Why First World War losses distort the armored cruiser's reputation

Did First World War experience prove Royal Navy armored cruisers were useless death traps?

No; their worst losses came in extreme circumstances, while the type and its Invincible-class successor could be effective in the cruiser-hunting role for which they were designed.

The losses of Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue and the defeat at Coronel dominate popular judgements of British armoured cruisers. An armoured cruiser caught under the High Seas Fleet's fire at Jutland likewise faced a situation the type was never designed to survive. Those disasters alone are poor measures of its intended task of clearing enemy cruisers and surface raiders from the sea. The early Invincibles grew from the armoured-cruiser concept with an all-big-gun layout and performed that cruiser-hunting role effectively. Treating them as an entirely separate category from their predecessors can therefore hide continuity in both design purpose and early wartime employment.