The Navy Department conducted an international design competition for "Texas" and the winner was the Naval Construction & Armaments Co. of Barrow-in-Furness, England. The winning design placed "Texas"s forward turret on the port side and her aft turret to starboard. The need for cross-deck fire caused the superstructure to be separated into three pieces to allow for each gun to fire between the sections of the superstructure. This significantly limited the gun's ability to fire to the opposite beam as the superstructure still restricted each gun's arc of fire. Furthermore, neither the deck nor the superstructure was reinforced to withstand the muzzle blast as the gun fired, as demonstrated during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba when her starboard deck was damaged.