Why Vanguard's proposed refit could not shed much weight

How could the Royal Navy have reduced Vanguard's weight during a planned 1950s refit?

Most proposed savings were implausible; a much later gas-turbine conversion might have offered the only meaningful route.

The proposed weight reductions were largely unrealistic and may not have been necessary. The 1950s schemes depended more on optimistic assumptions than identifiable large savings. A much later conversion to gas turbines might have created a genuine opportunity by changing the machinery plant. Within the proposed refit, however, Vanguard had no easy reserve of weight that planners could simply remove.