A
battlecruiser, or
battle cruiser, was a large
capital ship built in the first half of the 20th century. They were similar in size and cost to a
battleship, and typically carried the same kind of heavy guns, but generally carried less armour and were faster. The first battlecruisers were designed in the
United Kingdom in the first decade of the century, as a development of the
armoured cruiser, at the same time as the
dreadnought succeeded the
pre-dreadnought battleship. The original aim of the battlecruiser was to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire. However, as more and more battlecruisers were built, they increasingly became used alongside the better-protected battleships.