The claim is tested against how passenger and cargo lines made money. Heavy guns would occupy valuable cargo space despite being unused in peacetime. Merchant companies would also need trained crews and either shipboard cranes or neutral-port facilities to install them. Conversion would make profitable merchantmen conspicuous naval targets. The story remained persuasive because Britain depended on global trade, sea lines of communication, and a worldwide telegraph-cable network. An unlikely report about dozens of extra commerce raiders therefore had serious consequences for Royal Navy planning.
Notable Point · 11:24-13:44
Why an implausible armed-liner story still shaped naval planning
The foreign-gun report was operationally doubtful, but Britain's exposure through global trade and telegraph cables made even a low-probability commerce-raiding threat politically potent.