Ok, I'm going to open myself up to a lot of ridicule here by admitting that I liked the 2012 movie Battleship. It was simple feel good fun, you know good over evil old Saturday matinee stuff. Best scene for me was Rihanna saying "boom" while she touched off a destroyer canon from about 12 feet at an alien invader on deck. But hey, I'm a sicko...
I liked it as well, as a sailor I've always thought haze grey and underway never got its due in hollywood. I loved watching the Mighty Mo blasting mecha-aliens with the big 16" guns HOOYAH! I was actually on the volunteer crew that turned the USS Wisconsin BB-64 over to the city of Norfolk so I'm kinda partial to the Iowa class BB's, I love seeing em on the big screen. I was also a sailor Docent on the USS Barry DD933 in DC so between the Wisconsin and the Barry I've spent my fair share of time with veteran museum ship docents and thought seeing them portrayed as heros in an action movie was absolutely fantastic. I was an Engineman and have spent a lot of time in main propulsion engineering spaces, the scene when they light off the big Babcox Wilcox boiler on the Mo really gets me going. I've lit off big steam plants and the feeling is amazing, when you shove that match into the ignitor port and open the fuel valves, there's a huge woosh when those bunker c jets catch and the boiler comes to life, it almost knocks the wind out of ya.
While there were faster, bigger, and more well armed battleships they all underment rapid allied water cooled handrail conversions. The Iowas were only large ladies left standing in 1946. Only to be floated out again in Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm to rain down 16"/1900LB freedom on the enemy.
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