Cruiser A cruiser is a type of warship . The term has been in use for several hundred years , and has had different meanings throughout this period . During the Age of Sail , the term " cruising " referred to certain kinds of missions – independent scouting , raiding or commerce protection – fulfilled by a frigate or sloop , which were the " cruising warships " of a fleet . From the middle of the 19th century , " cruiser " came to be a classification for the ships intended for this kind of role , though cruisers came in a wide variety of sizes , from the small protected cruiser to armored cruiser s which were as large ( though not as powerful ) as a battleship . By the early 20th century , cruisers could be placed on a consistent scale of warship size , smaller than a battleship but larger than a destroyer . In 1922 , the Washington Naval Treaty placed a formal limit on cruisers , which were defined as warships of up to 10 , 000 tons displacement carrying guns no larger than 8 inches in calibre . These limits shaped cruisers up until the end of World War II . The very large battlecruisers of the World War I era were now classified , along with battleships , as capital ships . In the later 20th century , the obsolescence of the battleship left the cruiser as the largest and most powerful surface combatant . The role of the cruiser varied according to ship and navy , often including air defense , commerce raiding and shore bombardment . The U . S . Navy in the Cold War period built guided - missile cruisers primarily designed to provide air defense , while the navy of the USSR built battlecruisers with heavy anti - ship missile s designed to sink NATO carrier task forces . Currently only three nations , the United States , Russia , and Peru ( while still in service with the Peruvian Navy ) , operate cruisers , though the line between cruisers and destroyers is once again blurred . New models of destroyers ( for instance the ) are often larger and more powerful than cruiser classes they replace . Early history . The term " cruiser " or " cruizer " was first commonly used in the 17th century to refer to an independent warship . " Cruiser " meant the purpose or mission of a ship , rather than a category of vessel . However , the term was nonetheless used to mean a smaller , faster warship suitable for such a role . In the 17th century , the ship of the line was generally too large , inflexible , and expensive to be dispatched on long - range missions ( for instance , to the Americas ) , and too strategically important to be put at risk of fouling and foundering by continual patrol duties . The Dutch navy was noted for its cruisers in the 17th century , while the Royal Navy — and later French and Spanish navies — subsequently caught up in terms of their numbers and deployment . The British Cruiser and Convoy Act s were an attempt by mercantile interests in Parliament to focus the Navy on commerce defence and raiding with cruisers , rather than the more scarce and expensive ships of the line . During the 18th century the frigate became the preeminent type of cruiser . A frigate was a small , fast , long range , lightly armed ( single gun - deck ) ship used for scouting , carrying dispatches , and disrupting enemy trade . The other principal type of cruiser was the sloop , but many other miscellaneous types of ship were used as well . Steam cruisers . During the 19th century , navies began to use steam power for their fleets . The 1840s saw the construction of experimental steam - powered frigates and sloops . By the middle of the 1850s , the British and U . S . Navies were both building steam frigates with very long hulls and a heavy gun armament , for instance or . The 1860s saw the introduction of the ironclad . The first ironclads were frigates , in the sense of having one gun deck ; however , they were also clearly the most powerful ships in the navy , and were principally to serve in the line of battle . In spite of their great speed , they would have been wasted in a cruising role . The French constructed a number of smaller ironclads for overseas cruising duties , starting with the , commissioned 1865 . These " station ironclads " were the beginning of the development of the armored cruiser s , a type of ironclad specifically for the traditional cruiser missions of fast , independent , raiding and patrol . The first true armored cruiser was the Russian , completed in 1874 , and followed by the British a few years later . Until the 1890s armored cruisers were still built with masts for a full sailing rig , to enable them to operate far from friendly coaling stations . Unarmored cruising warships , built out of wood , iron , steel or a combination of those materials , remained popular until towards the end of the 19th century . The ironclad ' s armor often meant that they were limited to short range under steam , and many ironclads were unsuited to long - range missions or for work in distant colonies . The unarmored cruiser - often a screw sloop or screw frigate - could continue in this role . Even though mid - or late - 19th century cruisers typically carried up - to - date guns firing explosive shells , they were unable to face ironclads in combat . This was evidenced by the clash between , a modern British cruiser , and the Peruvian monitor " Huáscar " . Even though the Peruvian vessel was obsolescent by the time of the encounter , it stood up well to roughly 50 hits from British shells . Steel cruisers . In the 1880s naval architects began to use steel as a material for construction and armament . A steel cruiser could be lighter and faster than one built of iron or wood . The Jeune Ecole school of naval doctrine suggested that a fleet of fast unprotected steel cruisers were ideal for commerce raiding , while the torpedo boat would be able to destroy an enemy battleship fleet . Steel also offered the cruiser a way of acquiring the protection needed to survive in combat . Steel armor was considerably stronger , for the same weight , than iron . By putting a relatively thin layer of steel armor above the vital parts of the ship , and by placing the coal bunkers where they might stop shellfire , a useful degree of protection could be achieved without slowing the ship too much . The first protected cruiser was the Chilean ship " Esmeralda " . Produced by a shipyard at Elswick , in Britain , owned by Armstrong , she inspired a group of protected cruisers produced in the same yard and known as the " Elswick cruisers " . Her forecastle , poop deck and the wooden board deck had been removed , replaced with an armored deck . " Esmeralda " s armament consisted of fore and aft 10 - inch ( 25 . 4 cm ) guns and 6 - inch ( 15 . 2 cm ) guns in the midships positions . It could reach a speed of , and was propelled by steam alone . It also had a displacement of less than 3 , 000 tons . During the two following decades , this cruiser type came to be the inspiration for combining heavy artillery , high speed and low displacement . Pre - dreadnought armored cruisers . Steel also had an impact on the construction and role of armored cruisers . Steel meant that new designs of battleship , later known as pre - dreadnought battleship s , would be able to combine firepower and armor with better endurance and speed than ever before . The armored cruisers of the 1890s greatly resembled the battleships of the day ; they tended to carry slightly smaller main armament ( rather than 12 - inch ) and have somewhat thinner armor in exchange for a faster speed ( perhaps rather than 18 ) . Because of their similarity , the lines between battleships and armored cruisers became blurred . Cruisers from 1900 to 1914 . Shortly after the turn of the 20th century there were difficult questions about the design of future cruisers . Modern armored cruisers , almost as powerful as battleships , were also fast enough to outrun older protected and unarmored cruisers . In the Royal Navy , Jackie Fisher cut back hugely on older vessels , including many cruisers of different sorts , calling them ' a miser ' s hoard of useless junk ' that any modern cruiser would sweep from the seas . Battlecruisers . The growing size and power of the armored cruiser resulted in the battlecruiser , with an armament and size similar to the revolutionary new dreadnought battleship ; the brainchild of British admiral Jackie Fisher . He believed that to ensure British naval dominance in its overseas colonial possessions , a fleet of large , fast , powerfully - armed vessels which would be able to hunt down and mop up enemy cruisers and armored cruisers with overwhelming fire superiority was needed . This type of vessel came to be known as the battlecruiser , and the first were commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1907 . Germany and eventually Japan followed suit to build these vessels , replacing armored cruisers in most frontline roles . Battlecruisers were in many cases larger and more expensive than contemporary battleships . Light cruisers . At around the same time as the battlecruiser was developed , the distinction between the armored and the unarmored cruiser finally disappeared . By the British , it was possible for a small , fast cruiser to carry both belt and deck armor , particularly when turbine engines were adopted . These ' light armored cruisers ' began to occupy the traditional cruiser role once it became clear that the battlecruiser squadrons were required to operate with the battle fleet . Flotilla leaders . Some light cruisers were built specifically to act as the leaders of flotillas of destroyer s . Auxiliary cruisers . The auxiliary cruiser was a merchant ship hastily armed with small guns on the outbreak of war . Auxiliary cruisers were used to fill gaps in their long - range lines or provide escort for other cargo ships , although they generally proved to be useless in this role because of their low speed , feeble firepower and lack of armor . In both world wars the Germans also used small merchant ships armed with cruiser guns to surprise Allied merchant ships . Some large liners were armed in the same way . In British service these were known as Armed Merchant Cruisers ( AMC ) . The Germans and French used them in World War I as raiders because of their high speed ( around 30 knots ( 56 km / h ) ) , and they were used again as raiders in World War II by the Germans and Japanese . In both the First World War and in the early part of the Second , they were used as convoy escorts by the British . World War I . Cruisers were one of the workhorse types of warship during World War I . Cruisers from 1919 - 1945 . Naval construction in the 1920s and 1930s was limited by international treaties designed to prevent the repetition of the Dreadnought arms race of the early 20th century . The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 placed limits on the construction of ships with a displacement of 10 , 000 tons or more and an armament of greater than calibre . A number of navies commissioned classes of cruisers at the top end of this limit . The London Naval Treaty in 1930 then formalised the distinction between these ' heavy ' cruisers and light cruisers : a ' heavy ' cruiser was one with guns of calibre or more . The Second London Naval Treaty attempted to reduce the tonnage of new cruisers to 8 , 000 or less , but this had little impact ; Japan and Germany were not signatories , and navies had already begun to evade treaty limitations on warships . Heavy cruisers . The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser , a naval warship designed for long range , high speed and an armament of naval guns roughly in calibre . The first heavy cruisers were built in 1915 , although it only became a widespread classification following the London Naval Treaty in 1930 . The heavy cruiser ' s immediate precursors were the light cruiser designs of the 1910s and 1920s ; the US 8 - inch ' treaty cruisers ' of the 1920s were originally classed as light cruisers until the London Treaty forced their redesignation . Heavy cruisers continued in use until after World War II . The German pocket battleships . The German was a series of three " Panzerschiffe " ( " armored ships " ) , a form of heavily armed cruiser , built by the German Reichsmarine in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles . The class is named after the first ship of this class to be completed ( the ) . All three ships were launched between 1931 and 1934 , and served with Germany ' s Kriegsmarine during World War II . The British began referring to the vessels as pocket battleships , in reference to the heavy firepower contained in the relatively small vessels ; they were considerably smaller than battleship s , though at 28 knots slower than battlecruisers , and although their displacement was that of a heavy cruiser , they were armed with guns larger than the heavy cruisers of other nations . " Deutschland " - class ships continue to be called " pocket battleships " in some circles . The ships were actually two feet longer than the American s - although they had shallower drafts , displaced considerably less ( were much smaller ) , than the American battleship in question . It should also be noted that the " Pennsylvania " class was unusually compact in length for a modern battleship . " Deutschland " - class ships were initially classified as " Panzerschiffe " , but the Kriegsmarine reclassified them as heavy cruisers in February 1940 . Anti - aircraft cruisers . The development of the anti - aircraft cruiser began in 1935 when the Royal Navy re - armed and . Torpedo tubes and 6 - inch ( 15 cm ) low - angle guns were removed from these World War I light cruisers and replaced by ten 4 - inch ( 10 cm ) high - angle guns with appropriate fire - control equipment to provide larger warships with protection against high - altitude bombers . A tactical shortcoming was recognized after completing six additional conversions of s . Having sacrificed anti - ship weapons for anti - aircraft armament , the converted anti - aircraft cruisers might need protection themselves against surface units . New construction was undertaken to create cruisers of similar speed and displacement with dual - purpose gun s . Dual - purpose guns offered good anti - aircraft protection with anti - surface capability for the traditional light cruiser role of defending capital ships from destroyers . The first purpose built anti - aircraft cruiser was the British , completed shortly before the beginning of World War II . The US Navy anti - aircraft cruisers ( CLAA ) were designed to match capabilities of the Royal Navy . Both " Dido " and " Atlanta " carried torpedo tubes . The quick - firing dual - purpose gun anti - aircraft cruiser concept was embraced in several designs completed too late to see combat including and completed in 1948 and 1949 , two s completed in 1953 , and completed in 1955 and 1959 , and , and completed between 1959 and 1961 . Most post – World War II cruisers were tasked with air defense roles . In the early 1950s , advances in aviation technology forced the move from anti - aircraft artillery to anti - aircraft missiles . Therefore most cruisers of today are equipped with surface - to - air missiles as their main armament . The modern equivalent of the anti - aircraft cruiser is the guided missile cruiser ( CAG / CLG / CG / CGN ) . Later 20th century . The rise of air power during World War II dramatically changed the nature of naval combat . Even the fastest cruisers could not maneuver quickly enough to evade aerial attack , and aircraft now had torpedoes , allowing moderate - range standoff capabilities . This change led to the end of independent operations by single ships or very small task groups , and for the second half of the 20th century naval operations were based on very large fleets able to fend off all but the largest air attacks . This has led most navies to change to fleets designed around ships dedicated to a single role , anti - submarine or anti - aircraft typically , and the large " generalist " ship has disappeared from most forces . The United States Navy , the Russian Navy , and the Peruvian Navy are the only remaining navies which operate cruisers . Italy used the until 2003 ; France operated a single cruiser until May 2010 : , which in the NATO pennant number system was classified as an aircraft carrier , but for training purposes only . In the Soviet Navy , cruisers formed the basis of combat groups . In the immediate post - war era it built a fleet of large - gun ships , but replaced these fairly quickly with very large ships carrying huge numbers of guided missile s and anti - aircraft missiles . The most recent ships of this type , the four s , were built in the 1970s and 1980s . Currently two of the " Kirov " class are currently in refit until 2020 , and one was scheduled to leave refit until 2012 , with the in active service . Russia also operates three s and one " Admiral Kuznetsov " - class carrier which is officially designated as a cruiser . Currently , the " Kirov " - class heavy missile cruisers are used for command purposes , as the " Petr Velikiy " is the flagship of the Northern Fleet . However , their air defense capabilities are still powerful , as shown by the array of Point defense missiles they carry , from 44 OSA - MA missiles to 196 9K311 Tor missiles . For longer range targets , the S - 300 is used . For closer range targets , AK - 630 or Kashtan CIWSs are used . Aside from that , " Kirov " s have 20 P - 700 Granit missiles for anti - ship warfare . For target acquisition beyond the radar horizon , three helicopter s can be used . Besides a vast array of armament , " Kirov " - class cruisers are also outfitted with many sensors and communications equipment , allowing them to lead the fleet . The United States Navy has centered on the aircraft carrier since World War II . The s , built in the 1980s , were originally designed and designated as a class of destroyer , intended to provide a very powerful air - defense in these carrier - centered fleets . The ships were later redesignated largely as a public relations move , in order to highlight the capability of the Aegis combat system the ships were designed around . In the years since the launch of in 1981 the class has received a number of upgrades that have dramatically improved its members ' capabilities for anti - submarine and land attack ( using the Tomahawk missile ) . Like their Soviet counterparts , the modern " Ticonderoga " s can also be used as the basis for an entire battle group . Their cruiser designation was almost certainly deserved when first built , as their sensors and combat management systems enable them to act as ' flagships ' for a surface warship flotilla if no carrier is present , but newer ships rated as destroyers and also equipped with AEGIS approach them very closely in capability , and once more blur the line between the two classes . The Japanese and the South Korean are an example of this . Aircraft cruisers . From time to time , some navies have experimented with aircraft - carrying cruisers . One example is the Swedish . Another variant is the helicopter cruiser . The last example in service was the Soviet Navy ' s , whose last unit was converted to a pure aircraft carrier and sold to India as . The Russian Navy ' s is nominally designated as an aviation cruiser but otherwise resembles a standard medium aircraft carrier , albeit with a surface - to - surface missile battery . The Royal Navy ' s aircraft - carrying and the Italian Navy ' s aircraft - carrying vessels were originally designated ' through - deck cruisers ' , but have since been designated as small aircraft carriers . Similarly , the Japan Maritime Self - Defense Force ' s and " helicopter destroyers " are really more along the lines of helicopter cruisers in function and aircraft complement , but due to the Treaty of San Francisco , must be designated as destroyers . Cruisers in service today . Few cruisers remain operational in the world navies . Those that do are : The US Navy ' s " cruiser gap " . Prior to the introduction of the " Ticonderoga " s , the US Navy used odd naming conventions that left its fleet seemingly without many cruisers , although a number of their ships were cruisers in all but name . From the 1950s to the 1970s , US Navy " cruisers " were large vessels equipped with heavy offensive missiles ( including the Regulus nuclear cruise missile ) for wide - ranging combat against land - based and sea - based targets . All save one — — were converted from World War II - , - and s . " Frigate s " under this scheme were almost as large as the cruisers and optimized for anti - aircraft warfare , although they were capable anti - surface warfare combatants as well . In the late 1960s , the US government perceived a " cruiser gap " — at the time , the US Navy possessed six ships designated as " cruisers " , compared to 19 for the Soviet Union , even though the USN possessed at the time 21 " frigates " with equal or superior capabilities to the Soviet cruisers — because of this , in 1975 the Navy performed a massive redesignation of its forces : Also , a series of Patrol Frigates of the , originally designated PFG , were redesignated into the FFG line . The cruiser - destroyer - frigate realignment and the deletion of the Ocean Escort type brought the US Navy ' s ship designations into line with the rest of the world ' s , eliminating confusion with foreign navies . In 1980 , the Navy ' s then - building DDG - 47 - class destroyers were redesignated as cruisers ( CG - 47 guided missile cruisers ) to emphasize the additional capability provided by the ships ' Aegis combat system s , and their flag facilities suitable for an admiral and his staff .