Reading naval priorities through ship design

Ship design offers evidence about naval priorities that speeches and published explanations can leave unstated. Engineering decisions often involve considerations that never enter the written record, and the public reason for choosing a solution can differ from the reason that determined it. The method proposed here is to examine the combined engineering choices across a ship and infer which capabilities received priority. Applied to Italian destroyers, the hull forms and equipment choices suggest an emphasis on speed and manoeuvrability. The interpretation rests on those choices taken together, with incomplete written accounts of the engineering decisions behind them.