Continuous interwar orders would preserve shipyard employment, specialized trades, and design experience before rearmament began. Five faster Nelson alternatives and rebuilt Queen Elizabeths could establish 28 knots as a fleet standard, producing roughly ten fast battleships to support Hood, Renown, and Repulse. That speed and availability would reshape deployments from the Atlantic and Norway to the Mediterranean, while older Revenge-class ships remained useful for convoy escort. In the United States, completed 1920 South Dakotas with twelve 16-inch guns would become the baseline inherited by the North Carolina generation, making a smaller nine-gun successor harder to justify.
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Continuous construction builds a faster wartime fleet
More interwar work preserves shipbuilding skills and gives Britain a potential ten-ship fast battle line while moving America's later designs toward heavier gun batteries.