The design sequence shows how quickly a fifteen-gun main battery consumes a battleship's displacement. Belt and deck armour, barbette protection, bulkheads, torpedo defence, machinery, beam, and draft all affect weight distribution and stability. Recovering enough tonnage for a 4.5-inch secondary battery requires giving ground elsewhere. Every improvement competes for weight and space, so a workable battleship cannot maximize every characteristic at once.
Notable Point · 9:31-18:57
What the weight budget does to a fifteen-gun battleship
Fitting fifteen 16.5-inch guns forces compromises among armour, underwater protection, machinery, range, secondary guns, and hull balance.