A twelve-gun Hipper would expose the treaty-enforcement problem

How practical would a four-shaft Hipper design with four triple eight-inch turrets be?

It would be a frightening cruiser, and Germany's existing treaty breaches showed that only a state willing to enforce the limits could prevent it.

The proposed ship would carry twelve eight-inch guns and four shafts, making it much more powerful than the historical Hipper. Germany was not a Washington Naval Treaty signatory and was already stretching the Versailles replacement limit by putting 11-inch guns on nominal 10,000-ton ships. Britain was not prepared to go to war merely to enforce that boundary. Arms-control categories constrain design only when governments possess both the capacity and the political will to enforce them.