Heavy cruisers could be judged chiefly by mission and design lineage, but battleships were capital assets with symbolic weight. Britain insisted on 16-inch guns for Nelson and Rodney partly because a smaller caliber would signal inferior rank beside foreign ships. The largest gun acted like a public demonstration of industrial and national power even when a proven smaller weapon might be more practical. Treaty design therefore had to account for prestige and status competition as well as technical efficiency.
Notable Point · 2:11:43-2:12:50
Battleship gun caliber as a national status symbol
Large battleship guns conveyed political status even when their operational advantage over proven weapons was limited.