Shell quality, acceptance, and live firing

How responsible was Churchill for the Royal Navy's failure to obtain better shells before the war?

The shells were accepted throughout the system, so Churchill alone is not the right target, but more funded live firing might have revealed the problem.

Asked whether Churchill was responsible for the Royal Navy entering war without improved shells, the answer resists assigning the failure to one minister. The ammunition had passed acceptance at multiple levels, making it an institutional quality-control problem rather than a single personal decision. More live firing could have exposed the weakness earlier. That observation links ammunition design to training budgets, because realistic practice tests both crews and the weapons supplied to them. Procurement assurance can fail when paperwork is not challenged by operational evidence.