Fisher not a speedfreak

[PMN1]

Possibly ASB....but what if instead of being obsessed with speed, Fisher pushed balanced designs, what does the engineering, armour and guns allow?

 

[alfredtuomi]

a 28 knot queen elizabeth class followed by a 30 knot r class
and no battle cruisers

 

[Schlock]

It was a tossup whether the Invincible class was going to be armed with 9.2in guns instead of 12in weapons historically. With Fisher pursuing balance rather than the extremes, it's almost certain they'd keep going with the lighter weapon.

That means that the Germans will persist with the Blucher's basic design instead of going to the 11in on the Von Der Tann. So basically, a turbine powered Blucher.

The big question is whether there is less pressure to develop the problematic 12inL50 weapon or not.

 

[Jellico]

The 12" wasn't Fisher's choice though the committee was stacked with his acolytes. The reason for the 12" was it was seen as inevitable on big cruiser hulls.

Historically Fisher liked smaller faster firing guns. I am not sure that I have seen anything saying what he felt after the introduction of director fire. (His preference for Renown 1895 after captaining Inflexible 1876 is interesting. )

 

[Maniakes]

Historically Fisher liked smaller faster firing guns.

He changed his mind in favor of big guns in 1902, for three big reasons:

1. The rate of fire for 12" guns had improved significantly, rising from 0.3 rounds/minute in 1890 to 1.5 rounds/minute around 1900. This is still a lot less than 6" QF guns (5-15 rounds/minute), but the gap was narrowing.
2. Gunnery techniques and training were improving to the point that it was becoming feasible to use the range advantage of bigger guns to full effect.
3. Torpedos were shaking out to be a more effective close-in weapons system against capital ships than QF guns.

This decision was reinforced by combat reports from the Russo-Japanese war, which provided real-world combat data confirming the value of the bigger guns.