Nelson-class design and the Royal Navy's distributed fleet doctrine

Were the Nelson-class battleships poor designs, and how did they fit Royal Navy fleet doctrine?

They were solid but imperfect ships; more importantly, their service belonged to a doctrine of distributed, mutually supporting squadrons rather than Churchill's image of one decisive battle line.

Nelson and Rodney were solid ships, although the F3 arrangement could have raised the after turret so all nine guns fired forward, and more speed would have helped. The historical design instead emphasized a heavily armoured central fighting unit. Churchill imagined the ships as nearly unsinkable citadels stationed at the ends of a traditional battle line. By the time they entered service, Royal Navy planning against Japan increasingly expected several battle and battlecruiser groups to operate in different places. Each British group might be locally inferior to the concentrated Japanese battle line, but two could combine while a third acted elsewhere. The doctrine sought to create simultaneous operational dilemmas rather than wait for the entire fleet to form one line of battle.