Agincourt and the case for a distinctive armament

Could Agincourt have used triple 15-inch turrets instead of an unusual heavy-gun design?

Possibly, but triple 15-inch turrets fit existing practice too easily; a twin 18-inch concept better explains the design's exceptional character and delay.

Triple 15-inch turrets are technically plausible, but they do less to explain why Agincourt's construction was halted. If the Royal Navy had already solved a triple 15-inch mounting, the absence of that work from Hood or another contemporary design needs explaining. A distinctive six-gun arrangement using twin 18-inch mounts better fits both the disruption and the exceptional character of the hypothetical ship. It would also answer American and Japanese movement toward 16-inch guns with a conspicuous British step beyond them. The hull concept follows the way Renown and Repulse enlarged an existing battleship lineage into fast six-gun capital ships. This remains an interpretive design reconstruction, but later choices and missing follow-on designs provide a way to test the proposed armament.