Why King George V carried ten 14-inch guns

Why did King George V use ten 14-inch guns rather than three superfiring twin turrets or a larger-calibre battery?

The design began with three quadruple 14-inch turrets, but turret reliability, topweight, and ballast problems forced a ten-gun layout; the hoped-for answer was high-rate, radar-controlled fire.

The intended arrangement of three quadruple 14-inch mounts became harder to fit and operate than its advocates expected. A third turret added topweight and ballast problems, leaving a ten-gun compromise rather than the hoped-for twelve-gun battery. The design logic still rested on a high volume of fire, with improved loading expected to make 14-inch salvos dangerous even against more heavily armed opponents. The fire-control assumption moved from visual identification in about 1933 to radar fire control by about 1935. The exchange separates the original twelve-gun concept from the completed ship and shows how an ambitious weapons assumption can drive a design into an awkward compromise.