An ocean liner's machinery is designed for sustained high passage speed, including an Atlantic crossing. Warships also need high speed, but their machinery choices reflect time on station, cruising and wider operational requirements. A modern merchant cruiser with good radar could therefore prove difficult for warships to intercept while breaking into the North Atlantic or elsewhere. Continued construction offers Germany and other powers a route to more capable auxiliary cruisers. Those hulls still occupy slipways that cannot simultaneously build major warships.
Notable Point · 1:16:29-1:18:32
Radar-equipped merchant ships become potent raiders
Fast ocean liners built for sustained passage speed could become unusually elusive auxiliary cruisers once fitted with radar and conversion points.