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No. JFC Fuller is spot-on: plans were already underway to cut the fleet. More than that, remember that developments in capital ship design were very rapid in the years from 1900-1920. We think about the role of Dreadnought and Invincible, but the super-dreadnought made the former less useful; the Orion class could fire twice the broadside weight of Dreadnought. The rise of the fast battleship, the Queen Elizabeth class, completed obsoleted the first-generation dreadnoughts and obviated much of the utility of the battle cruisers. Even Hood was no longer ideal by the end of the war, and she was only ordered in 1916. So, most of the ships the Royal Navy scrapped just couldn't keep pace with the times. The British only retained the Revenge class as a cheap holdout against the possibility of oil shortages; they were too slow. The Iron Dukes, with 13.5" (34.3 cm) guns and a top speed of 21.5 kt (39.4 km/h) were too outdated, really. They kept them in the 1920s because they needed numbers, but they would have had zero utility in the 1930s.

<blockquote data-quote="carsinamerica" data-source="post: 287755" data-attributes="member: 4247">No. JFC Fuller is spot-on: plans were already underway to cut the fleet. More than that, remember that developments in capital ship design were very rapid in the years from 1900-1920. We think about the role of Dreadnought and Invincible, but the super-dreadnought made the former less useful; the Orion class could fire twice the broadside weight of Dreadnought. The rise of the fast battleship, the Queen Elizabeth class, completed obsoleted the first-generation dreadnoughts and obviated much of the utility of the battle cruisers. Even Hood was no longer ideal by the end of the war, and she was only ordered in 1916. So, most of the ships the Royal Navy scrapped just couldn't keep pace with the times. The British only retained the Revenge class as a cheap holdout against the possibility of oil shortages; they were too slow. The Iron Dukes, with 13.5&quot; (34.3 cm) guns and a top speed of 21.5 kt (39.4 km/h) were too outdated, really. They kept them in the 1920s because they needed numbers, but they would have had zero utility in the 1930s.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="carsinamerica, post: 287755, member: 4247"] No. JFC Fuller is spot-on: plans were already underway to cut the fleet. More than that, remember that developments in capital ship design were very rapid in the years from 1900-1920. We think about the role of [i]Dreadnought[/i] and [i]Invincible[/i], but the super-dreadnought made the former less useful; the [i]Orion[/i] class could fire twice the broadside weight of [i]Dreadnought[/i]. The rise of the fast battleship, the [u]Queen Elizabeth[/u] class, completed obsoleted the first-generation dreadnoughts and obviated much of the utility of the battle cruisers. Even [i]Hood[/i] was no longer ideal by the end of the war, and she was only ordered in 1916. So, most of the ships the Royal Navy scrapped just couldn't keep pace with the times. The British only retained the [i]Revenge[/i] class as a cheap holdout against the possibility of oil shortages; they were too slow. The [i]Iron Dukes[/i], with 13.5" (34.3 cm) guns and a top speed of 21.5 kt (39.4 km/h) were too outdated, really. They kept them in the 1920s because they needed numbers, but they would have had zero utility in the 1930s. [/QUOTE]

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