The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attributes.

They include battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and corvettes. Aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, and mine hunters are not considered surface combatants.

The United States Navy began building a series of battlecruisers in the 1920s, more than a decade after their slower and less heavily armed armored cruisers had been rendered obsolete by the Royal Navy's Invincible-class battlecruisers. Construction of these ships was abandoned under the terms of an armaments limitation treaty, though two were completed as aircraft carriers.

One of the most hotly debated ship types in the United States Navy was the battlecruiser. Other navies had them in service or under construction - should the United States follow suit?

Just like their earlier sisters in the First World War, the battlecruisers of all nations would work harder, steam farther, fight more often, and take more casualties than their battleship contemporaries in World War II. The battlecruiser story started with the British, so it seems only fair to examine their World War II battlecruisers first.

2020年1月23日 · Why did the US Navy want them? Until then, US capital ship construction had focused on battleships with excellent fire-power and armour protection, but only modest speed. However, the idea of an American battlecruiser had been floating around for years.

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 list of battlecruiser classes includes all battlecruisers listed in chronological order by commission. Classes which did not enter service are listed by the date of cancellation or last work on the project.

A British naval development, Battlecruisers were championed by Admiral Fisher of the British Navy as an attempt to mate the destructive firepower of the Dreadnought battleship with the speed of a cruiser.

Korvettenkapitan Vollerthun succinctly summed up the differences between Royal Navy and Imperial Navy battle cruisers by terming the British ships “battleship-cruisers” and the German ships “cruiser-battleships”—indeed a farsighted and prophetic characterization.