In the newspaper Mattino told Stead something about the interview he had 3 years earlier with the Italian king Victor Emmanuel.(1) The king was a absolute opponent of the building with a too large measurement for which aircraft technology presumably was to be a large threat. The building of the dreadnoughts was there fore a fatal error while increasing the size of a potential target resulted in an increase of the hit rate. A battleship of 55.000.000 Italian lires could easily be destroyed by an small aircraft of 10.000 lires which dumped 75 kilo melinite explosive.
Note
1. Victor Emanuel Ferdinand Maria Januarius (11 November 1869 Naples-28 December 1947 Alexandria).
