All-forward armament makes most sense under a hard displacement limit. Without that constraint, simply enlarging the ship may be the more sensible answer. A triple 8-inch turret could have given British heavy cruisers much more firepower, although 6-inch cruisers still offered a high volume of fire. The choices that made Nelson and Rodney slow may also have given the layout an undeservedly poor reputation inside the Royal Navy. Treaty rules and institutional experience shaped the available balance between gun number, calibre, and hull size.
Notable Point · 16:14-19:04
When tonnage limits favour all-forward guns
Concentrating guns forward is most persuasive when treaty tonnage limits force a designer to extract the most firepower from a fixed displacement.