Had fighting begun before La Argentina's delivery, Britain might have retained the completed, British-equipped cruiser while she was still in the country. The counterfactual draws on the seized Ottoman battleships and foreign destroyers absorbed into Royal Navy service. A small cruiser with nine 6-inch guns would have joined a wartime fleet already short of cruisers and could have served in the Far East. In reality she sailed in February, reached the River Plate on 2 March, and commissioned in Argentina in April 1939, narrowly closing that possibility. Her cadet accommodation left the qualities of a well-designed combatant intact.
Notable Point · 4:12-7:31
The narrow window for a British requisition
Had war begun earlier, a completed British-equipped cruiser still in Britain might have been retained for urgent Royal Navy service.