Look up the Alaska and Lexington classes, they were designed for scouting and convoy interception. Even the British and American navies could not be everywhere at once. In both world wars the Royal navy was pinned down by their need to protect england from a powerful German navy, leaving the fleet weak across the rest of the world. Hense the fear of the Bismark. Had the Bismark made it into open ocean, the only opposition the RN could have offered would have been from the destroyers and scattered cruisers in the atlantic, as the main fleet was kept in England to protect the shores from the percieved German threat. Battlecruisers were designed to operate seperate from the rest of the battle fleet and to provide the projected power of which you speak, to hunt down enemy vessels away from the blockaded area, and to force the enemy to waste assets away from the friendly fleet, aiding in improving superiority of firepower for the battle line.
|