Armoured-cruiser limits invite disguised expansion

How would a national armoured-cruiser tonnage allowance play out?

It would likely encourage replacement programmes and designs that could be rapidly strengthened, such as large County-like cruisers prepared for wartime armour.

A 15,000- to 18,000-ton armoured-cruiser benchmark would give navies a tempting loophole. Britain might build enlarged County-like cruisers and keep matching armour plates ready for installation once war began. The nominal peacetime displacement would then conceal a planned wartime increase. Treaty limits become questions of industrial preparation and mobilization as well as ship classification.