Modernisation plans do not stand still

Britain, the United States, Japan, Italy, and Germany pursue different combinations of numbers, technology, and industrial expansion. The Royal Navy had already begun ordering what could become a programme of roughly 200 Flower-class corvettes, while British yards were reactivating capacity and American yards were adding new facilities. A possible successor to the Tribal class shows how quickly the designs might change: without the war interrupting the programme, a destroyer with four twin 4.5-inch mounts and two quintuple torpedo launchers could move from study to service. Germany is already pushing its economy so hard that further rearmament without conquest may be unsustainable. That economic argument does not establish that German leaders understood the pressure as a reason for war. Longer peace also lets countries see rival programmes more clearly, so later ships are likely to differ from designs approved in the late 1930s. A strategy based on superior ships also fails if an opponent can build equally capable vessels in much greater numbers.