Promising hull theories could fail when practical limits were overlooked or too many new ideas were combined in one ship. A shape that worked well for a destroyer could make a poor battleship hull when enlarged. Production experience helped designers recognize those limits, while tank testing provided another way to expose them. Germany did have testing facilities. Their scale, together with the wider maritime infrastructure, was more limited than Britain's or America's even before the First World War and Versailles.
Chapter · 27:08-29:12
Hull testing and the limits of scaling designs
Hull forms could not simply be enlarged without practical checks, and Germany's limited testing and production experience made those checks harder.