How would the United States respond if Britain and Germany adopted small-tube boilers for fast battleships around 1911?
Short answerIt would pursue faster successors, though congressional funding could delay how quickly American boilers and hulls caught up.
NotesA 28-knot Queen Elizabeth using small-tube boilers would force the United States to reconsider the speed of its next capital ships. The Colorado class might arrive too soon to absorb the change, but the following design would probably pursue faster machinery. Once Britain, Germany, and Italy entered the same technological race, American planners could not remain outside it indefinitely. A later follow-up emphasizes that the Navy would try to develop comparable boilers rapidly, even though extracting money from Congress could slow the response. The result would be a broader international acceleration of battle-fleet speed before the Second World War.