Warships after Washington as an interwar guide

The book is a starting point for understanding how treaty-era decisions carried navies from the First World War toward the Second. The Italian Condottieri and French contre-torpilleurs illustrate the recurring contest among speed, guns, protection, range, and machinery layout. One example reduces a cruiser turret's armour to its physical thickness of 23 millimetres, showing why a paper specification has to be tested against likely shellfire. Drawings and profiles make those trade-offs visible in the arrangement of each ship.