BB classification ?

[Sailor Steve]

As to actual versus rated top speed, I've not seen any of the reports you cite, but I can't argue it as I haven't seen anything to deny it either. I do know that the original BCs, the Invincible class, were claimed to have made 29 knots on a good day, but according to people who were there they were lucky to get close to their rated 26 knots, and the claims were from the Admiralty to the press to make them look good.

Displacement differences: that is true of all ships. The Design Displacement of the Iowa class was 45,000 tons. The rated Standard Displacement was around 48,000 tons, and in full battle dress they actually topped 57,000 tons.

As for the concept of the battlecruiser, it's wise to remember that when the first ones were built in 1908 they were called 'First Class Armoured Cruisers'. The 'Battlecruiser' designation wasn't given to them until the great re-rating of 1913.

I agree about their misuse at Jutland, but then so do most historians. The problem wasn't the belt armour, though; all three of the victims were seen to take turret hits, which led the experts to suspect that the blast was running down the barbette straight to the magazines. This was bolstered by the leaking of the fact that they were pinning the anti-blast doors open to facilitate faster ammo handling, due to the observed higher rate of fire from the Germans at Dogger Bank the year before. The funny part is the Germans came very close to losing one of their battlecruisers at that battle for the same reason, and had spent the following year installing automatic blast doors on all their ships.