The closing argument credits Chile's two ironclads with making a permanent naval service practical. Their active peacetime billets kept crews and officers inside a continuing professional institution rather than assembling expertise only after war began. The ships were small enough for Chile to operate without exhausting the defence budget, yet powerful and deployable enough to decide wartime operations. Blanco Encalada's value therefore lay as much in the people and readiness she sustained between conflicts as in the battles she fought.
Chapter · 2:44:10-2:44:54
How two affordable ironclads sustained a permanent navy
Chile's two ironclads were affordable enough to operate in peace and capable enough to preserve trained crews, officers, and a useful wartime institution.