Japanese security and the Yamato counterfactual

The Japanese option assumes fourteen ships built to the full 42,000-ton standard limit. Britain and the United States might choose twenty-one smaller ships instead, leaving Japan with a 70-percent tonnage share but fewer hulls. In this counterfactual, Japanese planners could take confidence from the greater individual size of their ships while their opponents relied on additional numbers. Yamato and Musashi are interpreted as an overreaction to perceived battle-line weakness. Continued construction under a less restrictive ratio is therefore suggested as a possible reason Japan might not pursue those ships, without treating that outcome as certain.