A 10:10:7:4:4 Washington treaty ratio

What changes if the Washington Naval Treaty uses a 10:10:7:4:4 ratio?

Japan is more satisfied, but the treaty system contains much larger fleets and makes later naval rearmament and replacement programmes very different.

The discussion translates the ratio into actual fleets: roughly twenty capital ships and ten carriers each for Britain and the United States, fourteen capital ships and seven carriers for Japan, and eight capital ships and four carriers each for France and Italy. Britain gains enough tonnage to retain more 13.5-inch ships while building several Nelson-style replacements, potentially in alternating battleship and battlecruiser forms. A rolling 1920s programme would preserve armour, gun, and shipyard capacity into the King George V generation instead of allowing it to atrophy. Japan may be more invested in a treaty that grants seventy percent of Anglo-American strength, though later diplomacy and rearmament still remain uncertain. Minor powers are constrained less by their paper allowance than by the yards, systems, and money required to use it.