Designers and admirals had to choose among risks without knowing later outcomes. A shipbuilder or naval official could make the best judgment available and still be overtaken by events. Senior officials also had strong professional and personal reasons to avoid creating a ship that might fail in war. Assessing conservative choices in the Orion era therefore requires explaining the trade-off instead of assuming incompetence, malice or bad faith.
Notable Point · 25:12-27:35
Design judgment and the limits of hindsight
A decision that later proved wrong may still have been reasonable given the evidence available at the time.