Salisbury's figures allocated thirty-eight ships to royal dockyards and thirty-two to contractors. The projected fleet increased battleships, while protected and armored cruisers rose from forty to one hundred. Britain could remain numerically behind a hypothetical Franco-German combination in armored ships while holding an overwhelming cruiser advantage. That imbalance shows a program designed to win a maritime war through commerce protection and interdiction as well as fleet action.
Chapter · 1:17:09-1:23:12
The seventy-ship program prioritized protected cruisers
The program divided seventy ships between state and contract yards and expanded cruiser numbers far more dramatically than battleships.