Italian cruisers and larger ships are likened to individually crafted sports cars. Ships officially grouped into one class could share guns and broadly similar engines while differing substantially in arrangement and layout. Continual refinements gave each ship a strong individual character. The criticism is that this approach missed opportunities to repeat work and accelerate manufacture. Limited infrastructure constrained output, but repeated design changes also made large-scale production harder.
Notable Point · 1:55:34-1:56:51
Italian ship individuality and missed production efficiencies
Individual refinements could produce attractive Italian ships while sacrificing some of the manufacturing benefits of a common design.