Wikipedia:Today's featured list/December 1, 2023
The first three battlecruisers of the Royal Navy were laid down while the world's first "all big gun" warship, HMS Dreadnought, was being built in 1906. The battlecruiser was the brainchild of Admiral Sir John ("Jacky") Fisher, the man who had sponsored the construction of the Dreadnought. He visualised a new breed of warship with the armament of a battleship, but faster, lighter, and less heavily armoured. This design philosophy was most successful in action when the battlecruisers could use their speed to run down smaller and weaker ships. The best example is the Battle of the Falkland Islands where Invincible and Inflexible sank the German armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau almost without damage to themselves, despite numerous hits by the German ships. They were less successful against heavily armoured ships, as was demonstrated by the loss of Invincible, Indefatigable, and Queen Mary during the Battle of Jutland in 1916. (Full list...)