A larger Nelson building programme might have encouraged an all-forward County-type heavy cruiser. The Nelson arrangement already supplied an efficient template that could have been applied to York and Exeter. That proposal transfers the capital ship's internal arrangement to a smaller vessel. The Royal Navy chose other layouts, so this remains a counterfactual possibility.
Notable Point · 1:52:55-1:53:42
Could the Royal Navy have built an all-forward heavy cruiser?
An established Nelson design lineage might have encouraged an all-forward County-type cruiser, but the Royal Navy retained conventional heavy-cruiser layouts.