As early as 1929, estimates had been prepared for 16-inch guns on Wolf Ridge, and in 1935 the district engineer at San Francisco, Lieutenant Colonel H. A. Finch, had begun working on plans for a battery of 16-inch guns there, for the day when it would become a military reservation. By the end of 1937, these plans had been revised several times and brought to completion, the engineers having been able to incorporate several things already learned in the ongoing construction of Battery Davis at Fort Funston. Here at Cronkhite the gun casemates and the firing platforms would be built as one continuous operation. The two would not be monolithic in nature because gun-firing impacts were instantaneous, where machinery vibrations were continuous. The engineers wanted to "shock-insulate" the casemate-firing platform combinations from the remainder of the magazine structure by an inset of 4 inches of creosoted lumber in key locations between the casemates and the magazine. Another modification called for placing the radio station in the same structure as the plotting/ switchboard rooms rather than in a building by itself, as at Battery Davis which was planned under the old principle of dispersion. Also, as a result of tests at Battery Strong, Fort Rosecrans, San Diego, the engineers no longer wanted a sunken gallery at the entrance of the plotting/ switchboard rooms. Such a gallery served to trap gas around the air lock door.
