Fisher's two-gun battlecruiser design problem

Furious was intended to carry two single 18-inch guns at opposite ends of a lightly protected hull. She could not safely close to point-blank range because her armor and gun-handling characteristics were unsuited to a close fight, yet widely separated single guns were poor tools for long-range ranging salvos. The study behind Renown and Repulse treated six guns as the practical minimum for reliable ranging. In this reconstruction, the available 18-inch weapons and six-gun studies point toward Fisher's late-war decisions and the cancelled battleship program around Agincourt. The damage Furious suffered when firing even her one installed heavy gun further illustrates how badly the armament and hull were matched.