Naval Tactics in The Age of Steam - The Interwar Years

The Interwar Years

Fearing another naval arms race, the big naval powers agreed to the Washington Naval Treaty and scrapped some of their battleships and cruisers while still on the slipways. In addition to this, the Washington Naval Treaty established limits on the total tonnage of the fleets of America, Japan and Britain. It was decided in negotiations that a ration of power would be established of 5:5:3, corresponding to America, Britain and Japan in that order. This meant that the Japanese fleet would only be allowed a fraction of the power that was given to the American and British fleets, a fact which lead directly to the Japanese construction of super battleships. It should be noted that, while this treaty was extremely explicit in its governance of battleship and cruiser tonnage, it was lax in the area of carriers, a fact which all of the participants failed to take advantage of. The growing tensions of the 1930s and the rise of aggressive nationalist governments in Japan, Italy and Germany restarted the building programs, with even larger ships than before; Yamato, the largest battleship ever, displaced 72,000 tons, and mounted 18.1-inch guns.