92 MILITARY AND TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS 
Let us cast aside all preconceived ideas as to size and analyze with an open 
mind the influences of each of these governing factors on the military and technical 
characteristics of battleship design. From the facts developed by this analysis, let 
us then try to arrive at our minimum dimensions, bearing in mind always that the 
design thus determined merely gives “expression to the technical ideas and inten- 
tions of the epoch.”* Also, that one should “hesitate to go on record for all time, 
as the rapid changes in conditions, improvements in material, and increase in 
knowledge make it desirable to reserve the right to change one’s mind in order to 
keep up with, or go ahead of, the procession.” f 
POLICY AND SHIP DESIGN. 
Fundamental questions affecting a state’s welfare, comfort, and sometimes its 
very existence—questions that are the living embodiment of the will of its people 
—are called its policies. We have gradually accumulated a set of policies giving 
us contact with many other states along virtual frontiers approached in extent by 
those of England alone. By virtue of certain geographical, racial and economi- 
cal conditions over which we have no appreciable control, these policies now con- 
flict, and will continue to conflict, with the vital interests of various other world 
states. In the analysis of the relative seriousness of these conflicts, the statesman 
should reason out which state is likely to be our most probable opponent, and then 
should adopt a definite naval building program against that state. Our Congress 
has never done this, and yet the development of our fleet, if it is to uphold these 
policies, must be absolutely linked up with them. 
Lacking a well-defined foreign policy, it was not until some time after the 
advent of the new steel navy that the United States made any material progress in 
the design of new types. At first, due to this lack of a definite policy to direct our 
efforts, we took one or two backward steps. Asa natural consequence of “political 
drifting,’ we proceeded to copy foreign designs—designs embodying definite poli- 
cies of foreign nations. Our needs could hardly have been expected to be met by 
following the policies of these nations, and there resulted several misfits. More 
are bound to result unless we are guided in the design of our battleships by a def- 
inite and sound foreign policy, and in the future, as in the past, we are certain to 
develop units and even whole classes that may be excellent specimens of naval archi- 
tecture but that are entirely unsuited to the needs of the country. 
If this policy indicates that our most probable opponents are to be black on the 
one side and yellow on the other, then our battleships must be so armed and pro- 
tected as to be able to meet the battle fleets of black or yellow on slightly more than 
equal terms. Therefore they should possess armor-piercing guns of greater power 
and caliber, and since, actually, our probable enemies are separated from us by the 
*Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge. Paper before Jubilee Meeting, Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. 
+Ex-Naval Constructor R. H. Robinson. Paper before Naval War College, August, 1911. 
