rendered
the battleship and battle cruiser obsolete.

Another lesson of the war has resulted from the fact that
practically all of the important operations on the British side have
been conducted by battle cruisers, not by battleships. It is not to
be understood from this that the battleship has been discredited,
for such is not the case. The fleet to which reference has already
been made as holding the gates of the North Sea and "containing" the
German fleet behind the fortifications of Helgoland is made up
principally of battleships, and it is largely because they have been
engaged in this important duty that the few opportunities which the
war has offered for active service have fallen to the lot of battle
cruisers. But there are other reasons for this which spring from the
nature of the battle cruiser itself and inhere in the difference
between this type and the battleship. In size the types are
practically identical, and in power of armament the difference is
not great. But the battle cruiser sacrifices much of the armor by
which the battleship is weighted down, and purchases by this
sacrifice a great increase in speed. The typical battleship of
to-day has some 14 inches of armor on the side; the battle cruiser,
from 5 to 9 inches. The battleship has 22 knots speed, the battle
cruiser 32 knots. There has been much discussion as to the relative
merits of the two types, and conservative officers have been slow to
accept the battle cruiser. The war has shown the necessity for both
types, and no better illustration of their relative merits could be
wished than that which is afforded by the spectacle of the
battleships engaged in what is practically a blockade of the German
fleet, while the battle cruisers have swept the German raiders, the
_Scharnhorst_, _Gneisenau_, and their consorts, from the distant
seas which were the chosen field of their operations. Following the
destruction of Admiral Cradock's little squadron by the faster and
more heavily armed _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, the British
admiralty dispatched a squadron of battle cruisers to run down the
German ships, and in the battle off the Falkland Islands the history
of Coronel was repeated with a change of sides, the fast and heavily
armed battle cruisers under Admiral Sturdee making short work of the
German ships, which they overmatched in speed and range as
decisively as the Germans had overmatched the ships of Admiral
Cradock's squadron at Coronel.