How did you manage 32kts when the actual engineers couldn't?
It can, if it had the same type of steam turbines a heavy cruiser would have, which is certainly doable (it would make the ship a German version of an Indepenence/Saipan). My only question is why doesn't Ashley clarify that.
It's likely to get caught in the 'reality vs. AU'-trap, I know. We don't leave the space of real physics in AU, we just create new or bend some existing timelines.
But it
isn't physically possible because diesels generate gobs of
torque, not
horsepower. This is an extremely broad generalization but one is good for hauling stuff (which is why 100,000t tankers with a cruise speed of 15 knots have a single diesel engine) while the other is good for going fast (which is why carriers and cruisers have lots of steam turbines and lots of screws).
And the fix is incredibly simple - you don't even need to change a damn thing on the drawing, just say they swapped out the original specs for cruiser turbines.