Learning a Tribal-class destroyer's interior from plans and accounts

How well can a historian know the inside of a Tribal-class destroyer without having been aboard one?

Plans, photographs, and first-hand descriptions can provide strong theoretical knowledge, although an on-board visit would add physical experience.

Documentary knowledge and physical experience provide different kinds of understanding. Extensive work with plans, photographs, and descriptions by people who know Tribal-class destroyers lets a historian reconstruct their spaces and arrangements in considerable detail. Visits to HMCS Haida and HMAS Vampire had nevertheless been intended to test and enrich that theoretical picture.