Germany's options after a larger American gun jump

Could Germany respond effectively if the American and British battleship programmes moved to larger guns?

Obtaining help from Austria-Hungary is suggested as the quickest route, but an unlikely choice. Domestic development would be slow and expensive enough to end Germany's competitive involvement in the race.

Germany's quickest suggested route to a larger gun would be to seek help from Austria-Hungary, an option judged unlikely to be taken. Developing a domestic weapon would impose further delay when even the 15-inch gun had taken considerable time. In this counterfactual, Germany could continue building capital ships while losing the ability to keep pace with the leading designs. Germany's competitive involvement would end at roughly the same stage as it did historically. Britain's own programme still has to balance expensive experiments against affordable numbers: the Queen Elizabeths are the high-end ships, while the R class uses casemate secondaries to contain cost. More development time might have given the Queen Elizabeths turreted secondary guns.