An unconstrained capital-ship technology race

The counterfactual asks what might have followed if the treaty system had not stopped the G3 and N3 generation of British capital ships. Competition among Britain, the United States, and Japan becomes a race in technological steps rather than hull numbers alone. A new British 18-inch-gunned ship could force rivals to answer before their existing construction programmes were complete. Japan's smaller industrial capacity would make that especially difficult because its longer build times required designers to anticipate the next foreign step instead of matching the present one. Repeatedly leapfrogging technology would consume scarce money, skilled labour, and industrial effort. The scenario is explicitly speculative and shows how industrial capacity and construction time condition naval arms races.