Talk:Spring 2015 Event/@comment-24702213-20150403010025/@comment-25459687-20150403114742

"Capital ship originally referred to what we now call cruisers." I'm not sure where even to start with this, there are so many things wrong with this post.

The age of sail equivalent to cruisers would be frigates, fast ships designed to scout for the enemy. Ships of the line were the main battle force, this became "line of battle ships" and then "battleships."

Armoured cruisers were obsolete by WWI, the type could be used in the line of battle but had been superceded by the all-big-gun Dreadnaught class battleships. Pre-WWI, cruisers had evolved into the fast scouting/raiding/screening role that they occupied in WWII.

Capital ships in WWII terms were Battleships, battlecruisers, and fleet carriers, as defined by the various Treatys.