Building a battlecruiser before the dreadnought era

The second design exercise asks how far an armoured-cruiser hull can be pushed before dreadnought battlecruisers exist. The ship combines 11-inch main guns with eight 8-inch weapons on each broadside, powerful torpedoes, roughly battleship-grade protection, and a small speed advantage over the opposing pre-dreadnoughts. It becomes the exercise's pre-dreadnought equivalent of a battlecruiser, fast enough to choose an engagement and heavily armed enough to punish weaker ships. The resulting vessel still uses a cruiser hull even though its intended fighting role approaches that of a capital ship.