What if Tillman III had entered U.S. service?

The closing thought experiment begins with the actual U.S. standards: the Tennessee class carried twelve 14-inch guns and made 21 knots, while the Colorado class carried eight 16-inch guns at the same speed. It asks what might have happened if the Navy had adopted Tillman III in 1916 as the basis for the Tennessee class and later designs. Even if an actual ship made only 28 knots rather than the planned 30, a force of six 60,000-ton ships with twelve 16-inch guns would have altered other navies’ calculations as the First World War ended. Panama Canal access would have let the United States shift them between oceans. The scenario leaves the finished ships’ exact performance uncertain while showing how early fast battleships might have affected assessments of Hood and post-war construction.