A senator who had studied ships approaching twice the historical treaty limit would not readily accept 35,000 tons as an adequate maximum. The treaty itself recorded HMS Hood at about 41,000 tons standard displacement, giving Tillman an accepted foreign benchmark rather than a speculative estimate. Britain could answer further escalation by enlarging yards and dredging the Suez Canal, while the United States faced the much harder problem of moving oversized ships through the Panama Canal. Those asymmetrical infrastructure limits make a ceiling near 40,000 tons a plausible compromise in the scenario.
Chapter · 28:05-35:16
HMS Hood pushes the ceiling above 35,000 tons
Tillman's experience with maximum battleships makes the historical 35,000-ton limit implausible while HMS Hood remains a 41,000-ton benchmark.