Washington Cheaties: Comment Response

Tribal-class displacement figures illustrate why modest construction variance was expected, while implausibly exact treaty declarations damaged trust.

Deleting Britain or America also removes bases, supply flows, political connections, and enemy distractions rather than merely subtracting ships and divisions.

Babcock & Wilcox, John Brown, and American engineer Stephen Piggott show how British and American naval engineering knowledge moved across the Atlantic.

Construction urgency, standardization, and training needs explain why Britain deferred higher-pressure machinery despite knowing about American developments.

They would probably have operated with carriers as fast heavy escorts, adding air defence and protection against major surface ships.

Possibly. Spain was stronger on paper, but its training problems could have allowed Averof to deliver an upset.

Germany developed a 16-inch weapon for the H-class program, but the guns served in Atlantic Wall batteries after the ships remained unbuilt.

No. Navies could design convertible twin turrets for a wartime third gun, and ships could grow enormous if displacement itself were not limited.

The Washington treaty capped individual cruiser size but not aggregate cruiser tonnage, making a separate cruiser preferable to heavy turrets on a carrier.

Expected cruiser escorts and the stability cost of high-mounted turrets made Lexington's heavy battery less attractive than lower emergency guns and a better carrier design.

The response treats public enthusiasm as political cover and reads treaty evasions as evidence of the capabilities each navy valued most.

A state organized for world war and nationwide services needs more institutional capacity than a tiny polity with limited responsibilities.

Courts, accountable prosecution, and administrators who pay and equip armed forces show why a functioning state cannot be reduced to slogans about maximal or minimal government.

Not literally, but a modified F3 design with those guns could still have been a very formidable treaty-era capital ship.

The Navy objected because the rapid sinking of Ostfriesland prevented inspection of progressive bomb damage, undermining the experiment's learning value.

Treaty records place carriers alongside capital ships in the most detailed limits and show why Washington became a template for later arms-control agreements.

Yes. It and its companion volume are exceptional starting points, although the recommendation comes with disagreement over some interpretations.

Germany's projected force included a much larger capital-ship program than a simple five-ship reading of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement suggests.

At about 38,000 actual tons, they might have reached roughly 28 knots and used an F3-style turret layout with better secondary-gun positioning.

More Washington-era US cruiser construction could have raised London-era aggregate limits and brought the Royal Navy closer to its seventy-cruiser requirement.