Triple turrets for a Queen Mary-type battlecruiser

The design exploration assumes roughly a 28-metre beam, three triples in an A-B-X arrangement, and a large secondary battery. At 28 to 28.5 knots, a more efficient power plant and shorter hull could offset the ninth gun and its ammunition, keeping displacement close to Queen Mary's. The savings could instead raise the belt to 10 inches and the deck to 4 inches for an increase of about 2,000 tons. Reaching 30 knots with the improved protection drives the design toward at least 30,000 tons. The slightly slower protected version is the more credible incremental step from the Lion-class lineage. Compared with Bellerophon, St Vincent, and Neptune, it has roughly the same belt, a much stronger broadside, and at least seven more knots at a cost of more than 8,000 additional tons. The increase over King George V narrows to roughly 3,000 tons, making the proposal look more evolutionary.