A Royal Dockyard could quote for the same design that a private yard was being asked to build. The Royal Navy sometimes built one or two ships of a class in a state yard to check the commercial cost. That gave the service practical information with which to challenge later price increases. Construction capacity also retained an independent knowledge base for dealing with suppliers. In this historical argument, public yards could constrain excessive charges while private firms continued to compete for work.
Notable Point · 48:19-50:18
Royal Dockyards gave the Navy an independent price check
State dockyards retained enough design and construction knowledge to challenge commercial estimates and test the true cost of a warship class.