Torpedo testing as a practical advantage

Past torpedo failures and defective First World War shells made weapons testing an institutional priority for the Royal Navy. During interwar budget cuts, the Navy found ways to keep testing weapons while other services reduced that expenditure. Some British systems could be criticized for limited innovation, but their faults had received sustained attention before the war. That gave submarine crews greater confidence that a correctly prepared torpedo would run and function as intended. Testing reduced the risk of failure without making any weapon completely reliable.