Continuous construction transforms the fleets of 1939

Regular building preserves industrial capacity and produces successive generations of battleships and battlecruisers instead of an abrupt late-1930s restart. A later London agreement might standardize both categories at 15-inch guns rather than trying to reduce new ships to 14-inch weapons. If Britain and the United States each continued at roughly five capital ships per five-year period, Britain could replace almost its entire battle fleet by 1939. Three or four design generations would emerge through repeated building and evaluation, spreading innovation instead of concentrating risk in one emergency program. The larger British and Dominion battlecruiser pool would also support global deployment, training, reserve, and refit rotations without stripping every station at once.