HMS Rawalpindi was lost in an unequal fight with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The counterfactual proposes cutting into her lower decks to accommodate four quintuple torpedo launchers. Her close approach might then have allowed ten torpedoes to be fired at each German ship. Rawalpindi would probably still have been sunk, but the proposed spreads offered a chance of sinking one opponent or damaging both. Combing ten torpedoes at those ranges would have been difficult, although still possible.
Notable Point · 1:13:39-1:14:46
Rawalpindi's torpedo counterfactual
HMS Rawalpindi's last fight supports a narrow counterfactual: torpedo batteries might have punished Scharnhorst and Gneisenau despite the converted liner's likely loss.