Senior officers should be judged without the benefit of modern hindsight, although that does not excuse every conservative choice. Many began their careers in sail-equipped ships and ended them amid the dreadnought revolution, so their technical frame of reference changed within one career. Boards had to judge new boilers, oil fuel, triple turrets, submarines, naval aviation, and radio while facing pressure from the Treasury and the press. Exceptional figures such as Fisher and Jellicoe can make their contemporaries look uniformly incapable in retrospect. A navy therefore needs training and technical development broad enough to support sound decisions without depending on a few unusually capable officers.
Chapter · 36:44-40:40
Admiralty conservatism amid rapid technological change
The video weighs institutional conservatism against the practical difficulty of making naval decisions while propulsion, gunnery, aviation, radio, and fleet design all changed at once.