In the spring of 1909, Montecuccoli sent an officer from the Naval Section of the War Ministry to Berlin in order to obtain input from Alfred von Tirpitz on the design of the "Tegetthoff" class. The Imperial German Navy had conducted gunnery and torpedo tests and concluded that, "The angle between armored deck and belt armor should be as flat as possible", and that "The armored torpedo bulkhead should be angled inwards, the second longitudinal bulkhead outwards. The distance of the torpedo bulkhead from the outer plating should be raised from 2.5 to 4 meters." While Popper adopted several of Tirpitz's suggestions regarding the external layout of the belt armor for the "Tegetthoff" class, the internal modifications put forward by the Imperial German Navy were not implemented.