battlecruiser
This page is about an early 20th century warship type with rather a explosive reputation, for spaceship appearing in Starcraft games go to battlecruiser.
A capital ship with the armament of a battleship while possessing the armor and speed of a cruiser. Originally an evolution of the armored cruiser, later ones morphed into fast battleships for all intents and purposes. The definition of battlecruiser can be somewhat murky as multiple different nations built/designed them and they all had different ideas of what they should be, so depending on your definition, all, some, or none of the following ships might be battlecruisers:
- HMS Hood (argued by some to be a proto-fast battleship)
- USS Iowa BB-61 (the logic being that if Hood was a battlecruiser even though she was basically just a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship but 7 knots faster and significantly heavier&longer to mount all that extra machinery, then Iowa which basically is just a South Dakota-class battleship but 6 knots faster and significantly heavier&longer to mount all that extra machinery, must also be a battlecruiser)
- Dunkerque and Scharnhorst-class small battleships (fast, mounted relatively small capital ship guns, more suited for raiding and dealing with enemy cruisers than for battle line)
- British G3-class battlecruisers (classified as battlecruisers by the Royal Navy but mounted 9 16" guns and were more heavily armored than any non-British battleship in service, under construction or under design before the whole class was cancelled thanks to the Washington Naval Treaty)
- USS Alaska CB-1 (super-heavy cruiser armed with 12" guns meant to counter Axis heavy cruisers)
- Kirov-class nuclear missile cruisers (super-sized guided missile cruisers built and operated by the Soviets&Russians)
- Yamato-class battleships (Royal Navy's definition of battlecruiser during 20s and early to mid-30s was: a gun armed capital ship capable of making 25 knots or more, the 27 knot Yamatos fit this definition of battlecruiser perfectly)