A decisive battle favours fast battleships over battlecruisers

If battlecruisers on both sides are lost while the Queen Elizabeth class appears to decide the battle, the design lesson shifts toward speed combined with full battleship protection. An Admiral-class successor might make roughly 28 knots with full battleship armour and eight or ten 15-inch guns, potentially twelve with triple turrets. Larger guns are another possible development. The same lesson could unsettle the US Navy's 21-knot standard battleships and push the Lexington class toward fast-battleship designs, while Japan faces a more punishing naval race. If a German night escape is less central to the battle's memory, the Royal Navy might place somewhat less urgency on night fighting, although Harwich Force experience and worldwide commitments would still support it. Treaty politics depend on the war's course as much as ship design: an earlier end before American entry weakens the Wilson-era framework that the Harding administration later carried into the Washington settlement. A victorious Britain that had just demonstrated its naval supremacy would also have little reason to accept major cuts. These are pressures rather than one inevitable fleet plan.