How contemporary battle reports shaped warship design

What is the value of reading contemporary accounts of naval battles despite later hindsight?

They show how navies understood events at the time and therefore why they made particular design choices.

Reading contemporary analysis reveals what officers believed a battle had demonstrated, not merely what later historians conclude. Those beliefs fed directly into requirements and help explain why a decision that now looks foolish could appear sensible at the time. The contemporary interpretation may be wrong in hindsight yet still explain later design choices. This makes period analysis evidence about institutional learning as well as combat.