The Dale class, the wartime-designed Wave class, and World War I Fast Leaf tankers offered different mixes of capacity and speed. The Dale class offered large capacity at about eleven and a half knots, while the smaller Wave design reached roughly fifteen knots after development began in 1942. Older Fast Leafs could already make about sixteen knots and had a plausible role in the final supply leg to a fleet operating near Japan. The comparison complicates the claim that the Royal Navy began the period with no fast tanker capacity at all while still showing why newer designs were valuable.
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Dale, Wave, and Fast Leaf tanker capabilities
The comparison of tanker classes shows that the Royal Navy had useful fast support vessels before the later Wave class.