Capital ships demand proven machinery because a major breakdown becomes a strategic and political embarrassment. Turbinia had demonstrated a working steam turbine in 1897, eight years before Dreadnought, so the difficulty was proving it at capital-ship scale. German buyers were also willing to purchase Parsons turbines while their own machinery was still being developed because reliability mattered more than the supplier's nationality. Without computer simulation, builders had to construct engines and run them ashore to accumulate operating experience. A private company could limit its exposure by testing one expensive engine over a long period. Admiralty funding could support several engines running simultaneously and produce the required evidence much sooner.
Chapter · 30:35-39:14
Buying time through parallel machinery trials
Funding several engines at once can accumulate operating hours faster than a builder testing a single expensive prototype.