Regulus: The First Nuclear Missile Submarines

Starring:Roy Scheider
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Description
The Regulus DVD documents an entire era in the history of the U.S. Navy. It contains the original documentary film, and adds three bonus video segments with nearly 20 minutes of additional footage, much of it never seen before by the public. It also contains dozens of recently declassified photographs, fact sheets, and data cards, all of them accessed through a series of attractive menus.

The bonus segments include The Navy Gets the Bird, which documents the difficulties experienced by Navy personnel as they attempted to make the Regulus missile operational, and The Regulus Assault Mission, which includes interviews with the Navy pilots tasked with flying the Regulus into harm's way and detonating its nuclear warhead!

This segment also shows the Regulus being launched from cruisers, tenders, and aircraft carriers.

Description

The Regulus DVD documents an entire era in the history of the U.S. Navy. It contains the original documentary film, and adds three bonus video segments with nearly 20 minutes of additional footage, much of it never seen before by the public. It also contains dozens of recently declassified photographs, fact sheets, and data cards, all of them accessed through a series of attractive menus.

The bonus segments include The Navy Gets the Bird, which documents the difficulties experienced by Navy personnel as they attempted to make the Regulus missile operational, and The Regulus Assault Mission, which includes interviews with the Navy pilots tasked with flying the Regulus into harm's way and detonating its nuclear warhead!

This segment also shows the Regulus being launched from cruisers, tenders, and aircraft carriers.

Rare archival footage of the Regulus II supersonic cruise missile, and photographs from the Regulus II flight test program, are also featured on this action-packed DVD.

Customer Reviews:

Regulus: The First Nuclear Missile Submarines.......2007-01-18

This is a wonderful documentary of American weapon history. This weapon system got little publicity and was scrapped completely when the Polaris fleet was coming down the ways. For all you war buff's it is a must see, I enjoyed this one very much and these guys on the Regulus patrols are unsung heroes of the Cold War era.

A must see for submarine movies. Some of this technology has led us to the highly successful Tomahawk missile of today arsenal.

AWESOME footage.......2006-03-22

My dad, George R. (Andy) Anderson, was with Chance Vought Aircraft on the Regulus I and II programs and I am compiling a collection of Chance Vought related materials. This DVD is an important addition to my collection. Awesome footage, people I knew, amazing launch footage, insightful interviews! If you have any interest in Navy missles, submarines, etc. then you MUST have this DVD. I also purchased the DVD "Tbe Cold War Below" with even more incredible footage! Also, you will want to buy the book "REGULUS:America's First Nuclear Submarine Missile" by David K. Stumpf. It makes a great companion to these DVDs.

An outstanding submarine history documentary.......2005-12-13

"Regulus" was outstanding. Two thumbs up, five stars, a great historical film. I'd read a little and heard a little of the Regulus program, but very little...mainly in reading about the post-Regulus exploits of a couple of the SSN's that had been outfitted to carry the missile (and later were converted for covert operations, the old Regulus hangars used to carry cable tapping gear). I toured the Growler, one of the Regulus diesal boats, now a museum in New York City. But I knew precious little about the program itself.

Turns out (and to you "old timers" who served on these boats, this is old news) that the Regulus missile was a nuke, and the Regulus boats were the great-grandaddies of the Trident SSBN's in service today. From the late '50's through the Cuban missile crisis, the Regulus SSG's and SSGN's were the Navy's nuclear deterrent (along with a handful of surface ships and carriers that handled the missile). Regulus itself was a follow-on to the German V-1 rockets that we captured at the close of WWII.

Regulus had a short life...the second Regulus missile never really made it into production. But it broke ground in submarines carrying missiles, and the boats shown in the film pioneered many of the ideas we now take for granted in the "boomer" and Tomahawk programs of the modern submarine force.

Spark's film was outstanding...highly recommended, excellently made, with extra footage and dozens of photos, interviews with Regulus test personnel and the submarine crews, and a lot of footage that has only recently been declassified. A rare look into the early days of missiles on subs.

Bonus features are AWESOME! .......2005-08-22

What I think is truly outstanding about this DVD, is the bonus features. This disc contains a huge slide show of images that includes pictures of each Regulus submarine, the Regulus II cruise missile, and some of the other vessels that launched this early cruise missile (USS Los Angeles, the cruiser, for instance, and the aircraft carrier Hancock). There's also two wonderful bonus video segments about the so-called Regulus Assault Missile, which are an unexpected treat. By far the best stuff in terms of eye-candy however are rare and apparently just recently declassified films showing the Regulus II supersonic cruise missile being test launched -- and exploding on the pad! WOW! That is something else. As you can read in some of the other reviews, the basic program itself, "Regulus" is also quite good. Here is a piece of history which even a veteran submariner like myself was unaware of...quite neat. Overall this DVD is well worth buying if you have any interest in missiles, submarines, or the Cold War.

Exciting history and a moddelers dream!.......2005-06-26

I am a paper scale modeler, and was very impressed, not only with the one on one interviews, but the old footage, and especially the Bonus Features section of the film, that has some great shots of the JATO boosters, launch platform and other hard to see details! The photos were a real help and an eye opener! The film has some great shots of the REG 2 as well that really fill in some gaps about how it should look! I have spent far more than the cost of this DVD, in research material for other projects, so seeing some good stuff on an entertaining DVD that I can use as a reference picture source is awesome! GREAT JOB! My best regards to the whole film crew! :)

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