After Argincourt's erratic test, a separate Conqueror concept is built with twelve 18-inch guns. Beam and draft are narrowed around a 28-knot requirement while pitch, roll, and fore-and-aft weight shift change with the hull. The gun model is reduced from an implausible 48- or 49-calibre length toward 45 calibres, and armour and internal protection absorb the tonnage recovered elsewhere. Enhanced or semi-automatic loading offers more firepower but creates another weight choice, while an all-or-nothing protection scheme receives a direct test. This is a counterfactual design exercise rather than a claim that such a ship existed, and each improvement forces a concession in stability, protection, machinery, or weapons.
Chapter · 1:45:37-1:57:52
Designing Conqueror as a twelve-gun 18-inch fast battleship
A second counterfactual turns the 18-inch concept into a 28-knot, twelve-gun design whose hull form, gun length, protection, and loading system must fit one displacement budget.