Retrograde influences on British warship design from 1903 to 1927

The period specified is non-intuitive, but the retrograde influences on British warship design were present at least as early as 1903. The first casualty was the semi-Dreadnought design (4-12in/45 and 12-9.2in/50) that was proposed. Building was delayed until 1904 and then the size was reduced to produce the extremely cramped and reduced Lord Nelson and Agamemnon. There were many culprits. Budgetary pressures were a constant issue, early in this period. There was also the issue of Liberal governments not liking building armaments. The greatest individual negative influence was John Jellicoe. He seems to have had a misplaced sense of proportion. For him, being able to conveniently handle boats was more important than providing a smoke-free foretop (for example, the Orion class). Successive, conservative chief engineers also contributed. The British navy could have adopted small tube boilers much earlier, but instead, their designs were saddled with machinery that weighed too much and took too much volume than their German counterparts. After 1914, resources were an issue. I suspect that the top priority was providing armaments to the army in France. The navy's priority received a boost only from the need to deal with German submarine warfare. That allowed the navy build more destroyers and smaller ships. They were also forced to deal with German mine warfare, and to build suitable minesweepers (better than the the torpedo gunboats in use in 1914). Some light cruisers could be built, but larger ship construction languished. The only thing that kept the construction of the Hood going was the fear of what the Germans might be doing. As it was, she was only finished postwar and her sisters cancelled. The planned "1921" battleships and battlecruisers were kept smaller and less capable due to a combination of budgetary and docking issues. They were stillborne, due to the Washington naval treaty, but desire to build the best ships in the available displacement had lead to the extreme armament layouts. Like Captains Hiraga and Fujimori, in Japan, Stanley Goodall seemed to relish squeezing everything that he could from the available displacement, even if the result was extremely odd. Of course, his chiefs, Sir Eustace Tennyson-d'Eyncourt (DNC) and Edward L. Attwood were complicit in the atrocity. That influence lead to the unfortunate Nelson and Rodney, completed ini 1927.