Battlefleet power combines escorts with a flagship staff

HMS Warspite at the Second Battle of Narvik illustrates a capital ship working with rather than replacing its escorts. Destroyers performed much of the close fighting while the battleship supplied an overwhelming backstop that discouraged the enemy from pressing them. HMS Renown's encounter with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau provides a similar example, with the large ship reinforcing the force around it rather than acting as an isolated duelist. A flagship also needs room for intelligence, electronic-warfare, legal, logistics, engineering, medical, and political specialists. Those experts must be close enough to meet and advise immediately during operations, so command capacity is itself a reason for capital-ship volume.