The Cressy class was a large British armoured cruiser with substantial guns and protection for its era. In the 1914 disaster, two cruisers stopped after the first was torpedoed and became targets themselves. Responsibility is placed primarily on the captains' decisions at the scene rather than on the ships' reservist crews or age alone. Euryalus avoided the disaster only because she had returned to port, and later found more suitable work around Suez and Gallipoli.
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The Cressy losses and the cost of stopping for survivors
The sinking of Cressy, Hogue, and Aboukir shows how a rescue impulse could become a tactical disaster under submarine threat.