Geography as a warship design requirement

The cruisers were competent responses to their formal specification, but the specification omitted the hardest step in their employment. Meeting the Otranto requirement would have made them larger, more powerful, and more expensive than their other tasks demanded. The same problem appears when a US warship cannot pass through the Panama Canal or a Royal Navy ship cannot use overseas dockyards. A ship that cannot cross the critical geographic or infrastructure boundary is less useful regardless of its other strengths. The enclosed-sea lesson also applies to the Baltic, where geography exposes fleets, limits submarine concealment, and shapes deterrence.