Armored cruisers are often judged through the Battle of Coronel and other wartime losses. Designers then concentrated on battlecruisers for several years, interrupting armored-cruiser development. When navies might have returned to a new generation, the Washington Naval Treaty changed the design environment again. The resulting gap made the type look like a failed dead end rather than a line whose development had been interrupted.
Notable Point · 2:40:00-2:40:59
Why armored cruisers inherited a poor reputation
Coronel, the diversion of design attention toward battlecruisers and the Washington Treaty combined to make armored cruisers look like a failed dead end.