F2 offered six 15-inch guns and about 30 knots, while F3 paired nine heavy guns with slightly lower speed. In this classification, both belong to the Royal Navy's fully armored battlecruiser lineage: ships with battlecruiser-style internal subdivision but protection far beyond lightly armored speed specialists. Their ancestry runs through Tiger and G3 rather than the compromised post-Jutland development of Hood. The deciding classification feature is therefore the combination of armor coverage and subdivision throughout the hull, not belt thickness alone.
Chapter · 20:20-26:53
F2 and F3 as fully armored battlecruisers
The F2 and F3 alternatives sit near the boundary between battlecruiser and fast battleship, combining high speed with serious armor.