Dunkerque's speed and machinery compromise

Were Dunkerque's French boilers and propulsion plant effective for their rated power?

The ships reached about 31 knots on trials. A second-hand archival account criticises their turbine selection rather than treating boiler power alone as the explanation.

Dunkerque's speed depended on hull shape and propellers as well as boilers and turbines. Alex Clarke's account of its Parsons machinery comes from his father's notebook of Admiralty archival research; he had not personally checked the underlying document. In that account, the French accepted machinery derived from available cruiser sets when a more suitable battleship arrangement could have been supplied. Dunkerque and Strasbourg still achieved about 31 and 30.9 knots on trials, respectively. Trial speed and the efficiency of the selected machinery are therefore separate parts of the assessment.