Cruising speed turns endurance into strategy

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts calculates range at maximum speed, but real warships publish endurance at an economical cruising speed. Nelson and Rodney could travel about 7,000 nautical miles at 16 knots, a very different condition from sustaining their 23-knot maximum. For a hypothetical 28-knot ship, the preferred figures here are an 18-knot cruise and roughly 8,000 nautical miles of range. That reach would allow a passage from Britain to the Falkland Islands before refuelling there. The example separates a simulation constraint from the logistical assumptions that make a naval design strategically useful.