The armored cruisers that could have changed Coronel

Why was Cradock not reinforced with a Minotaur- or Warrior-class armored cruiser?

Many were committed in the Mediterranean, but the failure to provide a suitable ship reflected weak strategic allocation at the Admiralty.

A Minotaur- or Warrior-class armored cruiser would have handled the sea state better and brought more usable guns than Cradock's older ships. Its higher freeboard would reduce the problem of six-inch batteries being unable to bear in heavy weather. Many candidates were committed to Mediterranean problems, so moving one ship would impose costs elsewhere. That explanation still exposes the absence of a coherent global naval strategy under Churchill: the fleet was distributed without giving the South Atlantic command a force suited to its mission.