G.I.Dave’s Cartoon Realism: Silly or Gritty? “Sink the Montana!”

By @G_I_DAVE

Alright Joe Friends, huddle up. G.I.DAVE here. Season 2, “Sink the Montana.” I sat down for this one expecting the usual Cobra superweapon cartoon and got a battleship loyalty story with an actual tactical problem in the middle.
ENTER THE MONTANA:

The montana was a planned BB follow up to the best battleship class ever made, the iowa. The montana class would have added an EXTRA turret for 4 batteries of 16″ instead of 3 turrets, and with the advanced radar directed FCS of the iowa class, it was the King of the seas in WWII through Gulf war 1. The Montanas were never built, and the cartoon treats her like she actually served 45 years across three wars and is now being decommissioned

For the record, Captain Latimer’s voice was unmistakable, it’s Frank Welker (Megatron)! I can’t help but see super trooper every time they say LATIMER…lol

Philadelphia Naval Yard. USS Montana—45 years, three wars, biggest battleship in the world—is getting decommissioned and turned into scrap. Hawk’s on the dock with Admiral Overton and Admiral Latimer, Captain of the Montana.

Shipwreck’s already bitching that they’re nuts to scrap her.

Admiral George Lattimer, the man who lived on that ship, is not taking the scrap order well.

Cobra ATTACK! Firebats show up shredding the area, and Destro boards the Montana with an offer to Latimer: join us, keep your ship. He takes it. They steal the Montana,

Bats swarm the Montana, and Hawk and the others fight their way off, or get thrown off the side. Hawk stays a bit to try out that sweet 40mm Bofors, or 20mm oerlikon on some bats, and then jumps the side back to the Joes for a rescue.

Before they leave the Philly Naval yard, Destro orders Latimer to waste all the mothballed ships, and the Montana lays waste to a bunch of mothballed ships. This may sound like nothing, but we used to keep A LOT of ships “mothballed”, in case something came up, we could reactivate them and use them. Wasting this mothballed fleet, could have serious ramifications for the U.S. Naval power. Latimer is having flashbacks of his time with his ship, and his country…

Latimer states the obvious to Destro, in 1986, you can’t defend against a single battleship, but Destro has a plan, an EMP weapon that will act as a defense shield, stopping anything electronic in a 2 mile radius. A Cobra sub surfaces with a delivery, and they bolt on Destro’s Pulse Modulator, and set course for Norfolk to smash the Seventh Fleet so the Montana can rule the Atlantic. Destro informs Latimer the Montana will destroy the entire 7th fleet and it’s HQ!

Hawk tries the radio talk-down. Lattimer’s already past the point of no return. Overton tells Hawk he’s had his chance. That cobra uniform is looking pretty good for Latimer right about now ..

Hawk issues the order: Sink the Montana.

X-30s and W.H.A.L.E.s close, missiles and torpedoes launch… modulator lights up, everything detonates harmlessly. The entire G.I.JOE attack force is dead in the water. Time to pivot…

Then the grounded part. The one ship still in the inventory with zero electronics is the wooden USS Constitution. Volunteer Joes take her..no.. LITERALLY take her by 4 Tomahawks, while the ship guards are WTFing!!

The Joe’s hide Old’ Ironsides behind an island while the 7th fleet bow tanks in towards the Montana, close the gap, and board. Proper cutting-out / VBSS energy. They fight their way on..

A pretty AWESOME cartoon Naval battle takes place, where the Joe’s even take a hit from the 7th fleet guns on the deck. The Joe’s rope from the U.S.S. Constitution to the montana, and fight an army of BATs, while getting fired on by the 7th fleet. Hawk once again jumps on the AA gun and wastes the EMP shield, and Destro now knows the game is up.

Destro “rigged” the FCS to fire on the 7th fleet, and the only way to stop it is to go below decks to the lower FC room, where there are more bats, and they are under fire from the 7th the whole time…

Lattimer has the “what have I done” moment as the ship is finished, Hawk pulls him off.

The Montana goes down.

Lattimer’s crying on the Constitution. Hawk’s line lands: the worst punishment already happened—he lost the only thing he cared about.
Final Verdict: Silly or Gritty?

Mix. Leans gritty on the command decision and the low-tech solution.
Gritty / SOLID:
Hawk actually having to make the hard call and own the “sink her” order.

Lattimer’s loyalty to the ship over the Navy feeling real for an old salt who spent his life on her.

EMP/pulse problem solved by going back to a wooden ship with no electronics—actual problem-solving instead of “just shoot it more.”

Boarding action / volunteer cutting-out expedition energy.

The ending doesn’t give Lattimer a clean redemption; he loses the ship and that’s the sentence. But Hawks line of “he got the worst punishment..” YEAH RIGHT…that dude is going to Leavenworth, and he should probably request a firing squad.

Silly / Cartoon:
Pulse modulator that perfectly neuters an entire fleet the second it activates, without hurting the ship it’s on. We have that tech, but it’s different, and directional, unless you use a broad EMP blast, which can neutralize your stuff.

Constitution just hanging out ready to go and closing on a modern battleship without getting shredded by 16-inch guns on the way in.

Zero real damage or casualties on the boarding team once the cartoon fight starts.

Seventh Fleet being a something that one rogue battleship can just decide to delete.

This may be in the running for my favorite episode now. This was absolutely fantastic. Someone seriously did some research on the Montana, got the basic 4 turret design correct..they talked about the FCS and even the below decks FCS..this shit was all legit as hell to me. NO DUKE OR FLINT..just general Hawk and Joe’s kicking ass in a mission.

Yep..I think this is my favorite

“old Navy vs new tech” . The loyalty angle and the “use the wooden ship” answer give it more weight than the usual laser-of-the-week. Still pure cartoon once the guns start, but the setup and the solution actually think about the problem for a minute.

As always—tell me where I’m right, tell me where I’m wrong, or tell me your favorite moment from this one in the comments. Yo Joe!

-G.I.DAVE