An international shipbuilding network connected national programs as firms, specialists, and licensed machinery crossed borders. Parsons and John Brown turbines linked British industry to foreign capital ships, while John Brown engineers improved imported Curtis designs and sold the results back into the wider market. American and Japanese technical teams inspected British yards, and designers circulated among Britain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Japan, and the United States. Fire-control ideas, gun-barrel practice, and boiler technology moved through the same network. Continuing the peaceful qualitative race could therefore bring small-tube and higher-pressure boilers into large ships by about 1920 even while national prestige drove ever larger designs.
Chapter · 40:04-51:10
The international technology race behind the dreadnoughts
A qualitative arms race linked Britain, the United States, Japan, Italy, and Austria-Hungary through shared turbines, engineers, fire control, and gun technology.