Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "The Drydock - Episode 052" video.

The fact that the Lexingtons would've been able to keep pace with the new generation of fast battleships (and then some) might have made them more likely to get refits than the Standards. Nothing short of cutting the ship in half and inserting a large amidships section (like on the Italian rebuilds of their WW1 BBs) would've gotten the Standard types up to North Carolina's 27 knots, let alone Iowa's 32 knots. That said, my answer to "how would you refit a Lexington-class battlecruiser" would be the cheeky "the same way the US Navy refitted them in reality."
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With regard to your Greek cruiser idea, there's a clause of the Washington Naval Treaty you're overlooking: "No vessel of war constructed within the jurisdiction of any of the Contracting Powers for a non-Contracting Power shall exceed the limitations as to displacement and armament prescribed by the present Treaty for vessels of a similar type which may be constructed by or for any of the Contracting Powers". So British shipyards would not be allowed to build a cruiser hull that exceeds the Treaty limits, not even for export purposes. There are two possible ways I can see to get around this. The first would be (since Greece certainly had no shipyards capable of building the hull themselves) to contract the hull out to a non-Treaty nation. The only other options I can think of that were physically capable of building a cruiser hull would be Spain, the Netherlands, and the Soviet Union. And Germany, but I don't think Versailles would allow it and you have good reason for not wanting a Germany in a position to screw up your design. The other option would be to stick with having the hull built in Britain (you obviously want that high-quality British armor), but make the ship technically a small Treaty-compliant battlecruiser. France had a 1926 study that contemplated using their allocated capital ship tonnage in this manner, known as the "Navire de Ligne de 17500-tonnes", which would've had a top speed of 35 knots and been armed with 2x4 305mm/55 guns. This design evolved in to the significantly larger (but still small by Treaty standards) Dunkerque-class. So change your cruiser's armament from 4x3 8-inch to 4x2 12-inch (already a caliber in Greek service, on the fairly useless pre-dreadnoughts Kilkis and Lemnos; perhaps even those ships' turrets could be scavenged to arm the new ship, and scrapping them would free up some money), and increase its displacement a bit. It's well over 10,000 tons and carries 12-inch guns, so it's obviously a capital ship and not a cruiser. Thus Britain isn't violating the treaties by building the hull.
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