Mass production raises a second question: how would Italy crew the additional destroyers? The closing invitation asks which of the classes discussed would have been worth building in large numbers, without selecting one. Italy had a thriving naval reserve organization, and a destroyer force heavily manned by reservists is proposed as a possibility worth considering. In practice, reserve manpower tended to be concentrated in torpedo boats. The proposal leaves both the choice of class and the feasibility of reserve crewing open.
Notable Point · 40:03-40:29
Could reserve crews have closed Italy's destroyer gap?
The conclusion invites a choice of destroyer class for mass production and asks whether Italy's reservists could have crewed it.