“The extent to which water may be introduced is a matter over which the captain would necessarily have control. But even if the whole of the unoccupied spaces were filled with water, the increase in draught would not exceed fourteen to eighteen inches, and the loss in speed would not exceed half a knot. If only the coal-bunkers were flooded as a preliminary to action, the chance of any serious disturbance of trim, and consequent loss of manœuvring power or speed by damage to the light sides above the protective deck and near the water, would be very small, and the ‘sinkage’ of the vessel would be decreased considerably. But taking the extreme case, with the ends completely filled and a sinkage of fourteen to eighteen inches, a ship of the _Admiral_ class would go into action with practically her full speed available, and with her ends so protected by under-water deck and the water admitted above that deck that damage to the thin sides by shot or shell penetrating at or near the water-line would not produce changes of trim or alterations of draught to any greater extent than would be produced if the armor-belt had been carried to the stem and stern. Nor would the admission of water into the ends render the vessel unstable. “It has been urged that the sinkage due to filling the tank ends with water is a disadvantage, because it brings the upper edge of the belt armor in the _Admiral_ class about fourteen to eighteen inches nearer the water than the upper edge of the belts of the French ships. If the greatest danger of the ships was to be measured by the smallness of their ‘reserve’ of ‘armor-protected buoyancy’ (that is to say, by the buoyancy of the part of the ship lying above her fighting water-line and below the belt-deck), then the _Admiral_ class would not compare favorably with the fully belted French ships. But I have already explained that this is not the true measure of the greatest danger arising from the effects of gun-fire, and that it would be a mistake to assume that in either the French or the English ships the armor-belted portions of the vessels guarantee their safety when damaged in action.