Keeping HMS Nelson operating in 1805 would require precision work that local watchmakers could help provide. Its artificers, engineers and other technical personnel would also carry knowledge unavailable in the receiving economy. The estimate for a wartime flagship crew reaches about 1,360 people, including servicemen with useful civilian occupations. A destroyer would be simpler to sustain, but would carry fewer people with different skills. Refrigeration, canned food, radar and the ship's small internal railway would show what could be built. Seeing working examples would give engineers ashore targets to pursue, even where they lacked the tools for immediate reproduction.
Notable Point · 2:20:14-2:53:30
A displaced battleship brings an engineering workforce
The HMS Nelson counterfactual treats a large trained crew and working examples of technology as resources for industrial development.