Could surviving Royal Navy armored cruisers be rebuilt into useful interwar heavy cruisers?
Short answerThe newer classes could, provided they received turbines, more speed and enough treaty tonnage for a major reconstruction.
NotesOnly the newer armored cruisers are plausible candidates, rather than every surviving ship of the type. A credible reconstruction would need turbine machinery and enough power to raise speed to interwar expectations. The Duke of Edinburgh, Warrior and especially Minotaur classes are singled out as possibilities. Permitted displacement is the decisive constraint: with roughly 18,000 tons available, a substantial and useful heavy-cruiser reconstruction becomes possible.