HMS Africa on the eve of HMS Dreadnought

HMS Africa commissioned on 6 November 1906, while HMS Dreadnought commissioned on 2 December. When Africa was laid down, the King Edward VII class represented a powerful and proven pre-dreadnought design, but the Lord Nelson class and Dreadnought overtook it before the ship entered service. Continuing the older classes provided an insurance policy while the new concept remained untested. It also meant that several expensive capital ships became second-line assets much sooner than their builders expected. The alternative considered here replaces the later King Edward VII class ships and the Lord Nelsons with six dreadnoughts, three laid down in 1904 and three in 1905. That counterfactual would have produced most of a battle squadron and forced a rival to match several new ships at once. The suggested saving depends on the value of obtaining that concentration of capability, while the historical programme retained the security of proven designs.