Treaty ceilings distorted cruiser design

The comparison of Kent, London, Norfolk, York, Myoko, Trento, and Hawkins argues that ships nominally designed to the treaty target did not honestly achieve it. Britain compounded the problem by designing within old dockyard and infrastructure limits, then retaining a conventional twin-turret layout. Infrastructure constraints had already produced the efficient G3 form and its adaptation into Nelson under capital-ship limits, so a precedent for more radical layout thinking existed. The Counties instead saved weight by accepting very limited protection, while rivals often exceeded the stated displacement limit in practice. The ceiling forced every navy to choose which deficiency to hide, tolerate, or compensate for instead of producing a balanced standard type.