Calling the cancelled Agincourt too complicated to finish is treated as a clue that it differed from an ordinary Queen Elizabeth. Portsmouth had already built the first ship of that class, making a repeat design an unconvincing explanation for the difficulty. The later availability of capital-ship small-tube boilers for Courageous and Glorious suggests an earlier project with the necessary development lead time. The three 18-inch guns built for Furious provide another clue, although connecting them to a six-gun battleship remains an inference. Their appearance suggests possible shortening from 42- or 45-calibre originals. These observations support a reconstruction requiring further evidence, rather than a settled account of the cancelled design.
Notable Point · 1:23:40-1:28:51
The circumstantial case for a different Agincourt
Cancellation language, boiler-development timing, and the Furious guns support a hypothesis about Agincourt's intended design.