A playful visit to 1933 begins with more 40 mm anti-aircraft guns and wider use of twin 4.5-inch dual-purpose mountings across destroyers and cruisers. Carrier orders would increase, the King George V class would receive triple 15- or 16-inch turrets instead of its 14-inch battery, and Reginald Henderson would gain a deputy to reduce his punishing workload. Naval aviation would receive uprated Fulmars, improved cannon armament, larger hangars and lifts, and earlier planning for merchant-aircraft and escort carriers. More Town-class cruisers and sloops complete the proposed force. The humour connects air defence, carrier capacity, ordnance, design staffing, and escort numbers as parts of one readiness problem.
Notable Point · 3:21:51-3:27:46
A time traveller's Royal Navy rearmament priorities
A playful 1933 thought experiment becomes a compact statement of the capabilities the prewar Royal Navy needed most.