Q&A · 2:02:04-2:03:19

A ten-year replacement rule instead of a battleship holiday

A treaty counterfactual replaces the building holiday with continuous fleet renewal and potentially much larger interwar battleships.

Question

What if the Washington treaty allowed battleship construction but required ten years of service before replacement?

Short answer

Britain could resume a rolling program in the 1920s and 1930s, producing more postwar designs than Nelson and Rodney, while poorer powers would struggle with the cost.

Notes

British ships commissioned before World War I would become eligible for replacement early enough to sustain design teams and shipyard capacity through the interwar years. That could yield successive 1920s and 1930s classes, perhaps including 18-inch-gunned designs, while states with weaker finances fall behind.