Agincourt and Brazil's bigger-gun ambition

Brazil's sale of the gun-heavy future HMS Agincourt to the Ottoman Empire did not mean it had abandoned the dreadnought race. Planners instead wanted fewer but larger guns on a faster successor called Riachuelo. Competing concepts considered ten 15-inch or eight 16-inch guns before an eight-gun 15-inch design was ordered from Armstrong Whitworth at Elswick. Materials were being gathered and keel laying was planned when the First World War interrupted the project, leading to suspension and cancellation in 1915. The proposed ship would have formed a design bridge between the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes and demonstrates how far Brazil intended to move beyond its first dreadnoughts.