Tillman’s maximum-battleship challenge

Tillman’s challenge was not simply to enlarge the next design by a little. He wanted the Navy to state the maximum practicable battleship and then build that, rather than spend on ships he expected to be quickly surpassed. His objection was to incremental ships that consumed public money yet seemed likely to become second-rate almost immediately. The video frames this demand as a useful way to examine how political pressure, industrial capacity, and naval design could pull in different directions.