How strategy was smartly used in the Movie "Battleship"

Ateneo Professor on Entrepreneurship

Rizal  PHL  |  November 24, 2013

 

I slept late last night watching an HBO re run of the 2012 movie "Battleship" It features a Navy Officer about to be discharged, and who had relationship with the group of commander of their battle group who encountered alien invaders.  In an incident, 3 ships in the battle group were marooned in a force field.  2 of the ships were destroyed by the aliens, and the brother of the officer, Hooper, was killed including other executive officers.  He was left on his own to run the ship, John Paul Jones, now marooned of its top officer to fight it out with the aliens.

How was strategy employed by  Hooper who was often criticized by his commanding officer, if not by the group Admiral (the father of Sam, his sweetheart?)

Resources:

1.  To track the aliens who were hiding (they could not use the radar while in the force field) they used the tsunami monitoring system of the Japanese suggested by a Japanese officer;

2.  When John Paul Jones was sunk, he scrounged for a ship,USS Missouri,  a WWII museum piece, used the old veteran crew to run and fire the guns of the ship;

3.  When had the last round left, he used it to hit the communication center which is  used by aliens as a back up force field generator, and link to home planet.

Activities:

1.  He found out that the aliens had helmets because they are like lizards and blinded by direct light (when they were able to capture an alien)  So to attack them effectively, he had them face the sun at sunrise.

2.  He surprised and sunk two of them using the tsunami tracker;

3.  The most brilliant was when used  USS Missouri while being pursued by the alien.  To prevent the aliens from firing at them with the guns pointed at the aliens, he had the guns pointed at a different direction, dropped the anchor, and of course the ship swung into the direction of the aliens, and at the same time forced the aliens to face the sunlight, and fired mercilessly on them.

The aliens looked formidable and invincible but had a weakness and Hooper found them, and used them to defeat the aliens, brilliant.

4.  By destroying the communications center, the force field was stopped, thus allowing the US jets to stop and blast the aliens.

It turned out the ultimate objective was not defeating the aliens, nor being promoted to Lt. Cmdr. but discussing his terms of surrender for Sam, the child of the Admiral, the head of the battle group