Britain still needs County-class cruisers

The revised capital-ship settlement would feed into a very different London Naval Treaty because the United States might enter the late 1920s with few heavy cruisers. Congress could point to the Lexingtons as powerful scouts and defer the Navy's request for Northampton-class 8-inch-gun cruisers. Britain would still build County-class cruisers because its postwar force had to cover global economic warfare, trade security, and an estimated requirement for roughly seventy cruisers. Battlecruisers and Dominion fleet units also need cruisers in their supporting squadrons, so American delay does not remove the Royal Navy's underlying requirement.