A 42,000-ton capital-ship settlement with staged replacement

HMS Hood's reported displacement supplies the precedent for rounding the capital-ship ceiling to 42,000 tons while retaining 16-inch guns. Scaling Japan upward produces a proposed distribution of twenty ships each for Britain and the United States, fourteen for Japan, and eight each for France and Italy. The replacement rules extend a phased scheme offered to France and Italy to every signatory and prevent any navy from building more than one-fifth of its allowance at once. Ships laid down before 1914 with guns of 14 inches or less could be replaced from 1926, while pre-1914 ships with larger guns would wait until 1930. Ships laid down from 1914 through 1918 could follow from 1934. An eighteen-year service life for treaty ships would eventually sustain a regular construction rhythm.