The review traces how the Royal Navy's planning benchmark shifted from the next two powers to Germany as diplomatic alignments changed. The proposed 60 percent margin rests on an availability problem: a fleet cannot assume every hull is ready when an opponent chooses the moment to sail. Ships in refit or too distant to concentrate reduce the usable share of the nominal fleet, while the enemy can time a sortie for high availability. Maintenance and distance reduce what a fleet can actually deploy, so numerical superiority becomes a force-structure problem rather than a simple hull count.
Notable Point · 9:30-10:59
Fleet superiority must allow for ships in refit
A discussion of British naval policy explains why a paper advantage over an enemy fleet must be large enough to absorb refits and unavailable ships.