#2Historians Special: @Drachinifel comes to chat Dreadnoughts that Almost were P2 of ?

Courbet and Bretagne arrived behind their design generation, while short-range doctrine, restricted yards, and army commitments constrained their successors.

Restricted yards and a short production run encouraged France to retain 340 mm guns, first in twelve-gun Normandie and then in sixteen-gun Lyon.

Combining turbines and vertical triple-expansion engines required two operating skills and a machinery layout that accommodated the taller engines.

Choose more guns while their shells can penetrate the expected enemy protection at normal battle ranges. Once they cannot, a larger calibre is needed.

The preference offered is 16.5 inches, combining heavy penetration with a useful rate of fire before larger weapons impose a substantial loading penalty.

In this interpretation, Germany's position at Jutland was undermined in 1912, as budget decisions opened a construction gap while Britain continued building super-dreadnoughts.

Export battleships and the Royal Navy's programme still left British construction capacity unused, with Thames Ironworks closing for lack of work.

British armament firms developed heavy guns for possible naval and export sales while the Royal Navy often chose more conservative designs.

L20 and Ersatz Yorck belong beside Britain's wartime design work, several years after Queen Elizabeth's design freeze.

Small-tube boilers, heavier guns, and changes in turret count produce several proposed British responses to a German L20 programme.

Hood's pre-Jutland origins provide a second starting point for a proposed battleship with heavier armour and 16.5-inch guns.

Germany's advanced designs faced wartime production constraints, while Britain's larger network of yards and armament firms could support further development.

One interpretation connects the proposed ships with the deterrent reputation of the Admiral-class ironclads and Britain's ability to develop still stronger designs.

The contrast explains why infrastructure spending allowed American designs to grow while Britain's worldwide basing requirements pushed G3 and N3 towards smaller forms.

The larger British studies paired heavy armament with either battlecruiser speed or stronger battleship protection, backed by existing armour-manufacturing capacity.

Yard closures, equipment sales and restrictions on rebuilding are blamed for the shortage of skilled labour that later forced choices between major warships.

Both historians favour F3 for its combination of speed, protection and improved 15-inch guns, while questioning how much the Nelsons owed to the wish to match foreign 16-inch ships.

Replacing Renown and Repulse after building two initial F3s could have supplied a five-ship fast force with more consistent protection.

The historians disagree over whether British design categories or a broader combination of battle-line capability and speed should determine the label.

Two encounters with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau test how F3's nine forward-firing guns and higher speed could affect pursuit and combat.

An engineering crew can extract additional speed by accepting shorter maintenance intervals, permanent wear and an increasing risk of machinery failure.

The proposed explanation for Roberts' extra speed combines a hull designed for a heavier ship with reduced displacement and heavily driven machinery.

The estimates are nearly 21 days at 10 knots and 16.9 days at 12 knots, so two additional cruising knots save several days.

Conservative service guarantees explain why a Royal Navy speed rating could sit well below performance in favourable conditions.

Experimental tanks and efficient underwater forms could give a ship useful performance beyond the speed listed in its specifications.

Rodney's trial performance and the hull research behind F3 support the argument that published speed left an emergency reserve.

A sloop keeping station with a cruiser and Johnnie Walker's formation being mistaken for cruisers provide two arguments for looking beyond rated speed.

Loading definitions, provision for later armour and emergency machinery arrangements could preserve capability beyond what a navy demonstrated publicly.

Overstated reports of Mackensen's armament helped produce a British response with more firepower and speed than the German ship actually required.

Annual construction schedules meant the latest German battlecruiser concept could differ substantially from the design already on the slipway.

The 15-inch Ersatz Yorck was a rapid enlargement of Mackensen under wartime time, budget, and industrial constraints.

The Iowa comparison treats lengthening an existing battleship and fitting longer guns as a response to the pressure of approaching war.

Arming Scharnhorst with 15-inch guns from the outset might have pushed Britain toward earlier Vanguard-type ships and expanded armor production.

The counterfactual tests Vanguard's speed, torpedo defense, and anti-aircraft suite in the Denmark Strait and Malayan campaigns.

Early Vanguards would create demand for carriers able to scout for, protect, and keep pace with faster surface formations.

Changing one German or British program would trigger reactions across several navies rather than leaving the rest of the historical fleet balance fixed.

Germany could not answer a renewed capital-ship race quickly without giving another major program access to its few large building berths.

A twelve-gun version of the second Littorio pair offered a possible Italian response to renewed construction abroad, although financing remained difficult.

Possibly. A smaller Yamato study with nine 16-inch guns or additional Shokaku-type carriers also offered ways to add capital ships within Japan's restricted shipyard capacity.

A comparison of preserved battleships shows how the South Dakota class's compact layout restricted movement beside its secondary gun mounts.

A four-ship North Carolina programme was proposed as a quick response, using an existing design and available shipyard capacity.

The Greek dreadnought combined a German hull, American 14-inch guns and Yarrow boilers, while the choice of turbines depended on the suppliers the yard could secure.

Rear Admiral Lionel Grant Tufnell assessed competing designs and armour supplies for Salamis, while the comparison with Erin shows why procurement quality alone could not decide a battle.

A roughly nine-inch belt could protect an export dreadnought against much of a regional fleet while leaving it vulnerable to the rival navy's newest heavy guns.

Ten 14-inch guns, credible protection and 21-knot speed made Ersatz Monarch a plausible answer to Italy's existing dreadnoughts in the confined Adriatic.

A treaty permitting regular construction could have produced different Second World War battleships by allowing designs to develop through successive programmes.