What a K25 design study is meant to show

Would a K25-style arrangement with extra 16.5-inch guns have been adequate?

The extra firepower comes with serious topweight problems, and the study is better read as evidence against the arrangement than as a desired design.

The K25 arrangement concentrates multiple twin 16.5-inch mountings forward and aft, creating an impressive paper battery. That concentration also drives topweight, structural, and stability problems that make the ship a poor practical replacement for a more balanced design. The answer warns against reading every official drawing as an endorsed construction proposal. Naval staffs sometimes develop an extreme design so they can demonstrate exactly why a minister's or enthusiast's apparently attractive idea should be rejected. The K25 is therefore valuable evidence of the design process even if its purpose was to close an option rather than recommend it.