How armoured frigates helped create the cruiser category

HMS Warrior retained the frigate form but possessed the armour, firepower, speed, and manoeuvrability of a battleship for her era. That made such ships too valuable and expensive for routine worldwide employment, creating space for a separate cruiser category. Cruisers then developed from smaller Victorian ships into powerful twentieth-century vessels that still remained below battleships in the combat hierarchy. Even when cruisers fought in fleet actions, their guns and protection did not make them substitutes for the line of battle. If cruiser-sized ships met a battleship, the realistic answer was a collective torpedo attack and fire against exposed systems rather than gunnery equality.