/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>3728693
The main arguments which seem to have led to Balfour opting to go for pair of 35k ton ships seems to have been their massive price and Hughes' concern that these vessels would have potential to trigger another naval arms race in future.
>The more he thought the matter over the more concerned he was with the British proposal to build 49,000 ton ships. The fact was that if this were done the idea would get abroad that Great Britain was starting to build something very much larger than known before; it would make people think that the agreement being reached did not make for peace, and would create a strong desire among all Governments to increase the tonnage of their ships. Thus it might eventually lead to a serious disturbance of the programme. If the British Government would abandon that, it would be a great relief to his mind. He was not prepared to say “No” to it, but it would make a very great difference if the British Government could abandon it. There was also the question of the money cost, which must be very serious to Great Britain, but his main point was the bad appearance it would make. The public would ask why Great Britain required a larger ship than anyone else. That is how the question appeared to him.
>MR. BALFOUR then said that, although he did not quite like acting without referring to his government, the new situation seemed to throw upon him the duty of coming to an immediate decision. He was immensely impressed with the importance of avoiding further delay. Harm had been done by the delays which had already occurred, and by the continual and inexplicable leakage to the press, and he felt it was of the utmost importance to get on with the discussion of the French and Italian ratios. He therefore proposed to take responsibility, on behalf of his government, of accepting the scheme under which Great Britain would have the right to build two capital ships of 35,000 legend tons, and in exchange would scrap the four KING GEORGE Vths when the new ships were completed.

Even after that Neldods were an sub-optimal choice desu, with the benefit of hindsight pair of F3s would had been better even if building them would had been politically controversial due to them using 15" guns instead of 16" ones. In return though RN would had acquired 2 battlecruisers with 3 x 3 15"/50 (using same ammo as 15/42 but fired at higher velocity apparently), 6" 4 x 2, 12" belt inclined 72 degrees over magazines and machinery, 7" deck over magazines, 3.25" deck over machinery, and speed of 28.5 knots in deep load. Secondary battery is kinda shit and I would had gone with more uniform thickness of deck over both machinery and magazine spaces, but if they had their 6" secondaries replaced with 4.5" ones (preferably 3 to 5 twin turrets per side) during 30s said ships probably would had been significantly more useful in WW2 than Nelrods were.