Applying capital-ship-style ratios turns a three-boat exception into a distinct force category. Britain and the United States each receive fifteen boats, while Japan receives nine under the familiar 5:5:3 relationship. The British allocation uses the treaty-era phrase British Commonwealth of Nations, covering Britain and its dominions. Each hull can displace as much as 2,800 tons and carry guns up to 6.1 inches, making these submarines larger than treaty destroyer leaders. The Royal Navy's mix of T-, S-, and U-class boats illustrates why cumulative tonnage matters: filling the allowance with maximum-size submarines would leave too few hulls. Clever design can recover quality within a size ceiling, but no design trick restores the quantity lost to an aggregate cap.
Notable Point · 19:28-23:49
A treaty ratio creates cruiser-submarine fleets
The counterfactual gives Britain and the United States fifteen large submarines each and Japan nine, all within a 2,800-ton, 6-inch-gun ceiling.