What 'overage' meant in the Second London Naval Treaty

Did the Second London Naval Treaty require the Royal Navy to discard its surviving First World War V and W-class destroyers?

No; the ships could be classified as overage without the treaty automatically requiring their disposal.

The treaty's age categories distinguished classification from a mandatory disposal order. The age definitions read out here include twenty-six years for capital ships, twenty for carriers, and thirteen for submarines. Light surface vessels have sixteen- or twenty-year thresholds depending on category and laying-down date. The treaty explained how disposal could occur but did not make every overage vessel disappear automatically, nor did it impose the assumed cumulative destroyer limit. The surviving V and W class could remain useful without violating a blanket retirement rule that the text did not contain.