Setting limits for a modern big-gun thought experiment

The comparison asks how familiar battleship and cruiser guns might change if their development continued into the modern era. It is limited to barrel technology, automatic loading, and fire control rather than a complete warship redesign. That keeps the later claims tied to recognisable heavy naval weapons instead of an unconstrained future combatant. The result is a technology counterfactual, not a claim that historic ships could accept modern equipment without major changes.