A cruiser-carrier programme keeps shipyards and Dominion procurement active

The building programme is also industrial policy. Adding four to eight cruiser-size carriers to the Counties and Nelsons could increase major-warship work by roughly half during a lean period for British yards. Repeated construction might keep more facilities viable and reduce unit costs, perhaps allowing all sixteen intended Counties to be completed without cut-price variants. Seventeen ships represent about thirty-four cumulative yard-years, while twenty-six would represent roughly fifty-two. Australia is the likeliest Dominion customer, while New Zealand might finance construction without operating the ship, as it had done with a battlecruiser. Those extra orders would reinforce both industrial capacity and imperial naval reach.