If controlling Japanese procurement in 1937, which one ship should enter series production?
Short answerA reliable mass-producible ASW destroyer, backed by preparations to convert merchant ships into escort carriers.
NotesA reliable anti-submarine destroyer that many Japanese yards could build was more useful than a spectacular specialist warship. Series production and ease of construction mattered because Japan needed escort numbers across a vast maritime empire. In parallel, tankers and merchant hulls could receive advance structural planning for carrier conversion. Stockpiling flight-deck and aviation components would then shorten the wartime path to escort-carrier production.