The closing analytical exercise is explicitly counterfactual. The imagined 1924-25 ship has triple six-inch turrets fore and aft, a secondary battery of five-inch guns and machine guns, and space for 18 to 24 seaplane-sized aircraft. The United States would assign one hybrid to every three-cruiser division. The questions are whether Congress would sustain that programme and how Britain, Japan, and other powers would respond. Those reactions test the political limits of experimental procurement and the likelihood of imitation within the treaty system.
Notable Point · 51:04-52:12
A 1924 flight-deck-cruiser counterfactual
The closing thought experiment asks how Congress and rival navies would react if the United States put an aviation hybrid into every cruiser division in 1924-25.