The proposal gives the Royal Navy an eight-ship, 37,000-ton battleship programme alongside up to three new large battlecruisers and its surviving ships. The battlecruisers could resemble F3 or G3 thinking, with sixteen-inch guns and enough protection to hunt enemy battlecruisers while Hood, Renown, and Repulse range more widely against commerce. Battleship orders in 1922, 1924, 1926, and 1928, with battlecruiser orders between them, would spread costs and allow lessons from each completed pair to shape the next design. The additional displacement could produce 28-knot battleships and encourage comparable machinery upgrades for the Queen Elizabeth class. Continuous orders would keep designers, skilled yards, and supporting industry active, making later refits and new construction less expensive than rebuilding capacity from scratch. The availability of new capital ships could also reduce pressure to turn cruiser construction into a substitute national-prestige race.
Chapter · 41:02-52:27
A Royal Navy programme that sustains shipbuilding
The Royal Navy could use separate tonnage pools to build eight fast battleships and several new battlecruisers in staggered orders that preserve design learning and yard capacity.