Repulse was conceived as a global economic-warfare battlecruiser

Repulse's classification affects how her place in Force Z is understood. Her original purpose was global scouting and economic warfare, closer to the Lexington concept and Fisher's Invincible and Indefatigable classes than to a conventional fast capital ship. Later modernization improved the ship without erasing that design ancestry. This distinction separates the historical battlecruiser mission from the loose habit of calling every fast capital ship a battlecruiser.