L20 Alpha belongs beside wartime British design studies

L20 and the other late German capital-ship proposals were credible designs for 1916-17. Queen Elizabeth had been designed around 1911-12, so comparing the two gives Germany several years of development without allowing Britain a response. The gap is compared with the interval between St Vincent and Queen Elizabeth, during which British battleship capability changed considerably. Germany had not completed Mackensen or the later Bayern-class ships, making service around 1920-21 an optimistic prospect even if the war and construction continued. British alternatives included revised Queen Elizabeth concepts and heavier derivatives of Hood, using machinery and gun development already under way. These remain proposed responses, while Germany's blockade and major land war made building its own paper designs increasingly difficult.