Six twin 5-inch/38 mounts would have been preferable, but Wichita's actual arrangement offered useful options within treaty displacement and preceded the later standard layout. The single mounts could engage in eight directions, while twins concentrated more guns into fewer arcs. Adding 5,000 tons opens a different design space: eight twin 5-inch mounts could accompany twelve 8-inch guns in four triple turrets. The counterfactual makes the treaty constraint tangible by showing what armament had to be excluded from the historical ship.
Notable Point · 35:06-36:45
Wichita's 5-inch battery and a 15,000-ton counterfactual
A secondary-battery discussion shows how treaty weight and firing arcs shaped Wichita, then imagines the much heavier cruiser another 5,000 tons could have produced.