The discussion distinguishes a bad ship from an inefficient one. Deutschland repeated a pre-dreadnought-like arrangement with a large turret at each end and secondary guns along the sides, missing opportunities for a more compact magazine and machinery layout. Scharnhorst is treated as the best of the German heavy designs, yet a cleaner approach might still have saved several thousand tons. German construction was conservative and reactive even while British designers competed technologically with American and Italian work.
Notable Point · 1:39:58-1:42:32
How German heavy ships spent displacement inefficiently
Deutschland and later German heavy ships are used to show how conservative layout and fragmented engineering can consume thousands of tons without equivalent combat value.