The final question returns to the uncertainty that made Lord Nelson intelligible in the first place. If coordinated long-range fire with 12-inch guns had failed after 1906, navies might have delayed the all-big-gun battleship by ten or fifteen years and developed an enlarged Lord Nelson-style hybrid instead. The suggested layout places two superfiring pairs of twin 12-inch turrets at the ends of the ship and six to eight twin 9.2-inch turrets amidships. The proposal asks viewers to weigh how the practical limits of fire control would have altered battleship size, layout, and armament.
Notable Point · 52:28-54:19
If long-range fire control had failed
The closing counterfactual asks whether failed long-range fire control might have produced larger hybrid battleships combining 12-inch and 9.2-inch batteries.