Continuous construction and the survival of interwar shipyards

A larger capital-ship programme would shorten or remove the construction gap assumed in this counterfactual. Continued work could preserve British, French and American industrial capacity and give Japan more experience building within a 35,000-ton limit. Italian construction based on the Francesco Caracciolo design is suggested as a route to more capable later Littorios. William Beardmore and Company is considered a plausible British survivor, while keeping Palmers open is less certain. More capital ships would also require escorts, potentially bringing forward another destroyer generation. Surviving yards and workforces would provide capacity for later rearmament, while Germany would face rivals with more recent design and construction experience.