Exploiting a treaty that excludes combat load

What if treaty displacement excluded ammunition, personnel, vehicles, aircraft, ordnance, and other equipment attached to the ship?

Designers would exploit the wording aggressively, treating armor and equipment as detachable load and producing ships that obeyed the letter while defeating the limit's purpose.

The Royal Navy would find extensive ways around such a rule. Vehicles could function as movable armor, boats or other nominally separate items could carry heavy steel, and equipment would be classified as attached load rather than ship structure. The resulting designs might satisfy the written calculation while being far heavier in operational condition. The exchange shows why arms-control definitions must anticipate engineering responses rather than merely state a tonnage ceiling.