Where Hood sits on the battlecruiser spectrum

Should HMS Hood be classified as a battlecruiser?

Yes; her cruiser-derived framing places her toward the cruiser side of the battlecruiser spectrum.

Hood does not fit a simple battleship-or-cruiser binary. Her cruiser-derived framing and hull structure place her toward one end of the battlecruiser spectrum. Her capital-ship armament does not erase the design ancestry visible in the rest of the hull. Battlecruiser identity therefore comes from the overall design balance rather than guns alone.