Treaty-era cruiser scarcity constrained Operation Pedestal choices

Did refusal to provide a heavy cruiser for gunfire spotting doom the Operation Pedestal attack?

It was one of several problems, and the deeper constraint was a treaty-era shortage of heavy cruisers.

A question attributes an attack's failure during Operation Pedestal to the refusal to provide a heavy cruiser for gunfire spotting. Several things were needed for the attack to work, so one decision does not explain the whole result. The immediate constraint was a shortage of heavy cruisers. That scarcity was itself a legacy of the treaty system, connecting a tactical support gap to interwar force structure.