Naval Historywith Dr. Alex

Q&A · 3:45:43-3:47:35

Why the Royal Navy called Vanguard a fully armored battlecruiser

Vanguard carried full armor coverage but retained enough battlecruiser design ancestry and subdivision practice for the Royal Navy to distinguish her from its fast battleships.

BattlecruisersFast BattleshipsHMS VanguardNaval DoctrineRoyal NavyWarship Design
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Question

Was HMS Vanguard a fast battleship or a fully armored battlecruiser?

Short answer

The Royal Navy treated her as a fully armored battlecruiser because her protected battlecruiser-derived design and subdivision differed from its purpose-built fast battleships.

Notes

Vanguard sits just on the battlecruiser side of a narrow classification boundary. Her designers began from a battlecruiser-like concept and increased armor coverage, producing the phrase fully armored battlecruiser. The ship did not share every subdivision characteristic associated with purpose-built fast battleships such as the King George V and Lion classes. The distinction is doctrinal and somewhat pedantic, but it reflects how the Royal Navy intended different capital-ship types to operate rather than denying Vanguard's substantial protection.