Practical shipyard capacity makes the counterfactual plausible. The yard that built Viribus Unitis, Tegetthoff, and Prinz Eugen had already proven its capability and held orders for the first pair. Ganz-Danubius at Fiume had built Szent István and was assigned the later pair. This division gave Austria-Hungary real options for starting one or two ships if Haus accepted Montecuccoli's political gamble. A 21-knot battleship with ten 14-inch guns looked conventional in isolation, but commissioning even one would change what Italy and the Allied Mediterranean forces had to plan against. The projected consequences reach through the interwar decades, the Second World War, and into the 1950s.
Notable Point · 35:52-38:15
Proven shipyards made the counterfactual plausible
The yards that built the Tegetthoffs already had the new orders divided between them, leaving Haus's willingness to accept Montecuccoli's political gamble as the obstacle to an earlier start.