The U.S. Navy developed a cruiser pattern and repeatedly refined it rather than starting over. Continued production had made the ships highly reliable by the end of the sequence. The process is compared with the Royal Navy's refinement of the Swordfish before the Second World War. Sustained iteration and accumulated experience can turn a conventional design lineage into a finely tuned and effective instrument.
Notable Point · 33:56-34:37
U.S. cruiser production through iterative refinement
Repeated production and evolutionary design made late U.S. gun cruisers highly reliable.