A car-sized projectile must move through its loading cycle quickly, precisely, and safely while the ship rolls, vibrates, and fires. Faster machinery must also avoid dangerous ramming errors, and repeated fire adds barrel-heating limits that may demand cooling. Battleship rate of fire is constrained by the whole loading system, the moving platform, and the need to avoid a catastrophic ammunition accident.
Notable Point · 52:35-55:29
Why battleship rate of fire is a machinery problem
A shell compared to a car makes the engineering burden of faster battleship loading immediately concrete.