List of battlecruisers

During the first half of the 20th century, many navies constructed or planned to build battlecruisers: large capital ships with greater speed but less armor than dreadnought battleships.

The first battlecruisers, the Invincible class, were championed by the British First Sea Lord John Fisher and appeared in 1908, two years after the revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought.

[3] Other nations joined them: HMAS Australia entered service for the Royal Australian Navy in 1913,[4] Japan constructed four ships of the Kongō class from 1911 through 1915,[5] and in late 1912 Russia laid down the four Borodino-class battlecruisers, though they were never completed.

In the postwar drawdown of forces, Renown and the two Alaskas were withdrawn from service and eventually scrapped;[18][21] Only Yavuz Sultan Selim, the last surviving battlecruiser in the world, lingered on until the early 1970s, when she too was sent to the shipbreakers.

[22] However, in the 1970s, the Soviet Union began the construction of a class of very large guided missile cruisers, much larger than any other surface combatant[N 1] built since the Second World War.

This new type, the Kirov-class, although designated as a "heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser" by the Soviet Navy, was generally referred to in the West as a "battlecruiser".