Warship design

There are really two ways to go (at least) when designing your own warships. One is to follow established historical practice, and not push the envelope. The other is to extrapolate what might have been possible, if the limits were pushed. Sir Philip Watts actually spent much of his career "pushing the limits". His first design, the Italian Piemonte was very agressive for the time. His ships tended to be fast and better armed than the competition. Sir William White was the other sort. His most radical ship design was probably the Royal Sovereign class. He became increasingly conservative, so that his later designs appeared to underperform, especially his cruisers. Worse yet, despite being over-designed and underperforming, his ships did not fare well in the war. Philip Watts was brought in to replace White, and great things were expected of him, given his reputation. His first act on the job was, ironically, signing the design for the King Edward VII class battleships, which an incremental improvement over the ships that had been built for the previous 15 years. Philip Watt's last design was for the Queen Elizabeth class battleship built for the 1912 program. They well-embodied his design philosophy. They were faster than normal, with heavier guns.