The campaign's British fleet already contains 57 dreadnought-style battleships. The joke is that Winston Churchill would have cried with joy at such a 1913 forecast while Alfred von Tirpitz would have reacted with despair. Their imagined responses show how far the campaign has moved beyond the historical Anglo-German arms race. The later invasion strategy rests on an ahistorically deep capital-ship force rather than ordinary Royal Navy resources.
Notable Point · 1:08:33-1:09:22
Fifty-seven dreadnoughts reveal the campaign's scale
A fleet of 57 dreadnought-style battleships turns a 1913 naval dream into a measure of the campaign economy's extraordinary scale.