Nelson and Rodney were ordered and laid down in 1922, two years before the Sydney strategy's 1924 point of divergence. Their basic design therefore remains fixed in this counterfactual. Later cruisers, destroyers, carriers, and refits can respond to the longer route, while these two battleships provide a useful control case. The distinction keeps later engineering speculation from rewriting decisions that had already been made.
Notable Point · 1:11:05-1:11:29
Why Nelson and Rodney remain unchanged
Nelson and Rodney were already ordered and laid down by 1922, so the 1924 Sydney divergence affects later ships and refits rather than their basic design.