Patreon 61: Selborne-Fisher Scheme: Integration & De-Integration of Executive & Engineering Branches

He enjoys them and thinks their character focus suits film adaptation, but finds Glynn's books more useful for teaching, testing, and training.

The opening source critique connects interwar carrier choices to the technical education of officers trained under the Selborne-Fisher system.

Because betting everything on carriers before aircraft matured risked catastrophic failure if air-power predictions were wrong.

They generally did fairly well in those conditions.

No. It lies around Implacable and Indefatigable, perhaps with some Indomitable influence; Audacious was a later generation.

They are kit-bashed or 3D-modelled reconstructions based on the designs.

Selborne distinguishes three groups of engineering officers and explains what the 1902 scheme did - and did not - promise about interchangeability.

The reform answered a widening institutional divide as machinery became essential but engineer officers retained inferior status.

Common education was meant to give future captains enough knowledge to judge specialist advice, not to make every officer an engineer.

He was a warrant officer and navigation specialist, and midshipmen took instruction from him despite the difference in status.

No. He was First Lord of the Admiralty; Walter Kerr was First Sea Lord and John Fisher was Second Sea Lord when the scheme was formed.

Selborne's background and the breadth of support for common entry challenge the idea that the reform was merely a Fisher-driven revolution.

Yes. Master Gunner was an actual title for the senior gunnery officer.

A brief aside uses HMS Hood to show how catastrophic loss could wipe out a ship's entire technical complement.

Fisher's technical background and regular dinners with junior officers reveal a reformer who treated conversation, feedback, and new ideas as part of naval training.

Kerr's reputation for accuracy and his cautious investment in submarines show that common entry had the backing of a conservative institutional authority, not only Fisher.

Kerr's rise as a Roman Catholic adds a religious and social dimension to the authority he brought to naval reform.

The late-Victorian Renown, not the later battlecruiser.

The reform reshaped shore establishments to increase throughput while combining general education, specialist study, and war-course preparation.

It hurriedly expanded training and reopened Keyham in 1913 as war approached; the response is characterized as panic.

The claim that Nelson would fail contemporary entry rules illustrates why common entry also had to widen and modernize the officer pipeline.

A step-by-step outline follows cadets from common entry through college, sea service, examinations, and eventual branch specialization.

They might deploy ashore in strength and needed supporting firepower; capital-ship detachments could therefore carry surprisingly heavy equipment.

The Admiralty required entrants to accept any branch, but some families resisted engineering appointments that seemed to close the route to command.

The ship had suitable space and heavy lifting gear, while landing craft or an improvised barge could provide the ship-to-shore link.

The officers educated by the scheme became the captains, admirals, and materiel leaders who shaped the Royal Navy of the 1920s through the Second World War.

Evidence from the Douglas Committee shows opposition rooted in misinformation, reform fatigue, and fear that engineers or Marines would compete for command.

Simon Harley and the Dreadnought Project provide specialist research on the people, careers, training, and service backgrounds behind Royal Navy institutions.

Yes, but if captain vacancies stayed fixed, the wider and potentially stronger pool would also reduce existing executive officers' promotion chances.

Yes. Jellicoe strongly supported the scheme, while Beatty was not a supporter.

No example could be named from memory; the question needs Simon Harley's career research, and the 1922 changes complicate the path.

Early graduates reached captain and engineer-captain rank, but almost no common-entry officers chose the Royal Marines, prompting separate entry to return.

Later institutions preserved the scheme's scientific approach by teaching staff work, tactics, and critical thought across the officer corps.

Moving specialization earlier did not dismantle Osborne or the shared educational habits created by common entry.

The conclusion argues that changing who teaches and promotes future officers can shape naval culture longer than any individual shipbuilding decision.

Yes, fairly good; Fisher certainly knew how to deal with this institutional problem.

Whatever they could obtain; the examples are a tentatively identified baby howitzer and an apparently unofficial shipboard 25-pounder.

Yes. Many people liked him because he was personable, charismatic, and a flash man.

It was poorly matched to D-Day's port-building needs but could have been highly useful in Crete or the Far East.

Only through a comprehensive structural and machinery rebuild, effectively retaining the hull while replacing nearly everything else.

A public image meant to display Royal Navy strength visually centers Ark Royal, complicating claims that interwar service culture could imagine power only through battleships.

A late-1930s exercise paired Ark Royal and Glorious with two battlecruisers in a formation resembling the later Force H.