More North Carolinas offered a quick American response

What would the Americans do if the other navies accelerated their capital-ship programmes?

A four-ship North Carolina programme was proposed as a quick response, using an existing design and available shipyard capacity.

The United States had shipyard capacity for additional capital ships, making repeat construction a practical option in this scenario. North Carolina had already undergone a late change from quadruple 14-inch turrets to triple 16-inch turrets. Another immediate redesign would add work when two more examples of the existing design could be ordered. Their armament would repeat the 16-inch/45 guns and twin 5-inch/38 mounts already being produced. The earlier all-forward North Carolina studies also resemble Britain's F3, with the main turrets concentrated ahead of the superstructure. Those studies show how an established programme could contain several quite different arrangements before reaching its final form.