Japan's Ryujo supplies the design case behind the preceding legal language. At roughly 8,000 standard tons in this account, she showed that Japan could build below the old 10,000-ton threshold and might have created a larger force of small carriers if the rules remained unchanged. The United States could have followed the same route, while the Royal Navy already possessed small carriers and understood their operating constraints. Articles 3 and 4 thus governed how much aviation capacity a navy could place outside the intended treaty category.
Notable Point · 14:02-15:24
Ryujo reveals the small-carrier loophole
Japan's sub-10,000-ton Ryujo demonstrated how the Washington rules could support fleets of small carriers, prompting London to close the category.