Did dockyard and canal dimensions make turbo-electric drive a better American design choice?
Short answerYes, its packaging advantages were particularly valuable under the Panama Canal's inflexible dimensional limits.
NotesTurbo-electric machinery could help American designers fit power and protection within the Panama Canal's hard dimensional constraints. Moving the fleet between oceans made that canal a strategic limit rather than a minor dockyard inconvenience. Electric transmission offered more freedom to distribute machinery and shorten shafts inside the permitted beam. The Royal Navy faced a different problem at Suez, where dredging and widening were difficult but did not require blasting through the same mountain barrier, so geared turbines remained a more natural choice.