On one side: A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former chief of naval operations, 43-year naval officer, Harvard Business School graduate and occasional late-night TV conversationalist. On the other side: A lucky contest winner. In the middle: The greatest Navy-themed board game ever to be turned into a motion picture starring Ray Mabus and Liam Neeson. Not necessarily in that order. Yes, for the low price of $10 (or less), you can enter for a chance to play Battleship against retired Adm. Mike Mullen at the Naval Academy, part of an online fundraiser benefiting The Mission Continues,…
Browsing: Battleships
It was a sunny, Sunday morning when bombs started raining down on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago today. In the chaos, more than 2,000 service members died, 21 boats sunk to the bottom of the harbor and most of the 394 planes on the island were either damaged or destroyed. Today, the community of those who remember the attack is shrinking. There are fewer than 3,000 survivors of the attack nationwide, and the national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association disbanded Jan. 1, since there were not enough members to keep it together. Most of the population today was not alive for…
Pulled by a beefy ocean-going tug appropriately called Warrior, the 45,000-ton battleship Iowa left its retirement berth with the mothball fleet in the San Francisco Bay area for a new life as a museum ship. As of Tuesday afternoon, the 877-foot-long Iowa was south of the Channel Islands on course for San Pedro, home to the port of Los Angeles. That put the ship a bit ahead of schedule. “The Iowa came in way too fast,” Anthony Broude, whose own historic group, the merchant ship SS Lane Victory, planned a Wednesday escort for Iowa’s early-morning arrival at San Pedro, told the Contra…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOq2EVbv0B0[/youtube] Hollywood just went to boot camp — surface Navy-style. The task of getting the cast of the forthcoming movie Battleship to look and speak Navy fell to the retired Navy captain who served as the film’s technical adviser. It was no easy task. “Is that your war face? What kind of a face is that!” retired Capt. Rick Hoffman, who in real-life commanded frigate DeWert and cruiser Hue City, shouts at one actor in jest during a movie trailer released April 3. “Wipe that smile off your face, sailor!” This is all part of what he called “Capt. Rick’s…
Nations including China and Russia will get an inside look at some of the U.S. Navy’s most advanced tactics. Specifically, how the Navy would deal with an alien invasion. If Liam Neeson ran Pacific Fleet. And if the director of “Friday Night Lights” ran everything. It might not be much of an intel edge, but international audiences will be the first to see the Hollywood blockbuster “Battleship,” which debuts overseas in IMAX theaters April 12, according to an IMAX news release. More than 100 international theaters will screen the movie before it hits U.S. cinemas May 18. Gawker Media’s I09…
It’s shaping up to be a traditional Super Bowl Sunday: A six-hour pregame show followed by football, snacks, drinks, aliens, surface warships and Liam Neeson. The last part might need an explainer. “Battleship,” the action movie somehow based on the board game of the same name, will debut in theaters this May, but you’ll get a new 60-second sneak peek during the first quarter of Sunday’s big game, Deadline New York reports. We’ve shown you earlier, longer trailers for this one before, but this’ll be the biggest audience yet for the SWOs-vs.-aliens adventure, which stars Neeson, “Friday Night Lights” youngster…
With the battleship Iowa being prepared for its debut next year as an interactive museum near Los Angeles, you might be thinking, where’s my battleship? The car enthusiast website jalopnik.com has the scoop: For a mere $80,000, you can own your own replica of the battleship New Jersey. The ebay auction description notes the ship is powered by a 120 HP Sea Doo jet drive. Also: “Two of the main guns are fully articulating and fire streams of high pressure water. The vessel also contains a 4000 watt generator, air compressor and high pressure stainless steel water pump.” And since…
