Battlecruisers, are they worth building?

[Postertag]

Hey, I have a question: in your opinion, do you think is worth building Battlecruisers? After all, they are nearly as expensive as battleships but with less armor (although with greater speed), and serve a very specific niche (raiding and/or protecting commerce), a niche which I believe other vessels are more cost-effective (Corvettes for protection, submarines for raiding), so I don't see them at first glance as worth building. My opinion might change with community feedback, of course.

[Daikhan]

You should consider them cruiser killers, not pure raiders. There are indeed more cost effective ships for it - you can spam AMCs or build special light cruisers geared for commerce raiding (this what I prefer to do) or build submarines. A proper battlecruiser can easily engage older battleships, mop up heavy or light cruisers (just look out for torpedoes), and even catch up and annihilate carrier groups. The AI usually builds somewhat slow carriers (about 30kn) and you can easily build decent 33-34kn battlecruisers. Though the can be quite expensive. And if you meet an actual carrier group escorted by battleships, you can always escape, Just don't forget to give your BCs good escorts with decent AA capabilities and/or fighter escort

[Pritswalk]

Absolutely. Up to date BC are amazing at farming "Cruiser" battles, also once you reach 15" guns with AP tech the difference between an inch or 2 of belt/deck isnt that amazing.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

BCs do a good job of protecting your merchants from enemy cruisers, they also can participate in cruiser battles where they will typically be the biggest things around. Also if you are ahead of the AI you can save money by building BCs instead of BBs and still have the performance you need.

[Silamon]

Battlecruisers pretty much replace heavy cruisers for like 10-20 years.

From the point dreadnoughts and battlecruisers are available, I tend to build a class of dreadnought then a class of battlecruiser, and whatever else I can fit into the budget like dds and cls.

I keep that going up until the point that fleet carriers are available then it changes a bit, I don't build as many battleships. at that point I start building more CAs for heavy AA duty and carriers, along with the occasional fast battleship.

[ulzgoroth]

Yeah, if you don't have battlecruisers, the AI will bring battlecruisers to all the cruiser battles and you won't have anything that can stand up to them.

[Night]

It is honestly more important most of the time to have a good battlecruiser game than to have a solid battle line. In almost any circumstance but full fleet actions they will be more likely to turn up.

[MAD-3R_Marauder]

The battle-generator _loves_ cruiser engagements - and BC qualify for those.

Which, of course, means that your BCs will see combat almost every month whereas your battle-line will be lucky to see combat twice a year.

[ulzgoroth]

Though, counterpoint to that, my numerous battle line were the main stars of the one rainy day where France sunk the flower of the British home fleet (5 dreadnoughts and 4 battlecruisers, mostly big modern ones, sunk at the cost of one battlecruiser)...and other dramatic victories.

Engagements with battleships, especially in large numbers, are fairly rare, but you can win the entire war with one. They're also more cost effective for their blockade strength than first-rate battlecruisers.