Battlecruisers - Warships of Naval History

Outfitted like battleships, Battlecruisers were purposely-designed to maintain the speed of traditional cruisers at the expense of armor protection.

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. The resulting design did not prove cohesive enough to warrant a new naval revolution and only the British, Japanese, and Germans went on to adopt such warships. Despite their generally flawed concept, several of the type did go on to find successes in the various wars of the 20th Century.

There are a total of 11 Battlecruisers - Warships of Naval History in the Military Factory. Entries are listed below in alphanumeric order (1-to-Z). Flag images indicative of country of origin and not necessarily the primary operator.

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Thumbnail picture of the HMAS Australia (1911)

HMAS Australia (1911)
HMAS Australia served the Royal Australian Navy during World War 1, being decommissioned in 1921.

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Thumbnail picture of the HMS Hood (51)

HMS Hood (51)
HMS Hood was lost to action against the fabled KMS Bismarck battleship on May 24th, 1941, in the Battle of Denmark Strait.

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Thumbnail picture of the HMS Indefatigable

HMS Indefatigable
HMS Indefatigable was lost during the Battle of Jutland - the largest naval engagement of World War 1.

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Thumbnail picture of the HMS Tiger

HMS Tiger
HMS Tiger took part in the famous naval battles of World War 1 - the Battle of Dogger Bank and the Battle of Jutland.

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Thumbnail picture of the IJN Kirishima

IJN Kirishima
Introduced as a battlecruiser in 1915, IJN Kirishima was modified into battleship form during the late 1920s and, again, in the mid-1930s.

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Thumbnail picture of the IJN Kongo

IJN Kongo
The IJN Kongo was sunk by the USS Sealion in 1944, marking the last time a battleship was sunk by a submarine in naval history.

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Thumbnail picture of the IJN Tsukuba

IJN Tsukuba
IJN Tsukuba was ordered by the IJN to replace Japanese naval losses in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 - it saw service in World War 1.

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Thumbnail picture of the KMS Scharnhorst

KMS Scharnhorst
The Scharnhorst battlecruiser managed to evade Allies in World War 2 until her luck ran out on December 26th, 1943.

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Thumbnail picture of the Pyotr Velikiy (Yuri Andropov)

Pyotr Velikiy (Yuri Andropov)
Despite her Cold War-era origins, Pyotr Velikiy remains a powerful warship by modern standards with over 700 crew, missile armament and helicopter support facilities.

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Thumbnail picture of the SMS Goeben (Yavuz Sultan Selim)

SMS Goeben (Yavuz Sultan Selim)
The SMS Goeben - having been transferred to the Ottoman Empire in 1914 - survived all of World War 1 and World War 2 only to be scrapped in 1973.

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Thumbnail picture of the SMS Moltke

SMS Moltke
The SMS Moltke took part in the Battle of Dogger Bank and the Battle of Jutland concerning World War 1 - she was scuttled during the German surrender.