Dummy R-class battleships exploit German risk

The R class was a convincing decoy choice because an older capital ship might plausibly be assigned to convoy work, whereas a more prestigious unit would be harder to believe. A German raider might defeat an R-class battleship, but damage could expose it to the much larger British fleet. Britain could call on roughly sixteen capital ships, compared with only four German counterparts, so equal losses carried very different strategic costs. Britain could absorb a one-for-one exchange far more readily than Germany. Uncertainty over whether the apparent battleship was real therefore imposed disproportionate caution on German deployments.