The United States favored retaining the Washington limits of 35,000 tons and sixteen-inch guns, while Japan wanted the same tonnage and was unwilling to go below fourteen-inch weapons. British naval intelligence and Admiralty debates followed those positions in detail. Against that knowledge, extensive work on lightly protected ten-, eleven-, and twelve-inch battleships is difficult to read as the fleet's preferred operational program. One possible explanation is that complete tables and drawings for the smaller schemes let the naval staff show ministers that it had prepared for their desired treaty outcome. If negotiations failed, the staff could acknowledge the political effort and move to a more credible design that was ready but less visible in the surviving record. This interpretation explains why the best-documented studies may be the least representative of what professional officers actually wanted to fight.
Notable Point · 44:49-50:25
Small battleship studies as a political exercise
British intelligence knew the United States and Japan would resist the smallest treaty limits, supporting the interpretation that many surviving studies demonstrated political compliance rather than the fleet's preferred warship.