A British answer to American and Japanese 16-inch guns would need to offer more than the marginal advantage of a 16.5-inch weapon, making an 18-inch programme plausible. Furious’s later weapons show that such guns did reach production. Britain accelerated wartime ships it believed could be completed quickly while pausing designs that pushed the technological envelope, yet a straightforward Queen Elizabeth repeat should have been relatively easy to finish. Crewing pressure is one possible explanation, although older pre-dreadnoughts could have been decommissioned to release personnel for a more useful ship. Larger guns, new turrets, small-tube boilers, and a modified hull would better explain the delay, but the reconstruction remains unproven.
Notable Point · 11:37-13:57
Agincourt’s programme logic and technical complexity
Gun development, wartime building priorities, crewing alternatives, and hull changes explain why Agincourt might have been more complex than a repeated Queen Elizabeth.