A nine-gun alternative to the County class

How would Japan and the United States react to a County class armed with ten eight-inch guns?

Britain was more likely to choose nine uniform guns, which would broadly match US firepower and spur qualitative competition.

The Royal Navy would probably avoid mixing triple and twin turrets merely to reach ten guns because it generally preferred uniform mountings. That preference makes a nine-gun or twelve-gun cruiser more plausible than the proposed mixed arrangement. A nine-gun ship would broadly match contemporary American firepower while still giving the United States reason to examine its own designs. The likely result is a qualitative cruiser competition shaped as much by turret standardization as by the headline gun count.