Interwar shipyard closures removed rearmament capacity

A dry dock needs maintenance to remain usable, regardless of whether it still appears in an inventory. Drach describes British shipyards and armament works being bought up after the Great Depression, then demolished or stripped of machinery instead of mothballed. Even substantial structures that survived could be covered by covenants prohibiting shipbuilding for forty years. In his account, the closures continued into 1938 while demand for rearmament was rising. Selling off equipment and preventing the sites from reopening removed capacity that a later naval programme needed.