In this assessment, the scout cruiser was an ideal intermediate platform for developing turbine knowledge, engineering practice, and higher speed. It was large enough to absorb the difficulties of early turbines but operationally dependent on the speed advantage they offered. A turbine-powered design could have supported the destroyers it was meant to lead while giving several yards practical experience with the new machinery. The Royal Navy reduced technical risk in the new scout role so thoroughly that it failed to exploit the platform's best experimental opportunity. The argument places responsibility for that missed step on the service rather than on an unavoidable technical barrier.
Chapter · 45:44-47:05
Scout cruisers as a missed turbine testbed
The closing argument is that scout cruisers were large enough to absorb early turbine risks and needed the speed benefits badly enough to justify the experiment.