The Royal Navy's unrealized 1931 carrier study

The 1931 study preceded the design work that produced Ark Royal. A hypothetical schedule based on Ark Royal puts an order in 1932, laying down in 1933, launch in 1935 and commissioning in 1936. Accepting roughly 60 aircraft instead of 72 offered scope for better torpedo defense. Designers considered 4.5-inch and 4.7-inch dual-purpose weapons, with single and twin mountings among the options, so an earlier order could have advanced their development for wartime destroyers. A carrier entering service in 1936 would also have required earlier Fleet Air Arm expansion and might have brought forward the administrative settlement represented by the 1937 Inskip Award, which restored naval control of the Fleet Air Arm. Most later British carrier orders followed the removal of cumulative limits under the Second London Naval Treaty, reducing the need for this earlier hull to displace those programmes.