Was Britain's 1930s battleship program simply replacing the R and Queen Elizabeth classes?
Short answerNo; it also aimed to grow the Royal Navy toward a battle fleet of twenty or more ships.
NotesThe King George V class was intended to replace the R class, but later construction also served an ambition to expand the fleet. The existing force of fifteen capital ships included the five Rs and five Queen Elizabeths, Hood, Renown, Repulse, Nelson, and Rodney. Five King George Vs, four Lions, and Vanguard would add ten ships, allowing retirement of five while increasing the total to twenty. The wider ambition was roughly twenty to twenty-five battleships, a scale also associated with American planning. Japan could not sustain equivalent numbers, even with individually powerful Yamato-class ships.