Propulsion choices would affect operating patterns across the whole war, so individual battles cannot simply be replayed with different engine rooms. Earlier fast diesel cruisers would make the historical 28-knot Deutschland formula less attractive and encourage new choices of shafts, engines, speed, and force composition. Operational experience with those ships would then influence each later design and break the historical construction sequence. Those accumulated changes would produce a different German surface fleet.
Chapter · 45:25-50:36
A diesel fleet would alter German naval design culture
Once fast, long-ranged diesel cruisers exist, later Deutschland-class and surface-fleet designs would be adapted around different operational experience.