Declared endurance and actual wartime fuel capacity were not necessarily identical. The Royal Navy used liquid-filled spaces as part of ship protection, and a tank's nominal purpose did not always settle its wartime use. Reports suggest that some water tanks were cleaned and converted to carry fuel. This looks more like deliberate ambiguity than a simple false declaration, and it complicates range comparisons based on treaty-era figures.
Notable Point · 1:37:28-1:38:37
How treaty accounting could conceal extra fuel capacity
Treaty-era declarations and the wartime repurposing of internal tanks could obscure how much fuel endurance a British warship actually possessed.