What naval shock trials are meant to reveal

When did navies start conducting shock trials?

Model work began early in the twentieth century, full-ship trials emerged in the interwar period, and the modern form matured in the 1960s.

Related Royal Navy work on models dates to the 1900s or 1910s. Those experiments differ from full-scale trials on complete ships. The latter became recognizable in the interwar period, with the US Navy taking a strong interest in the method. Shock trials in the form familiar today are more clearly a development of the 1960s.