Battlecruiser A battlecruiser , or battle cruiser , was a large capital ship built in the first half of the 20th century . They were similar in size and cost to a battleship , and typically carried the same kind of heavy guns , but battlecruisers generally carried less armour and were faster . The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom in the first decade of the century , as a development of the armoured cruiser , at the same time the dreadnought succeeded the pre - dreadnought battleship . The original aim of the battlecruiser was to hunt down slower , older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire . However , as more and more battlecruisers were built , they increasingly became used alongside the better - protected battleships . Battlecruisers served in the navies of Britain , Germany , Australia and Japan during World War I , most notably at the Battle of the Falkland Islands and in the several raids and skirmishes in the North Sea which culminated in a pitched fleet battle , the Battle of Jutland . British battlecruisers in particular suffered heavy losses at Jutland , where their light armour made them very vulnerable to battleship shells . By the end of the war , capital ship design had developed with battleships becoming faster and battlecruisers becoming more heavily armoured , blurring the distinction between a battlecruiser and a fast battleship . The Washington Naval Treaty , which limited capital ship construction from 1922 onwards , treated battleships and battlecruisers identically , and the new generation of battlecruisers planned was scrapped under the terms of the treaty . From the 1930s , only the Royal Navy continued to use ' battlecruiser ' as a classification for warships , for the WWI - era capital ships that remained in the fleet . ( While Japan ' s battlecruisers remained in service , they were significantly reconstructed and re - rated as battleships . ) Nevertheless , the fast , light capital ships developed by Germany and France of the and classes , respectively , are sometimes referred to as battlecruisers . World War II saw the modernized battlecruisers in action again , only one of which survived the war . There was also renewed interest in large " cruiser - killer " type warships , but few were ever begun , as construction of capital ships was curtailed in favor of more - needed convoy escorts , aircraft carriers , and cargo ships . In the post – Cold War era , the Soviet of large guided missile cruisers have also been termed " battlecruisers " . Background . The battlecruiser was developed by the Royal Navy in the first years of the 20th century as a dramatic evolution of the armoured cruiser . In the late 1890s , technical developments including the introduction of Krupp face - hardened steel armour meant it was finally possible to build an armoured cruiser which could withstand the fire of quick - firing gun s . In 1896 and 1897 , France and Russia , technically allies , started to build large , fast armoured cruisers which outclassed all others afloat . These could threaten trade routes , work closely with a battleship fleet and , in some circumstances , could even confront a battleship . Britain , which had concluded in 1892 that it needed twice as many cruisers as any potential enemy to adequately protect its empire ' s sea lanes , responded to the perceived threat by laying down its own large armoured cruisers . Between 1899 and 1905 , it completed or laid down seven classes of this type , a total of 35 ships . This building program , in turn , prompted the French and Russians to increase their own construction . Also , the Germans began to build large armoured cruisers for use on their overseas stations , laying down eight between 1897 and 1906 . Both the cost of these new cruisers and the size of their main guns were increasing . In the period 1889 – 96 , the Royal Navy spent £7 . 3 million on new large cruisers . From 1897 to 1904 , it spent £26 . 9 million . As for gun calibers , Japan designed its four and ships to carry four guns , a caliber normally carried by battleships , after it had used armoured cruisers successfully in the Battle of Tsushima in 1905 . The United States Navy had already planned its s with four guns . The British also considered 10 - inch and 12 - inch guns for its cruisers , before staying with the guns of previous classes . In 1904 , Admiral John " Jacky " Fisher became First Sea Lord , the senior officer of the Royal Navy . He had for some time thought about the development of a new fast armoured ship . He was very fond of the " second - class battleship " , a faster , more lightly armoured battleship . As early as 1901 , there is confusion in Fisher ' s writing about whether he saw the battleship or the cruiser as the model for future developments . This did not stop him from commissioning designs from naval architect W . H . Gard for an armoured cruiser with the heaviest possible armament for use with the fleet . The design Gard submitted was for a ship between , capable of , armed with four 9 . 2 - inch and twelve guns in twin gun turret s and protected with six inches of armour along her belt and 9 . 2 - inch turrets , on her 7 . 5 - inch turrets , 10 inches on her conning tower and up to on her decks . However , mainstream British naval thinking between 1902 and 1904 was clearly in favour of heavily armoured battleships , rather than the fast ships that Fisher favoured . The Battle of Tsushima proved conclusively the effectiveness of heavy guns over intermediate ones and the need for a uniform main caliber on a ship for fire control . Even before this , the Royal Navy had begun to consider a shift away from the mixed - calibre armament of the 1890s pre - dreadnought to an " all - big - gun " design , and preliminary designs circulated for battleships with all 12 - inch or all 10 - inch guns and armoured cruisers with all 9 . 2 - inch guns . In late 1904 , not long after the Royal Navy had decided to use 12 - inch guns for its next generation of battleships because of their superior performance at long range , Fisher began to argue that big - gun cruisers could replace battleships altogether . The continuing improvement of the torpedo meant that submarine s and destroyer s would be able to destroy battleships ; this in Fisher ' s view heralded the end of the battleship or at least compromised the validity of heavy armour protection . Nevertheless , armoured cruisers would remain vital for commerce protection . Of what use is a battle fleet to a country called ( A ) at war with a country called ( B ) possessing no battleships , but having fast armoured cruisers and clouds of fast torpedo craft ? What damage would ( A ' s ) battleships do to ( B ) ? Would ( B ) wish for a few battleships or for more armoured cruisers ? Would not ( A ) willingly exchange a few battleships for more fast armoured cruisers ? In such a case , neither side wanting battleships is presumptive evidence that they are not of much value " – Fisher to Lord Selborne ( First Lord of the Admiralty ) , 20 October 1904 Fisher ' s views were very controversial within the Royal Navy , and even given his position as First Sea Lord , he was not in a position to insist on his own approach . Thus he assembled a " Committee on Designs " , consisting of a mixture of civilian and naval experts , to determine the approach to both battleship and armoured cruiser construction in the future . While the stated purpose of the Committee was to investigate and report on future requirements of ships , Fisher and his associates had already made key decisions . The terms of reference for the Committee were for a battleship capable of with 12 - inch guns and no intermediate calibres , capable of docking in existing drydocks ; and a cruiser capable of , also with 12 - inch guns and no intermediate armament , armoured like , the most recent armoured cruiser , and also capable of using existing docks . First battlecruisers . Under the Selborne plan of 1902 , the Royal Navy intended to start three new battleships and four armoured cruisers each year . However , in late 1904 it became clear that the 1905 – 06 programme would have to be considerably smaller , because of lower than expected tax revenue and the need to buy out two Chilean battleships under construction in British yards , lest they be purchased by the Russians for use against the Japanese , Britain ' s ally . These economies meant that the 1905 – 06 programme consisted only of one battleship , but three armoured cruisers . The battleship became the revolutionary battleship , and the cruisers became the three ships of the . Fisher later claimed , however , that he had argued during the Committee for the cancellation of the remaining battleship . The construction of the new class were begun in 1906 and completed in 1908 , delayed perhaps to allow their designers to learn from any problems with " Dreadnought " . The ships fulfilled the design requirement quite closely . On a displacement similar to " Dreadnought " , the " Invincible " s were longer to accommodate additional boilers and more powerful turbines to propel them at . Moreover , the new ships could maintain this speed for days , whereas pre - dreadnought battleships could not generally do so for more than an hour . Armed with eight 12 - inch Mk X guns , compared to ten on " Dreadnought " , they had of armour protecting the hull and the gun turrets . ( " Dreadnought " s armour , by comparison , was at its thickest . ) The class had a very marked increase in speed , displacement and firepower compared to the most recent armoured cruisers but no more armour . While the " Invincible " s were to fill the same role as the armoured cruisers they succeeded , they were expected to do so more effectively . Specifically their roles were : Confusion about how to refer to these new battleship - size armoured cruisers set in almost immediately . Even in late 1905 , before work was begun on the " Invincible " s , a Royal Navy memorandum refers to " large armoured ships " meaning both battleships and large cruisers . In October 1906 , the Admiralty began to classify all post - Dreadnought battleships and armoured cruisers as " capital ships " , while Fisher used the term " dreadnought " to refer either to his new battleships or the battleships and armoured cruisers together . At the same time , the " Invincible " class themselves were referred to as " cruiser - battleships " , " dreadnought cruisers " ; the term " battlecruiser " was first used by Fisher in 1908 . Finally , on 24 November 1911 , Admiralty Weekly Order No . 351 laid down that " All cruisers of the “ Invincible ” and later types are for the future to be described and classified as “ battle cruisers ” to distinguish them from the armoured cruisers of earlier date . " Along with questions over the new ships ' nomenclature came uncertainty about their actual role due to their lack of protection . If they were primarily to act as scouts for the battle fleet and hunter - killers of enemy cruisers and commerce raiders , then the seven inches of belt armour with which they had been equipped would be adequate . If , on the other hand , they were expected to reinforce a battle line of dreadnoughts with their own heavy guns , they were too thin - skinned to be safe from an enemy ' s heavy guns . The " Invincible " s were essentially extremely large , heavily armed , fast armoured cruisers . However , the viability of the armoured cruiser was already in doubt . A cruiser that could have worked with the Fleet might have been a more viable option for taking over that role . Because of the " Invincible " s size and armament , naval authorities considered them capital ships almost from their inception — an assumption that might have been inevitable . Complicating matters further was that many naval authorities , including Lord Fisher , had made overoptimistic assessments from the Battle of Tsushima in 1905 about the armoured cruiser ' s ability to survive in a battle line against enemy capital ships due to their superior speed . These assumptions had been made without taking into account the Russian Baltic Fleet ' s inefficiency and tactical ineptitude . By the time the term " battlecruiser " had been given to the " Invincible " s , the idea of their parity with battleships had been fixed in many people ' s minds . Not everyone was so convinced . " Brasseys Naval Annual " , for instance , stated that with vessels as large and expensive as the " Invincible " s , an admiral " will be certain to put them in the line of battle where their comparatively light protection will be a disadvantage and their high speed of no value . " Those in favor of the battlecruiser countered with two points — first , since all capital ships were vulnerable to new weapons such as the torpedo , armour had lost some of its validity ; and second , because of its greater speed , the battlecruiser could control the range at which it engaged an enemy . Battlecruisers in the dreadnought arms race . Between the launching of the " Invincible " s to just after the outbreak of the First World War , the battlecruiser played a junior role in the developing dreadnought arms race , as it was never wholeheartedly adopted as the key weapon in British imperial defence , as Fisher had presumably desired . The biggest factor for this lack of acceptance was the marked change in Britain ' s strategic circumstances between their conception and the commissioning of the first ships . The prospective enemy for Britain had shifted from a Franco - Russian alliance with many armoured cruisers to a resurgent and increasingly belligerent Germany . Diplomatically , Britain had entered the Entente cordiale in 1904 and the Anglo - Russian Entente . Neither France nor Russia posed a particular naval threat ; the Russian navy had largely been sunk or captured in the Russo - Japanese War of 1904 – 5 , while the French were in no hurry to adopt the new dreadnought - type design . Britain also boasted very cordial relations with two of the significant new naval powers , Japan ( bolstered by the Anglo - Japanese Alliance , signed in 1902 and renewed in 1905 ) , and the USA . These changed strategic circumstances , and the great success of the " Dreadnought " , ensured that she rather than the " Invincible " became the new model capital ship . Nevertheless , battlecruiser construction played a part in the renewed naval arms - race sparked by the " Dreadnought " . For their first few years of service , the " Invincible " s entirely fulfilled Fisher ' s vision of being able to sink any ship fast enough to catch them , and run from any ship capable of sinking them . An " Invincible " would also , in many circumstances , be able to take on an enemy pre - dreadnought battleship . Naval circles concurred that the armoured cruiser in its current form had come to the logical end of its development and the " Invincible " s were so far ahead of any enemy armoured cruiser in firepower and speed that it proved difficult to justify building more or bigger cruisers . This lead was extended by the surprise both " Dreadnought " and " Invincible " produced by having been built in secret ; this prompted most other navies to delay their building programmes and radically revise their designs . This was particularly true for cruisers , because the details of the " Invincible " class were kept secret for longer ; this meant that the last German armoured cruiser , , was armed with only guns , and was no match for the new battlecruisers . The Royal Navy ' s early superiority in capital ships led to the rejection of a 1905 – 06 design that would , essentially , have fused the battlecruiser and battleship concepts into what would eventually become the fast battleship . The ' X4 ' design combined the full armour and armament of " Dreadnought " with the 25 knot speed of " Invincible " . The additional cost could not be justified given the existing British lead and the new Liberal government ' s need for economy ; the slower and cheaper , a relatively close copy of " Dreadnought " , was adopted instead . The X4 concept would eventually be fulfilled in the and later by other navies . The next British battlecruisers were the three , slightly improved " Invincible " s built to fundamentally the same specification , partly due to political pressure to limit costs and partly due to the secrecy surrounding German battlecruiser construction , particularly about the heavy armour of . This class came to be widely seen as a mistake and the next generation of British battlecruisers were markedly more powerful . By 1909 – 10 a sense of national crisis about rivalry with Germany outweighed cost - cutting , and a naval panic resulted in the approval of a total of eight capital ships in 1909 – 10 . Fisher pressed for all eight to be battlecruisers , but was unable to have his way ; he had to settle for six battleships and two battlecruisers of the . The " Lion " s carried eight 13 . 5 - inch guns , the now - standard caliber of the British " super - dreadnought " battleships . Speed increased to and armour protection , while not as good as in German designs , was better than in previous British battlecruisers , with armour belt and barbette s . The two " Lion " s were followed by the very similar . By 1911 Germany had built battlecruisers of her own , and the superiority of the British ships could no longer be assured . Moreover , the German Navy did not share Fisher ' s view of the battlecruiser . In contrast to the British focus on increasing speed and firepower , Germany progressively improved the armour and staying power of their ships to better the British battlecruisers . " Von der Tann " , begun in 1908 and completed in 1910 , carried eight 11 . 1 - inch guns , but with 11 . 1 - inch ( 283 mm ) armour she was far better protected than the " Invincible " s . The two s were quite similar but carried ten 11 . 1 - inch guns of an improved design . , designed in 1909 and finished in 1913 , was a modified " Moltke " ; speed increased by one knot to , while her armour had a maximum thickness of 12 inches , equivalent to the s of a few years earlier . " Seydlitz " was Germany ' s last battlecruiser completed before World War I . The next step in battlecruiser design came from Japan . The Imperial Japanese Navy had been planning the ships from 1909 , and was determined that , since the Japanese economy could support relatively few ships , each would be more powerful than its likely competitors . Initially the class was planned with the " Invincible " s as the benchmark . On learning of the British plans for " Lion " , and the likelihood that new U . S . Navy battleships would be armed with guns , the Japanese decided to radically revise their plans and go one better . A new plan was drawn up , carrying eight 14 - inch guns , and capable of , thus marginally having the edge over the " Lion " s in speed and firepower . The heavy guns were also better - positioned , being superfiring both fore and aft with no turret amidships . The armour scheme was also marginally improved over the " Lion " s , with nine inches of armour on the turrets and on the barbettes . The first ship in the class was built in Britain , and a further three constructed in Japan . The Japanese also re - classified their powerful armoured cruisers of the " Tsukuba " and " Ibuki " classes , carrying four 12 - inch guns , as battlecruisers ; nonetheless , their armament was weaker and they were slower than any battlecruiser . The next British battlecruiser , , was intended initially as the fourth ship in the " Lion " class , but was substantially redesigned . She retained the eight 13 . 5 - inch guns of her predecessors , but they were positioned like those of " Kongō " for better fields of fire . She was faster ( making on sea trials ) , and carried a heavier secondary armament . " Tiger " was also more heavily armoured on the whole ; while the maximum thickness of armour was the same at nine inches , the height of the main armour belt was increased . Not all the desired improvements for this ship were approved , however . Her designer , Sir Eustace Tennyson d ' Eyncourt , had wanted small - bore water - tube boilers and geared turbines to give her a speed of , but he received no support from the authorities and the engine makers refused his request . 1912 saw work begin on three more German battlecruisers of the , the first German battlecruisers to mount 12 - inch guns . These excellent ships , like " Tiger " and the " Kongō " s , had their guns arranged in superfiring turrets for greater efficiency . Their armour and speed was similar to the previous " Seydlitz " class . In 1913 , the Russian Empire also began the construction of the four - ship , which were designed for service in the Baltic Sea . These ships were designed to carry twelve 14 - inch guns , with armour up to 12 inches thick , and a speed of . The heavy armour and relatively slow speed of these ships made them more similar to German designs than to British ships ; construction of the " Borodino " s was halted by the First World War and all were scrapped after the end of the Russian Civil War . World War I . Construction . For most of the combatants , capital ship construction was very limited during the war . Germany finished the " Derfflinger " class and began work on the . The " Mackensen " s were a development of the " Derfflinger " class , with 13 . 8 - inch guns and a broadly similar armour scheme , designed for . In Britain , Jackie Fisher returned to the office of First Sea Lord in October 1914 . His enthusiasm for big , fast ships was unabated , and he set designers to producing a design for a battlecruiser with 15 - inch guns . Because Fisher expected the next German battlecruiser to steam at 28 knots , he required the new British design to be capable of 32 knots . He planned to reorder two s , which had been approved but not yet laid down , to a new design . Fisher finally received approval for this project on 28 December 1914 and they became the . With six 15 - inch guns but only 6 - inch armour they were a further step forward from " Tiger " in firepower and speed , but returned to the level of protection of the first British battlecruisers . At the same time , Fisher resorted to subterfuge to obtain another three fast , lightly armoured ships that could use several spare gun turrets left over from battleship construction . These ships were essentially light battlecruisers , and Fisher occasionally referred to them as such , but officially they were classified as " large light cruisers " . This unusual designation was required because construction of new capital ships had been placed on hold , while there were no limits on light cruiser construction . They became and her sisters and , and there was a bizarre imbalance between their main guns of 15 inches ( or in " Furious " ) and their armour , which at thickness was on the scale of a light cruiser . The design was generally regarded as a failure ( nicknamed in the Fleet " Outrageous " , " Uproarious " and " Spurious " ) , though the later conversion of the ships to aircraft carrier s was very successful . Fisher also speculated about a new mammoth , but lightly built battlecruiser , that would carry guns , which he termed ; this never got beyond the concept stage . It is often held that the " Renown " and " Courageous " classes were designed for Fisher ' s plan to land troops ( possibly Russian ) on the German Baltic coast . Specifically , they were designed with a reduced draught , which might be important in the shallow Baltic . This is not clear - cut evidence that the ships were designed for the Baltic : it was considered that earlier ships had too much draught and not enough freeboard under operational conditions . Roberts argues that the focus on the Baltic was probably unimportant at the time the ships were designed , but was inflated later , after the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign . The final British battlecruiser design of the war was the , which was born from a requirement for an improved version of the " Queen Elizabeth " battleship . The project began at the end of 1915 , after Fisher ' s final departure from the Admiralty . While initially envisaged as a battleship , senior sea officers felt that Britain had enough battleships , but that new battlecruisers might be required to combat German ships being built ( the British overestimated German progress on the " Mackensen " class as well as their likely capabilities ) . A battlecruiser design with eight 15 - inch guns , 8 inches of armour and capable of 32 knots was decided on . The experience of battlecruisers at the Battle of Jutland meant that the design was radically revised and transformed again into a fast battleship with armour up to 12 inches thick , but still capable of . The first ship in the class , , was built according to this design to counter the possible completion of any of the Mackensen - class ship . The plans for her three sisters , on which little work had been done , were revised once more later in 1916 and in 1917 to improve protection . The Admiral class would have been the only British ships capable of taking on the German " Mackensen " class ; nevertheless , German shipbuilding was drastically slowed by the war , and while two " Mackensen " s were launched , none were ever completed . The Germans also worked briefly on a further three ships , of the , which were modified versions of the " Mackensen " s with 15 - inch guns . Work on the three additional Admirals was suspended in March 1917 to enable more escorts and merchant ships to be built to deal with the new threat from U - boats to trade . They were finally cancelled in February 1919 . Battlecruisers in action . The first combat involving battlecruisers during World War I was the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914 . A force of British light cruisers and destroyers entered the Heligoland Bight ( the part of the North Sea closest to Hamburg ) to attack German shipping . When they met opposition from German cruisers , Vice Admiral David Beatty took his squadron of five battlecruisers into the Bight and turned the tide of the battle , ultimately sinking three German light cruisers and killing their commander , Rear Admiral Leberecht Maass . The German battlecruiser perhaps made the most impact early in the war . Stationed in the Mediterranean , she and the escorting light cruiser evaded British and French ships on the outbreak of war , and steamed to Constantinople ( Istanbul ) with two British battlecruisers in hot pursuit . The two German ships were handed over to the Ottoman Navy , and this was instrumental in bringing the Ottoman Empire into the war as one of the Central Powers . " Goeben " herself , renamed " Yavuz Sultan Selim " , fought engagements against the Imperial Russian Navy in the Black Sea and against the British in the Aegean Sea . The original battlecruiser concept proved successful in December 1914 at the Battle of the Falkland Islands . The British battlecruisers and did precisely the job for which they were intended when they chased down and annihilated the German East Asia Squadron , centered on the armoured cruisers and , along with three light cruisers , commanded by Admiral Maximilian Graf Von Spee , in the South Atlantic Ocean . Prior to the battle , the Australian battlecruiser had unsuccessfully searched for the German ships in the Pacific . During the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915 , the aftermost barbette of the German flagship " Seydlitz " was struck by a British 13 . 5 - inch shell from " HMS Lion " . The shell did not penetrate the barbette , but it dislodged a piece of the barbette armour that allowed the flame from the shell ' s detonation to enter the barbette . The propellant charges being hoisted upwards were ignited , and the fireball flashed up into the turret and down into the magazine , setting fire to charges removed from their brass cartridge cases . The gun crew tried to escape into the next turret , which allowed the flash to spread into that turret as well , killing the crews of both turrets . " Seydlitz " was saved from near - certain destruction only by emergency flooding of her after magazines , which had been effected by Wilhelm Heidkamp . This near - disaster was due to the way that ammunition handling was arranged and was common to both German and British battleships and battlecruisers , but the lighter protection on the latter made them more vulnerable to the turret or barbette being penetrated . The Germans learned from investigating the damaged " Seydlitz " and instituted measures to ensure that ammunition handling minimised any possible exposure to flash . Apart from the cordite handling , the battle was mostly inconclusive , though both the British flagship " Lion " and " Seydlitz " were severely damaged . " Lion " lost speed , causing her to fall behind the rest of the battleline , and Beatty was unable to effectively command his ships for the remainder of the engagement . A British signalling error allowed the German battlecruisers to withdraw , as most of Beatty ' s squadron mistakenly concentrated on the crippled armoured cruiser " Blücher " , sinking her with great loss of life . The British blamed their failure to win a decisive victory on their poor gunnery and attempted to increase their rate of fire by stockpiling unprotected cordite charges in their ammunition hoists and barbettes . At the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 , both British and German battlecruisers were employed as fleet units . The British battlecruisers became engaged with both their German counterparts , the battlecruisers , and then German battleships before the arrival of the battleships of the British Grand Fleet . The result was a disaster for the Royal Navy ' s battlecruiser squadrons : " Invincible " , " Queen Mary " , and exploded with the loss of all but a handful of their crews . The exact reason why the ships ' magazines detonated is not known , but the plethora of exposed cordite charges stored in their turrets , ammunition hoists and working chambers in the quest to increase their rate of fire undoubtedly contributed to their loss . Beatty ' s flagship " Lion " herself was almost lost in a similar manner , save for the heroic actions of Major Francis Harvey . The better - armoured German battlecruisers fared better , in part due to the poor performance of British fuzes ( the British shells tended to explode or break up on impact with the German armour ) . — the only German battlecruiser lost at Jutland — had only 128 killed , for instance , despite receiving more than thirty hits . The other German battlecruisers , , " Von der Tann " , " Seydlitz " , and , were all heavily damaged and required extensive repairs after the battle , " Seydlitz " barely making it home , for they had been the focus of British fire for much of the battle . Interwar period . In the years immediately after World War I , Britain , Japan and the USA all began design work on a new generation of ever more powerful battleships and battlecruisers . The new burst of shipbuilding that each nation ' s navy desired was politically controversial and potentially economically crippling . This nascent arms race was prevented by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 , where the major naval powers agreed to limits on capital ship numbers . The German navy was not represented at the talks ; under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles , Germany was not allowed any modern capital ships at all . Through the 1920s and 1930s only Britain and Japan retained battlecruisers , often modified and rebuilt from their original designs . The line between the battlecruiser and the modern fast battleship became blurred ; indeed , the Japanese " Kongō " s were formally redesignated as battleships . Plans in the aftermath of World War I . " Hood " , launched in 1918 , was the last World War I battlecruiser to be completed . Owing to lessons from Jutland , the ship was modified during construction ; the thickness of her belt armour was increased by an average of 50 percent and extended substantially , she was given heavier deck armour , and the protection of her magazines was improved to guard against the ignition of ammunition . This was hoped to be capable of resisting her own weapons — the classic measure of a " balanced " battleship . " Hood " was the largest ship in the Royal Navy when completed ; thanks to her great displacement , in theory she combined the firepower and armour of a battleship with the speed of a battlecruiser , causing some to refer to her as a fast battleship . However her protection was markedly less than that of the British battleships built immediately after World War I , the . The navies of Japan and the United States , not being affected immediately by the war , had time to develop new heavy guns for their latest designs and to refine their battlecruiser designs in light of combat experience in Europe . The Imperial Japanese Navy began four s . These vessels would have been of unprecedented size and power , as fast and well armoured as " Hood " whilst carrying a main battery of ten 16 - inch guns , the most powerful armament ever proposed for a battlecruiser . They were , for all intents and purposes , fast battleships — the only differences between them and the s which were to precede them were less side armour and a increase in speed . The United States Navy , which had worked on its battlecruiser designs since 1913 and watched the latest developments in this class with great care , responded with the . If completed as planned , they would have been exceptionally fast and well armed with eight 16 - inch guns , but carried armour little better than the " Invincible " s — this after an increase in protection following Jutland . The final stage in the post - war battlecruiser race came with the British response to the " Amagi " and " Lexington " types : four G3 battlecruiser s . Royal Navy documents of the period often described any battleship with a speed of over about as a battlecruiser , regardless of the amount of protective armour , although the G3 was considered by most to be a well - balanced fast battleship . The Washington Naval Treaty meant that none of these designs came to fruition . Ships that had been started were either broken up on the slipway or converted to aircraft carriers . In Japan , " Amagi " and were selected for conversion . " Amagi " was damaged beyond repair by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and was broken up for scrap ; the hull of one of the proposed " Tosa " - class battleships , , was converted in her stead . The United States Navy also converted two battlecruiser hulls into aircraft carriers in the wake of the Washington Treaty : and , although this was only considered marginally preferable to scrapping the hulls outright ( the remaining four : " Constellation " , " Ranger " , " Constitution " and " United States " were scrapped ) . In Britain , Fisher ' s " large light cruisers , " were converted to carriers . " Furious " had already been partially converted during the war and " Glorious " and " Courageous " were similarly converted . Rebuilding programmes . In total , nine battlecruisers survived the Washington Naval Treaty , although HMS " Tiger " later became a victim of the London Naval Conference of 1930 and was scrapped . Because their high speed made them valuable surface units in spite of their weaknesses , most of these ships were significantly updated before World War II . and were modernized significantly in the 1920s and 1930s . Between 1934 and 1936 , " Repulse " was partially modernized and had her bridge modified , an aircraft hangar , catapult and new gunnery equipment added and her anti - aircraft armament increased . " Renown " underwent a more thorough reconstruction between 1937 and 1939 . Her deck armour was increased , new turbines and boilers were fitted , an aircraft hangar and catapult added and she was completely rearmed aside from the main guns which had their elevation increased to + 30 degrees . The bridge structure was also removed and a large bridge similar to that used in the battleships installed in its place . While conversions of this kind generally added weight to the vessel , " Renown " s tonnage actually decreased due to a substantially lighter power plant . Similar thorough rebuildings planned for " Repulse " and " Hood " were cancelled due to the advent of World War II . Unable to build new ships , the Imperial Japanese Navy also chose to improve its existing battlecruisers of the " Kongō " class ( initially the , , and — the only later as it had been disarmed under the terms of the Washington treaty ) in two substantial reconstructions ( one for " Hiei " ) . During the first of these , elevation of their main guns was increased to + 40 degrees , anti - torpedo bulges and of horizontal armour added , and a " pagoda " mast with additional command positions built up . This reduced the ships ' speed to . The second reconstruction focused on speed as they had been selected as fast escorts for aircraft carrier task forces . Completely new main engines , a reduced number of boilers and an increase in hull length by allowed them to reach up to 30 knots once again . They were reclassified as " fast battleships , " although their armour and guns still fell short compared to surviving World War I – era battleships in the American or the British navies , with dire consequences during the Pacific War , when " Hiei " and " Kirishima " were easily crippled by US gunfire during actions off Guadalcanal , forcing their scuttling shortly afterwards . Perhaps most tellingly , " Hiei " was crippled by medium - caliber gunfire from heavy and light cruisers in a close - range night engagement . There were two exceptions : Turkey ' s " Yavuz Sultan Selim " and the Royal Navy ' s " Hood " . The Turkish Navy made only minor improvements to the ship in the interwar period , which primarily focused on repairing wartime damage and the installation of new fire control systems and anti - aircraft batteries . " Hood " was in constant service with the fleet and could not be withdrawn for an extended reconstruction . She received minor improvements over the course of the 1930s , including modern fire control systems , increased numbers of anti - aircraft guns , and in March 1941 , radar . Naval rearmament . In the late 1930s navies began to build capital ships again , and during this period a number of large commerce raiders and small , fast battleships were built that are sometimes referred to as battlecruisers . Germany and Russia designed new battlecruisers during this period , though only the latter laid down two of the 35 , 000 - ton . They were still on the slipways when the Germans invaded in 1941 and construction was suspended . Both ships were scrapped after the war . The Germans planned three battlecruisers of the as part of the expansion of the Kriegsmarine ( Plan Z ) . With six 15 - inch guns , high speed , excellent range , but very thin armour , they were intended as commerce raiders . Only one was ordered shortly before World War II ; no work was ever done on it . No names were assigned , and they were known by their contract names : ' O ' , ' P ' , and ' Q ' . The new class was not universally welcomed in the Kriegsmarine . Their abnormally - light protection gained it the derogatory nickname " Ohne Panzer Quatsch " ( without armour nonsense ) within certain circles of the Navy . World War II . The Royal Navy deployed some of its battlecruisers during the Norwegian Campaign in April 1940 . The and the were engaged during the Action off Lofoten by " Renown " in very bad weather and disengaged after " Gneisenau " was damaged . One of " Renown " s 15 - inch shells passed through " Gneisenau " s director - control tower without exploding , severing electrical and communication cables as it went and destroyed the rangefinders for the forward 150 mm ( 5 . 9 in ) turrets . Main - battery fire control had to be shifted aft due to the loss of electrical power . Another shell from " Renown " knocked out " Gneisenau " s aft turret . The British ship was struck twice by German shells that failed to inflict any significant damage . She was the only modernized battlecruiser to survive the war . In the early years of the war various German ships had a measure of success hunting merchant ships in the Atlantic . Allied battlecruisers such as " Renown " , " Repulse " , and the fast battleships " Dunkerque " and were employed on operations to hunt down the commerce - raiding German ships , but they never got close to their targets . The one stand - up fight occurred when the battleship and the heavy cruiser sortie d into the North Atlantic to attack British shipping and were intercepted by " Hood " and the battleship in May 1941 in the Battle of the Denmark Strait . The elderly British battlecruiser was no match for the modern German battleship : within minutes , the " Bismarck " s 15 - inch shells caused a magazine explosion in " Hood " reminiscent of the Battle of Jutland . Only three men survived . The first battlecruiser to see action in the Pacific War was " Repulse " when she was sunk by Japanese torpedo bomber s north of Singapore on 10 December 1941 whilst in company with " Prince of Wales " . She was lightly damaged by a single bomb and near - missed by two others in the first Japanese attack . Her speed and agility enabled her avoid the other attacks by level bombers and dodge 33 torpedoes . The last group of torpedo bombers attacked from multiple directions and " Repulse " was struck by five torpedoes . She quickly capsized with the loss of 27 officers and 486 crewmen ; 42 officers and 754 enlisted men were rescued by the escorting destroyers . The loss of " Repulse " and " Prince of Wales " conclusively proved the vulnerability of capital ships to aircraft without air cover of their own . The Japanese " Kongō " - class battlecruisers were extensively used as carrier escorts for most of their wartime career due to their high speed . Their World War I - era armament was weaker and their upgraded armour was still thin compared to contemporary battleships . On 13 November 1942 , during the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal , " Hiei " stumbled across American cruisers and destroyers at point - blank range . The ship was badly damaged in the encounter and had to be towed by her sister ship " Kirishima " . Both were spotted by American aircraft the following morning and " Kirishima " was forced to cast off her tow because of repeated aerial attacks . " Hiei " s captain ordered her crew to abandon ship after further damage and scuttled " Hiei " in the early evening of 14 November . On the night of 14 / 15 November during the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal , " Kirishima " returned to Ironbottom Sound , but encountered the American battleships and . While failing to detect " Washington " , " Kirishima " engaged " South Dakota " with some effect . " Washington " opened fire a few minutes later at short range and badly damaged " Kirishima " , knocking out her aft turrets , jamming her rudder , and hitting the ship below the waterline . The flooding proved to be uncontrollable and " Kirishima " capsized three and a half hours later . Returning to Japan after the Battle of Leyte Gulf , " Kongō " was torpedoed and sunk by the American submarine on 21 November 1944 . " Haruna " was moored at Kure , Japan when the naval base was attacked by British and American carrier aircraft on 24 and 28 July . The ship was only lightly damaged by a single bomb hit on 24 July , but was hit a dozen more times on 28 July and sank at her pier . She was refloated after the war and scrapped in early 1946 . Large cruisers or " cruiser killers " . A late renaissance in popularity of ships between battleships and cruisers in size occurred on the eve of World War II . Described by some as battlecruisers , but never classified as capital ships , they were variously described as " super cruisers " , " large cruisers " or even " unrestricted cruisers " . The Dutch , American , and Japanese navies all planned these new classes specifically to counter the heavy cruisers , or their counterparts , being built by their naval rivals . The first such battlecruisers were the Dutch Design 1047 , desired to protect their colonies in the East Indies in the face of Japanese aggression . Never officially assigned names , these ships were designed with German and Italian assistance . While they broadly resembled the German " Scharnhorst " class and had the same main battery , they would have been more lightly armoured and only protected against eight - inch gunfire . Although the design was mostly completed , work on the vessels never commenced as the Germans overran the Netherlands in May 1940 . The first ship would have been laid down in June of that year . The only class of these late battlecruisers actually built were the United States Navy ' s " large cruisers " . Two of them were completed , and ; a third , , was cancelled while under construction and three others , to be named " Philippines " , " Puerto Rico " and " Samoa " , were cancelled before they were laid down . They were classified as " large cruisers " instead of battlecruisers , and their status as non - capital ships evidenced by their being named for territories or protectorates . ( Battleships , in contrast , were named after states and cruisers after cities ) . With a main armament of nine 12 - inch guns in three triple turrets and a displacement of , the " Alaska " s were twice the size of s and had guns some 50 % larger in diameter . They lacked the thick armoured belt and intricate torpedo defence system of true capital ships . However , unlike most battlecruisers , they were considered a balanced design according to cruiser standards as their protection could withstand fire from their own caliber of gun , albeit only in a very narrow range band . They were designed to hunt down Japanese heavy cruisers , though by the time they entered service most Japanese cruisers had been sunk by American aircraft or submarines . Like the contemporary fast battleships , their speed ultimately made them more useful as carrier escorts and bombardment ships than as the surface combatants they were developed to be . The Japanese started designing the B64 class , which was similar to the " Alaska " but with guns . News of the " Alaska " s led them to upgrade the design , creating the B65 . Armed with 356 mm guns , the B65 ' s would have been the best armed of the new breed of battlecruisers , but they still would have had only sufficient protection to keep out eight - inch shells . Much like the Dutch , the Japanese got as far as completing the design for the B65s , but never laid them down . By the time the designs were ready the Japanese Navy recognized that they had little use for the vessels and that their priority for construction should lie with aircraft carriers . Like the " Alaska " s , the Japanese did not call these ships battlecruisers , referring to them instead as super - heavy cruisers . Cold War - era designs . In spite of the fact that after World War II , most navies abandoned the battleship and battlecruiser concepts , Joseph Stalin ' s fondness for big - gun - armed warships caused the Soviet Union to plan a large cruiser class in the late 1940s . In the Soviet Union they were termed " heavy cruisers " ( " tjazholyj krejser " ) . The fruits of this program were the Project 82 ( " Stalingrad " ) cruisers , of standard load , nine 305 mm guns and a speed of . Three ships were laid down in 1951 – 52 , but they were cancelled in April 1953 after Stalin ' s death . Only the central armoured hull section of the first ship , " Stalingrad " , was launched in 1954 and then used as a target . The Soviet is sometimes referenced as a battlecruiser . This classification arises from their over displacement , which is roughly equal to that of a First World War battleship and more than twice the displacement of contemporary cruisers . The " Kirov " class lacks the armour that distinguishes battlecruisers from ordinary cruisers and they are classified as " Tyazholyy Atomnyy Raketny Kreyser " ( Heavy Nuclear - powered Missile Cruiser ) by Russia . Four members of the class were completed during the 1980s and 1990s , but due to budget constraints only the is operational with the Russian Navy , though plans have been announced to return the other three ships to service .