Kitakami and the limits of torpedo cruisers

Would a torpedo-favoring treaty produce ships like the Japanese cruiser Kitakami, and how useful would they be?

The treaty would encourage many Kitakami-like designs, although torpedoes remained less versatile than guns or modern vertical-launch cells despite fitting Japanese long-range strike doctrine.

The treaty counterfactual would encourage cruisers resembling Kitakami, with large batteries built around the weapon the rules rewarded. The real ship fit Japanese doctrine and the Imperial Japanese Navy's strength in long-range torpedoes. A Second World War torpedo tube still cannot be treated as the equivalent of a modern VLS cell. A vertical launcher can accept missiles for several missions, while a period torpedo was overwhelmingly an anti-ship weapon. Medium and heavy guns also offered anti-aircraft, surface, and occasional surfaced-submarine utility that a torpedo battery could not match.