plus rams.
The difference is these rams
can be launched and reach out and touch ya.
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.