Q&A ยท 2:03:04-2:04:52

Why Beresford opposed Fisher's capital ships

A secondhand explanation connects Beresford's hostility to Fisher's battlecruisers with a preference for separate specialist guns.

Question

Why did Beresford think the Admiral-class battlecruisers were unnecessary after the battlecruiser losses at Jutland?

Short answer

The explanation offered secondhand is that he dismissed the ships as 'Fisher's follies' and favored something closer to a pre-dreadnought, with separate specialist guns for different tasks.

Notes

This explanation comes from a private conversation with a researcher preparing an unpublished book, so the underlying papers are not examined here. Beresford reportedly called the battlecruisers 'Fisher's follies' and argued for an armament arrangement closer to a pre-dreadnought. Separate guns would serve distinct roles. Bismarck and Tirpitz provide a later, conjectural comparison for the sort of specialized batteries that might have appealed to him. The comparison cannot establish his opinion of ships built after his death.