The Royal Navy explored a wide family of twelve-, eleven-, and ten-inch-gun designs in order to discover how far treaty limits could be pushed downward. Some carried only ten inches of belt armor, less than HMS Dreadnought, while most lacked enough speed to escape IJN Nagato and only a few could outrun the slower Colorado class. Design 11A, for example, placed eight eleven-inch guns in four twin turrets on about 23,300 tons. Such a ship becomes coherent only if every power accepts the same restrictions and older heavy units are removed. A modernized HMS Hood would dominate new eleven-inch opponents that could catch her, while Nagato would do the same to British equivalents. The exercise exposes a transition problem in arms control: a lighter future fleet is unsafe while even a handful of older or noncompliant heavy ships remains.
Chapter · 37:32-44:42
Small-gun treaty battleships face a fatal mismatch
Studies armed with twelve-, eleven-, or ten-inch guns could satisfy ambitions for tighter treaty limits, but their thin armor and inability to escape ships such as Nagato made them dangerous unless every existing heavy capital ship disappeared.