A ship that no rival cruiser could challenge looked like a way to discourage competition and save money over time. The Death Star from Star Wars illustrates the premise of concentrating deterrence in a few powerful units. Each real ship still needed a large crew, shore infrastructure and supplies, which limited how many could be maintained on distant stations. The speed and firepower that made a ship dangerous to commerce raiders would also make it an effective raider in its own right.
Notable Point · 6:41-8:13
Why powerful battlecruisers were hard to spread worldwide
A Death Star analogy explains the appeal of a ship meant to deter challengers by its size and firepower, and the difficulty of covering global trade with such ships.