The campaign's updated destroyer system could not be balanced reliably, so anti-mine warfare moved onto cruisers. The fictional Fried Kipper, Washington, and Smoked Haddock classes form three successive generations of this substitute. Their progression shows adaptation through repeated designs while the intended platform remains unusable. A technical problem with destroyers therefore becomes a wider force-structure decision about which hull should perform mine countermeasures.
Notable Point · 28:19-28:36
When anti-mine cruisers replace unworkable destroyers
The campaign's successive anti-mine-warfare cruiser classes show how a fleet can transfer a specialist role when its destroyers cannot be balanced reliably.