River Plate and the Java Sea show why a counterfactual must specify which ship exists, where it is sent, and how well its crew is worked up. One extra cruiser might change losses, but those effects then alter later operations and cannot be computed as a simple weapons total.
Notable Point · 2:30:30-2:32:53
How to reason from an extra cruiser to a changed battle
An additional ship changes deployments and crew quality as well as the arithmetic of a single battle.