My Father was in the Navy during WWII and I remember him telling me when I was young he saw the H.M.S. Duke of York at Okinawa and how small she was compared to the Iowa Class BB's of the U.S. It wasn't until much later I read and then told him about the Brits building their BB's according to the agreed specs of the Washington and London Treaties which required them to be of smaller size and weight. The Brits were playing by the rules, the Germans and Japanese not, and that's why their ships were smaller than the U.S. ships and probably everybody else's too. I believe the same thing was true with the Brit cruisers as well.