Selecting how many diesel engines drive each shaft

The example starts with six diesel engines for a destroyer and a quoted design speed of 36 knots. Its endurance is described as roughly 5,500 nautical miles, with the cruising speed corrected verbally from 20 to 19 knots. The argument then considers twelve engines on a capital ship, four for each shaft, with larger machinery appropriate to the hull. Gearing would allow engines to be disconnected so a shaft could run on one, two, three or four engines. These figures describe proposed machinery arrangements and scaling, rather than a tested Scharnhorst conversion.