The starting question is whether a pre-dreadnought could be built as large as the era's emerging dreadnoughts. The design quickly exposes the trade-offs among large-calibre guns, machinery, armour, endurance, stability, and the hull forms available before the dreadnought revolution. Fitting 13.5-inch main guns, numerous 6-inch secondaries, torpedoes, and 21-knot machinery consumes the available displacement. Two ships of similar size could still embody very different design choices and capabilities.
Chapter · 2:45-8:55
How large could a pre-dreadnought become?
A 1904 design exercise tests the practical upper limit of a pre-dreadnought hull, from displacement and engines to armour and main guns.