The Admiralty could absorb early risk by testing engines in motor torpedo boats, where failures would be less costly than in a capital ship. This follows the Royal Navy's historical postwar route into marine gas turbines, shifted forward by sustained peacetime funding and access to ships for trials. Successful tests by 1934-35 would place the technology in reach of the Tribal-class destroyers and the larger ships ordered soon afterward. Adoption would still proceed by generations rather than jumping directly to mature postwar machinery.
Chapter · 18:10-29:10
From experimental motor boats to naval gas turbines
Small craft provide the proposed test bed for turning Whittle's work into practical marine gas-turbine propulsion before major warships adopt it.