Battlecruiser

Battlecruisers were large warships of the first half of the 20th century. They evolved from armored cruisers and in terms of ship classification they occupy a grey area between cruisers and battleships. Different nations built to widely different designs. Some battlecruisers were smaller than heavy cruisers while others were larger than contemporaneous battleships. The chief similarity was the role specification. They were supposed to hunt down and outgun smaller warships (or merchant ships in the case of the pocket battleships), and outrun larger warships that they could not outgun. Originally, to achieve this, they deviated from the standard practice of providing a ship with sufficient armour to protect against its own guns. The weight saving from the reduced armour allowed more powerful engines to be fitted. This idea was mainly conceived by British Admiral Jackie Fisher who believed "speed is the best protection". However, as technology developed design philosophy changed and led to the creation of more heavily armoured ships with less powerful guns. They were given different labels, but essentially performed the same task.

See also

• List of cruisers