Battlecruisers for global trade pressure

German large cruisers were expected to support an understrength battle line by occupying enemy battleships long enough for German battleships to win their own contests. It was a brutal bargain: the cruisers might be lost, but their sacrifice could stop enemy ships from concentrating. Britain had enough battleships to give its battlecruisers a different job across a global empire. Fast, heavily armed ships could protect trade routes, show the flag, overmatch regional fleets, and threaten an opponent's commerce. Their existence alone could force an enemy to scatter battleships among convoys instead of concentrating them against the Grand Fleet. The shared battlecruiser label concealed different national strategies and force-structure assumptions, and British ships ran into trouble when used outside the role for which they had been designed.