Q&A · 1:19:25-1:20:21

A seven-carrier British conversion program with hindsight

The closing hindsight question ends with a specific British proposal: convert all seven Admiral and G3 hulls before the Washington Treaty.

Question

With hindsight, what carrier force should Britain have created before the Washington Treaty?

Short answer

Convert all seven Admiral and G3 hulls into carriers before the treaty, so they could enter service and be treated as experimental ships.

Notes

The closing question asks what carrier forces the treaty powers should have built in the 1920s if planners had later knowledge of naval aviation. The British answer keeps all three Admiral-class hulls and all four G3s for conversion, creating seven large carriers. It would begin the conversions before the Washington Treaty was agreed so the ships could enter the negotiations as experimental carriers already in service. This is an explicit hindsight counterfactual rather than a claim about what contemporary naval leaders were likely to choose.