Pacific scouting and war-plan assumptions

The value of the early treaty cruisers becomes clearer when the Pacific is treated as the operating problem. Without satellite or mature aircraft reconnaissance, the U.S. Navy needed ships that could range far ahead, carry aircraft when possible, and report before the slower battle line committed. The design logic was to outrun anything too powerful to fight and overwhelm anything too slow to escape, much like the broader battlecruiser concept. Under the Washington Treaty, a maximum of 10,000 tons and eight-inch guns offered the strongest reconnaissance ship available within the rules.