Fisher's obsolete ships still carried global missions

Which classes was Fisher right to scrap, and what was wrong with the policy?

The oldest gunboats, sloops, and third-class cruisers could go, but their patrol and presence missions still needed replacement hulls.

Many colonial gunboats, sloops, and third-class cruisers were old enough to retire. Fisher's mistake was removing hulls without replacing the missions they performed across secondary and tertiary stations. A scout cruiser, destroyer, large gunboat, or new sloop could have taken the place of an obsolete ship without reproducing its exact design. Armed merchant cruisers helped fill the resulting presence gap, but they did not restore the Royal Navy's full continuum from deterrence to local war and global conflict.