Britain needed G3 and N3 to use docks, yards, and support infrastructure sized around Hood and other existing capital ships. Immediate postwar finances made wholesale expansion of the naval estate unrealistic. The design problem was therefore to fit larger guns and greater capability into a hull that the existing infrastructure could still handle. Pulling the turrets inward was one response. It helped set the course toward the all-forward arrangement later used in Nelson and Rodney.
Chapter · 5:13-6:33
Infrastructure, not aesthetics, drove the compact layout
The concentrated turret arrangement reflects a requirement to build much more powerful ships without replacing the docks, yards, and support estate inherited from Hood.