The counterfactual allows Britain to build any number of carriers within a 27,000-ton limit for each ship. It envisages eight Ark Royal-like fleet carriers, with three for the Home Fleet, three for the Mediterranean, and two for the Far East. A further group of Unicorn-style support carriers would accompany them. Repeated construction would provide more opportunities to develop the open 4.5-inch mounting associated with Ark Royal. That mounting could then reach destroyers earlier, connecting carrier orders to wider fleet air defence. These numbers belong to the imagined programme.
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A qualitative-only treaty transforms British carrier development
Eight fleet carriers and supporting aviation ships illustrate how removing cumulative tonnage limits could alter British carrier and gun development.