Admiral Jackie Fisher - High Tech, High Strung, High Tempered (The Ships)
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Today, with the help of returning guest Matthew Wright, we take a look at the technical achievements and developments Admiral Fisher oversaw or was part of.
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
What would have Admiral Fisher prefered Yamato or Richelieu? One was so much bigger, but another was so much faster and had all guns forward. I can imagine Fisher standing on the bridge of Richelieu (which is steaming at the full speed towards the enemy) and yelling: bring me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!
@Drachinifel
Search for: A Veritable Volcano: The Life and Legacy of Admiral Lord Jacky Fisher by Churchill College, University of Cambridge's RUclips channel
Will you be doing a video on Hyman Rickover?
Will you be doing a video on the Moskva or is it too current?
@@jjb2004mk2 Too current
We don't give enough credit to Drach for being a good interviewer.
He lets his guests talk and makes his own contributions to clarify, add detail , or ask good follow-up points & questions.
PS he also has some great guests IMHO!
@@toby2581 Drach doesn't have any other motive other than research of naval history, I suspect.
True he allows use to listen to a real expert and intervenes occasionally with OUR questions and adding clarity. I like the lack of ego he clearly does not need to show how clever he actually is as that gets in the way of the passing on the information.
Yes. He asks the right questions and then lets the guests expand. And since he picks great guests it always works.
@@toby2581 Drach is many things being a Scientist,historian and engineer(as well as a man who can swing a longsword,halflang or zweihander)so is like most people with that level of education and a level of interest in the subject someone who always allows their interviewee the space and time they need
Favourite Jackie Fisher story: on his wartime return to the Admiralty he threatens to commit hara-kiri if he doesn't get 20 extra submarines within eight months. A colleague laughs, at which point Fisher glares and says that he expects anyone who thwarts him to commit hara-kiri too.
We are living in times of super fast, virtually unarmored ships built around their ability to carry the biggest long-ranged amounts of BOOM ever and RN still has no ship named after the man. This is wrong.
Well the USN still doesn't have a fleet carrier named Taffy 3 so there's that.
I mean, at least from the public record modern DDGs or FFGs don't seem all that fast to me?
@@gokbay3057 Per average 30 knots, so slightly slower than interwar destroyer or cruiser, but also far better armed. If you showed something like Arleigh Burke or Daring to any interwar commander they'd call it a cruiser (nowadays it's called destroyer, but it's well over 8 k displacement). It'd certainly satisfy Fisher's need for the amount of explosives launched at anyone from an unarmored ship. Modern ships could be built faster, but you can't outrun missiles anyway so it's not needed.
At the very least one of the Astute or Dreadnoughs should be called after Fisher. Sure they are subs, but they also go big boom and Fisher never had anything against subs. It's the fleet submarine concept he didn't like.
Come on!? We're talking BRITISH.... JACKIE COOPER is TOO COMMONER for a name of RN... JIM SMITH has a better chance?
I agree,a man like Fisher has deserved a battleship named after him,lesser man got it
The arc from Nelson to the late Queen via Fisher is really amazing.
Fisher was correct about speed. It can get you out of trouble and it can get you to the scene of trouble in less time.
Admiral Mahan and Admiral Fisher must have been studied by Admirals Lee and Yamamoto! I wonder who was more influential? I believe Admiral Lee took more stock in Admiral FISHER!
A very good presentation! Thank you so much!
I would love to see a video of Drach pretending to be Jackie touring the Iowa.
"If you cut the armor in half, you could fit 20" guns...excellent..."
same, it would be a great April fool video
Ahh yes Admiral Fisher the man responsible for strapping battleship guns on light cruisers, with the courageous class being prime examples!
TONIGHT ON: BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN GEAR
I BUILD A ROIHT PROPEH “LIGHT” CRUISER
HAMMOND COMMITS TURRET ARSON
AND JAMES TRIES TO VISIT TURKEY
Fisher knew exactly what he was doing and the path of naval evolution pretty much followed exactly what his thinking was for the rest of the 20th century. The big guns aren’t just about hitting power. They’re about longer range. The best armor you can have is outranging your enemy enough to destroy them before they can hit you, and a high enough speed to keep the range open so you can do that. That’s what Fisher was going for. It’s just that what happened is that the aircraft ended up being even longer range than the biggest guns. And eventually, missiles did as well. But even today, warships rely on high speed and long range to defeat the enemy before the enemy can shoot back.
I like your point about smaller rate of bearing change at larger radius.
Watching this in Merchant Marine SEASCHOOL Alabama and covering Steam Powerplants. Love Naval and Merchant Marine History. QMED to Third in 4 years coming soon!
Simply said, he was a great man…
With all his faults, yes!
Excellent guest!
Mathew Wright mentions British traditional policy changing from allowing competitors to make the first move in new design. Then essentially after analyzing pros and cons using superior industrial capacity to build large numbers. I would make the leap to say the change in British naval policy to one of taking risks on new and radical designs was a response and the correct one. The response was to the results of explosive changes in the worlds geopolitical landscape of the 1860s-1870s. You got to tip your hat to Jackie Fisher for his innovative thinking and energetic approach to policy making for the British Navy. He laid the foundation for the British Navy’s victory in not only ww1 but ww2, with the retrofitted and upgrading of the fleet in the treaty era which in large part served as the bedrock for the navy in the latter war. Hats off to Jackie Fisher.
Fascinating video. Thank you.
Loved the video. Great story telling.
I love how Matthew refers to forums as “bulletin boards”. BBSs were the original forums which means he is my age LOL
Bravo! I had no idea and must learn more about the man. Loved the perspective and the line "compressed history". Thank you.
Admiral Jackie "gotta go fast" Fisher
Admiral Jackie "no armor is best armor" Fisher
Admiral Jackie "MORE DAKKA BIGGA SHOOTA" Fisher
Admiral Jackie 'SHIPS FOR THE SHIP GOD' Fisher
@@KingMooseThe3rd Admiral Jackie "Speed and power solves everything" Fisher
@@Big_E_Soul_Fragment
Admiral Jackie 'Jeremy Clarkson's Muse' Fisher
@@Big_E_Soul_Fragment he was wrong , speed was not protection. This was demonstrated many times,
the last of which was Hood .
"wut if, an follow me 'ere.... We dun went and painted em all red? Red onez go FASTAH!" -Admiral Fisher
I love that the outro of an hour long video is “Five minute guide (more or less) 😂
Excellent video 👌🏻
Admiral Jacky Fisher's innovations even include coining the popular abbreviation O.M.G. in a letter to Winston Churchill 🙂
Ha ha, I did not know that. If Jackie was still with us, he would be posting gossip on Tumblr and Instagram 😂😂😂😂
OMG!
No way???!LMAO
I blame Lisa Simpson for making it popular, but I would have never guessed Fisher coined the phrase.
~ 14:00 - Ah! So that's the reason for the gun mix on early pre-Dreadnought battleships & armored cruisers!
It seems to me that one of the legacies of Fisher was that many of the ships he designed, had a hand in promoting or at least strongly influeneced were still there able to provide decent performance in a world war 20 years after he died.
And his ultimate thoughts. He believed that a navy will ultimately only need battlecruisers, destroyers, and submarines.
WWII proved he's absolutely correct(if you believed that carrier is essentially battlecruisers with aircrafts replaced the guns).
@@rohanthandi4903 Aircraft carriers are faster and can hit at 200km instead of 20. I do get his logic chain.
@@rohanthandi4903 why?
Admiral Fisher was one of the most extraordinary, colourful, infuriating but dynamic warriors of all time. Ruddock F. Mackay's biography of him is an astonishing and quite exhausting read. Jacky must have been the original inspiration for the Duracell Bunny 😁
If you replace the little drums by big guns.
Wondering around the admiralty after having done all the paperwork with placard I have no work please give me something to do sure is a big one. The King also had to tell him no you can't do work on Sundays, please we need you too much and he tried to do it anyway. I would pay to read his social media if a time machine were able to bring him here.
@@hmsverdun Can you imagine Jackie Fisher with a Twitter account? The world would shake 😂😂😂😂
@@MartinMcAvoy Oh dear God
@@MartinMcAvoy The bit where Trump tries to teach him naval matters by tweet would be.......
oh my. get the popcorn doesnt do it justice.
Comparing with Nelson, do you think the same lull in naval progress that came after Nelson repeated after Fisher? Fascinating biog, thanks. One thing that I do think is worth drawing out is that he kept making as much tech as he could within the economic context. Almost anyone can be a good admiral on paper, to make it actually happen is what matters.
Imagening the technological advancement Fisher watched developing in his time blows my mind🤯
What a technological journey OMG😉
The first ship I heard as being associated with Fisher was not Dreadnought, but Swift. That discussion on his focus on speed really showed with her, and his desire for a *fleeet* of "Super-Swifts".
Hats off to you Drach for increasing the volume on your intro score!
Perfect amount!
@Drachinifel01 not sure what telegram is. I guess I'm a dumb American.
On the topic of time.
The last and final time I met my great grandma was in August of 2009, just 3-4 months before she passed away.
She was born in 1905, in the then Swedish-Norwegian Union. (She was born a few months before its official dissolution)
It's so weird to think about because in the Swedish public's mind today, the Union is about as distant a memory as Trafalgar is to Britain I imagine.
For context, the Union is rarely talked about here in Sweden, and is often in reference to Kings like Karl XIV Johan and Karl XIII.
Karl XIV Johan was the first king of house Bernadotte and a former Marshal of Napoleon, while Karl XIII's mom was sister to Frederick the Great of Prussia.
I wish I'd have gotten to talk to her more about her life. She saw the transformation of Sweden from the agrarian country of her day, to the developed state it is in today.
So does this mean we need to update the meme? ANGULAR VELOCITY IS ARMOUR!
Wondering around on Portsmouth Naval Dockyard on the ships Nelson (Victory) and Fisher served on (Warrior) gives a real perspective of the changes that the Royal Navy goes through in just a few years. Makes you wonder if Fisher is already thinking about the speed and gunnery on Warrior even then.
When seeing the QE's at port just over from victory gives a sense of the small comprerssion of time between ships its just a shame that Warspite or Dradnought arnt there so we get the whole Fisher to the modern day progression.
If I had 1 billion dollars, I'd rebuild Warspite, with maybe a concession to the powerplant. Otherwise, Warspite Reborn would be 1:1 with her predecessor
Been looking forward to this
great commentary thanks to all
I almost forgot to leave a like and comment
Admiral Fisher is my spirit admiral.
No mention of Percy Scott, a key driver of gunnery development?
Thank you, Drachinifel.
Drachinifel could you do a video on this X4 design? 36:00
The interviewee's anachronistic and trendy language has me grinding my teeth !
Excellent video, thoroughly enjoyed ir
Fisher comanding the battlecruisers at Jutland, now that is interesting
Better relationship with Jellicoe
Understood how "stuff" worked and I put it to folk that would have used that knowledge to advantage. After all, he realised that "hail of fire" had become a dead end, and he had superiore rnage over the Germans.
Got to be worth a proper "what if" video some time.
Nice.
Hello Drac.
Another fine video from one of the best online naval commentators I know of.
I have always enjoyed your videos, although the Dry Dock ones can be mind-numbing at times.
Now, having sufficiently 'buttered you up'... I have one comment that I hope you don't take offensively. Really.
Did you know you resemble a certain Bond Villain?? *snickers*
I’m sure Drach’s resemblance to Drax (Michael Lonsdale) is entirely coincidental.
I can neither confirm nor deny any plans for space based weaponry 😀
@@Drachinifel : Orders Camoflague netting, commercial digging equipment, concrete, rebar, etc, etc, etc. "What? No, me? I am not digging anything!"
@@nmccw3245 I called him that 4 years ago. I thought he might be offended but he was very kind with his answer to my question re: Fischers Baltic plan vs Dardanelles.
Drach I somtimes work in the old Fisher address in Westminster which has a an amxing walk in safe,
Kia Ora! from across the ditch.
Indeed very interesting.
Admiral Jackie Fisher, ultimate visionary.
Fisher was greater than life and cannot be judged with our normal standards. Still, I think it makes a great disservice to the man, his work and history itself if we constantly try to whitewash his ideas and intentions when they were wrong. He was of enormous importance to the modernisation of the RN at so many levels that it's impossible to overstate it. But one of his greater mistakes is that he constantly underestimated the importance of armour. It's known that he would rather build more dreadnought armour cruisers instead of battleships, and that only total opposition by everybody else stopped that happening (as he said: I was in a minority of one). As Brassey's put it when Invincible was being built: no admiral will stop using such powerful and fast ships in the battleline! And so it happened with the consequences we all know. Next Indefatigable was even worse, and Australia and New Zealand, laid down more than one year later in 1910, were just unjustifiable. Likewise to give 6in to Renown and Repulse is nonsense, and 2in to Courageous borders madness: she wasn't immune even to gunboats guns! To say that because today’s warships do not have armour that surely validates Fisher is preposterous. With the same logic we could say that it would have been better if Warrior and any other ship after her should have veryreduced armour protection. This is obviously ridiculous. For the time we are talking about, two ships of similar displacement and armament, one faster and the other better armoured, if fighting each other, the better armoured will win always. If the faster ships tries to get in a better firing position, the slower one only has to turn inside the circle and any speed advantage is lost.
The fact remains that the first German battlecruiser ever built had better armour protection than any of the 15 battlecruisers used by the RN during WWI. And German designs were constantly improving. I think Fisher had something to do on this state of affairs. It's an irony that the RN never built the X4 fusion design for a fast battleship that was mentioned in the video. But the Germans got something very similar already with their second battlecruiser design.
Fisher very much could have considered atomic weapons.
E=mc² is from special relativity which was published in 1905. General relativity was also published in his lifetime (1915) and the early work on quantum mechanics was also taking place.
I remember someone saying that Fisher had the personality and temper of a speed addict (in a double sense) even before such people existed. - sounds about right... :)
Someone in another post remarked that the RN has never named a ship after Fisher. Any explanation?
Well you could only name the fastest ship in the navy after Fisher. Anything else would cause a hugely damaging seismic event for the whole UK as Fisher spins in his grave!
@@princeoftonga and when you finally make a faster ship unless you swap the Fisher name onto said faster ship he will also spin in his grave
Too late in time. There have also been no Jellicoe or Cunninghams.
@@gokbay3057 We almost had a Jellicoe... and Beatty
me thinking @4:57 well at least the France saved a fortune not building a fleet of capital ships then remembering they built dozens of unique pre dreadnoughts with very little commonality that would have had a ridiculous cost per unit. Guess they broke even?
Excellent and thank you. And so what next? suborbital missile carrier? a Submarine carrier. deflected Lazer tec, rail gun guided cruiser weapons. orbital solar carriers ...
merch idea: "jackie fisher did nothing wrong" t shirts
How about an image of Fisher that says "Speed Kills"?
56:27 ladies and gentlemen,
a collection of silly hats
I gather that Fisher came up with the Fleet Unit idea for the colonies of which the Australian Navy was an exsample…was the idea put into practise anywhere else (& would the squadron at the battle of Corennel be considered an exsample all bet if a rather obsolete one?)
Hearing that Warrior was considered a third class armored cruiser into the 1890's made me imagine an alternate timeline, where something like HMS Hector (1862) is serving as a Fourth Class Estuary Defence Vessel in 1913...
Drach, any way you can post these on Spotify as a podcast? I'd love to listen on road trips.
One man, one ship, one era.
Sir Fisher is absolutely legend.
Changed the entire naval warfare, almost in one day, by one man.
You can never find the second man like him.
surely you mean
One man, many ships, 3 eras....
So a bit of explanation we were playing a naval wargame online where we, the players, were various members of a few "fleets for hire" in an alt-history world, but with real ships. But this was an instant hit meme in the community and I will reproduce it here:
'Task Force Osprey is offering the Invincible-Class Battlecruiser for sale!
That's right, a motherfucking INVINCIBLE. FOR SALE. FOR SERIOUS.
Listen, way back in 1905, some brilliant dude was like, "I don't care what you do, just make it fast." And his naval engineers were all like "But what about armo-" and this dude, Jackie "Make it Fast" Fisher didn't have time for their shit and was all in their face "I SAID I DON'T CARE. BIG GUNS. BIGGER ENGINE, MAKE IT WORK!"
In 1908, one of the sexiest pieces of naval architecture ever slipped into the water. It was so hot that people lining the shoreline all experienced a collective orgasm, many were confused by the experience (Britons don't usually do that sort of thing). Jackie "Fuck Armour" Fisher was there to see it and was all like "Bloody Right, the Lord Almighty couldn't make a hotter ship!"
Just as he said that, the heavens themselves opened up and god himself showed up, leaned down, and with a big thumbs up was all like "Dude, that shit's tight!" and Jackie "Fuck Yeah!" Fisher totally high-five'd God while pelvic thrusting in the general direction of Germany who were of course moping since they didn't have such a totally cool and sick ship and knew they could never build anything half-as-good.
So yeah, a sweet ass ship that even God thinks is totally rad.
[Photo of an actual Invincible]
Yours for 45 million.
[Blingee'd photo of Jackie Fisher wearing sunglasses with a "GANGSTA" necklace among other nautical- and pirate-themed items.]'
That's one hell of a sales brochure! Hilarious!
I would call the Battle of Manila Bay more of a "Space Invaders" battle than a "Pac Man" battle.
Somehow, I feel like I was listening to the true story of Al Stewarts song "Old Admirals"
The poster at 22:44 shows each 12 inch shell costing $100 a piece. There is ammo out there that cost that per bullet...
But that is in 1912 dollars. That would be around $2900-3000 today, when adjusted for inflation
can you talk and explain what Beatty did or didn't do? I know some of it however would love to hear your view.
Jutland series, first video.
He should be up there,standing beside (but on the lower level) Nelson.
The sound seems a bit low on this video. Maybe I am too old.
Man, that photo at 59:10 is amazing; the early floatplane banking overhead really adds a lot to it. The ending part of the video about how close all these things in history really are was wonderful, and you're both absolutely right on this. My own grandfather was born in the early '20s so like the Queen (almost) overlapped with Fisher, who as you pointed out himself overlapped with people who served in Trafalgar. Really puts things into perspective.
Woohoo
A great episode. It only reinforces my feeling that someone must make a great film or series drama about his life. Why are they making series about Birmingham gangsters and neglecting Jackie Fisher?
1- hes not "sexy" enough for socia media.
2- a more practical problem.
Stuff that looks like old Birmingham still exists, is cheap to film. Fishers life is an expensive CGI fest and tough to get right- to do it well would cost an utter fortune.
@@keefymckeefface8330 but, but... Explosions? Ships going vroom? And arrogant argumentative main character? It would sell, Tony Stark did 😁
@@yumazster helps having marvel background lol. Marvel seen as cooler than late victorian era for some reason....
ZB?
Admiral Fisher really was a big player in changing how Navy's fought for the next 40 years.
Jackie Fisher, the original "do more with less" manager. 😁
Any, who may be interested in reading MEMORIES, Fisher's autobiography, it may be read for free on Gutenberg.org.
For historical reference, there is a 1905,1906 Modern Encyclopedia referencing submarines and torpedoes.
Some types of torpedo can be remotely guided through the air.
Thank you very much .
I found Sir Winston Churchill's opinions of Admiral Fisher and his leadership style interesting. I had read some secondary sources that made it seem like Churchill was blind to his faults, but his own books are quite revealing. Kind of a "is the cure worse than the disease" situation. He did seem to like and respect him.
The discussion of Fisher, Incomparable ,and the omission of armor gets me to thinking , was the US Navy pursuing something similar with the Lexington class battlecruisers? The Lexington's are often castigated for lacking armor- and they did only have 16 in guns, but the discussion of Incomparable and of how ships ultimately developed little or no armor brought the design of the Lexington's into a new light for me.
Like Drach then on......... suppressants.
Interesting that he saw the future of submarines, but didn't see the future of aviation for the navy
Manila Bay as a Pac man battle? Sounds more like Space Invaders.
Jackie Fisher: I need BIG guns and all the speed! armor be damned!
You mention that Fisher could not have known of atomic weapons but they were first publicly mooted in HG Wells "The world set free" in 1914. They were both aquaintainces of Ernest Rutherford the discoverer of the Atomic Nucleus who was speculating about the energy it contained. It was also the Admiralty which was prepared to accept Leo Szilards gift of the patent for the atomic bomb in 1936 in order that it be kept as a Secret.
I haven't read "The World Set Free" but from the Wikipedia article it seems Wells envisioned something more along the lines of a 'dirty bomb' which would produce a continuous release of radiation over a long period, rather than a massive explosion. The experimental work leading to the discovery of nuclear fission and the possibility of a chain reaction didn't occur until the late 1930s.
@@CharlesStearman True. my point was more that weapons of mass destruction in the modern sense had been posited and that Fisher was more than likely aware of these Ideas and that the post Fisher Admiralty was equally aware when aproached by Szilard in 1936 after the War Office laughed him out of court.
This is the kinda people you need running a Navy. Down there in the depths this guy is drinking salty scotch and Manischewitz with Elmo.
3 Cheers to Drach!!!
Fisher was able to bring the combination of speed, firepower, intelligence, training and preparedness together under one roof...
He'd been right as proven by the events at Tsushima...
☹🇬🇧
Sorry, I just noticed I had pinched the down button. All better now.
High Strun, High Tempered you say... 0~o He and US Admiral King would have gotten along famously were Fisher not a Brit... >~< oh well, some things just are. ^~^
Indeed.
Heyo
A 50 year period of 'whirlwind technical change'. Kiwi mate, you''re all at sea without compass or rudder with that grotesque, nonsensical introductory abuse of the King's English even generously allowing for the extemporised off-the-cuff nature of the dialectical exchange. God give your long-suffering editor the strength necessary for extensive use of that red pen. I know the feeling!
First 🥇
89th, 30 November 2022
Never mind the ships, what we all want to hear about is Jackie’s connection to fishing and Friday mealtimes!
Should the RN name a new ship after Admiral Fisher?
Yes but it would have to be the fastest ship in the navy otherwise the seismic damage caused to the UK from Fisher spinning in his grave would be incalculable!
@@princeoftonga Well there's your Green power generation right there...
The royal navy name a ship .what navy. The sad state of the navy in 2020 would probably make fisher Nelson Rodney and a few hundred other admirals turn in there graves.
@@chrisangus7078 as ships get more expensive and the crews more technically minded, the number of ships has shank across the board. It's not just the number of hulls or crew, but have to maintain these things. In Nelson and Rodney's time it was simpler, by Fisher it became more complex, and by the current era even more so.
I have wondered whether Invincible was caught out by the unforeseen increase in gun ranges throughout the early 1900s--similar to the argument that the light armor of the LCCs may have reflected a belief that no reasonable amount of armor could keep out hits from then-current heavy guns at then-current battle ranges. If in 1905 one thought that battle ranges would be no more than 10,000 yards and the predominant heavy gun was 12-inch, then armoring Invincible against heavy gunfire was futile and settling for enough armor to keep out most armored cruiser gunfire made more sense.
Wish the volume levels we're a little higher
Anymore, Adm Fischer just makes me remember how Fischer frequently funded fantastic Fancy Fish Fry Friday functions, or whatever that other guy was always making you say in questions.
Jackietai Khan
all of this really does make you wish the US navy would have gotten the Zimwalt's large guns to work because I can only imagine how precicely they can hold those guns tracking on target in a modern ship
Fisher would probably say the IOWA class battlecruisers are the best everbuilt.
I reckon he'd have been more partial to Richelieu personally
@@silverhost9782 But it iz so French!
@@scottgiles7546 And therefor perfect to capture and take into the Royal Navy as HMS Richelieu.
a battle cruiser seems like a great idea until a battleship shows up
Unless the battlecruiser is Hood.
@@bkjeong4302 poor Hood.
But look at it again. The battle cruisers were the ships that did all the work in WW1. The one time the battleships of the grand fleet got in range of the Germans - at Jutland - they had such overwhelming numbers the Germans turned round and went home. So the British fleet could have done with more battlecruisers and a few less battleships. The problem was Beatty/Seymour, the lack of gunnery training, and issues with British shells.
It was a good idea. They weren't supposed to fight BBs. That was the mistake that was made with some of them, they shouldn't have been in the battleline outside of engagements with other BCs (like the BC engagement that opened the Battle of Jutland). Ships like Renown proved the utility of the concept, because notably, the Admiralty knew to keep her way from ships like Bismarck.
I agree their utility against anything but a BB did make them very handy at times - were they good value for the investment? - probably - and the name for the type is the best ever