The Italian Dante Alighieri project challenges the idea that a fast battleship was inconceivable in the first dreadnought generation. Early discussion considered larger guns and a speed around 24 or 25 knots, and Italy possessed yards capable of building the design promptly. Had that version appeared close to HMS Dreadnought, it might have made the British ship look more like an evolutionary step than the sole model for the new era. The counterfactual helps explain why Germany's decision to maintain separate battleship and battlecruiser lines was a policy choice rather than a technological inevitability.
Notable Point · 34:38-35:50
Dante Alighieri and an early fast-battleship alternative
An unrealized faster, heavier-gunned Dante Alighieri illustrates that navies were considering fast-battleship combinations soon after HMS Dreadnought.