The game exercise imagines an Armstrong Whitworth counter-offer to Vickers for Japan's Kongo contract, using 1913 British technology and a displacement allowance of about 27,500 tons. Japan's desire for ships individually superior to likely opponents makes extra main guns attractive. Drachinifel offers ten 14-inch guns, a 10-inch belt, and 28 knots, with two more guns than the eight-gun battlecruisers used for comparison. Clarke fits twelve 14-inch guns and 28-knot machinery by using a slimmer hull with greater draft and sharply reducing the secondary battery. His design carries ten 3-inch casemate guns, four torpedo tubes, and a stated range of 19,000 kilometers. The very light secondary armament draws criticism even as the heavier main battery earns the decision. Concentrating firepower in the main battery requires sacrifices elsewhere in the design.
Chapter · 1:14:38-1:37:15
A British rival for the Kongo contract
A hypothetical British competitor for Japan's Kongo contract compares a ten-gun battlecruiser with a twelve-gun alternative carrying very light secondaries.