The discussion of British command frigates leads to a modern German Navy aside about officers commanding vessels still classified as motor torpedo craft. Their authority is compared with that of a company-level army officer rather than a battalion commander. The criticism is that a commander at sea needs enough authority to act as the ship's master without looking over a shoulder for every decision. The comparison then becomes a tentative wartime hypothesis: a similar command culture may have hindered German employment of E-boats and other coastal craft during the Second World War. This remains an interpretive hypothesis, not a demonstrated cause.
Notable Point · 4:14-5:24
A command-authority aside on German coastal craft
A modern German Navy aside becomes a tentative hypothesis about whether command culture also hindered wartime coastal-craft operations.