Shortround6
Major General
Yes, no, maybe?Hunting down and killing cruisers is a battlecruiser function.
SMS Emden
about 4,000 tons depending on load, 10 X 4.1in guns, 23.5 kts (in good condition)
Arguably German's most successful cruiser raider of WW I.
There was sort of a hierarchy going on. Light cruisers (3rd class?) were supposed to be hunted down by 2nd class cruisers. Light and 2nd class were supposed to be hunted down by 1st class protected and/or armored cruisers.
Battlecruisers were supposed to hunt down the big cruisers.
But just like modern times, everything kept growing. And just like cell phones advance today, propulsion systems and other things changed at very fast rates in the decades from the late 1800s to the end of WW II.
A 1908 light cruiser (3rd class) was as big as a 1892 2nd class cruiser, and faster, and had better guns (1892 was just seeing the introduction of smokeless powder).
At the end of WW II the US was laying down 3 big cruisers, the Des Moines class. They had been ordered in 1943.
almost 21,000 tons with full fuel.
A good part of her size was the fast semi-automatic 8in guns that could fire 10 rounds per minute. The guns had a max range of 17 miles and with the radar fire control they would have been very formidable opponents for any ship.
A "Battle cruiser" was no longer required to take out enemy cruisers.
Of course planes were doing a pretty good job of that anyway and after 1945 there weren't very many people building cruisers either.
However in 1930s when battleship construction began again the WW I "battlecruiser" was long dead. It had been dying even at the beginning of WW I (1912-14), until Jackie Fisher beat on it's chest and did CPR on it (and he should have let it go peacefully) By the 1930s the fast battleship had taken over. I don't believe anybody made a modern Battleship of less that 27kts and some of the modern "battlecruisers" were more like 2nd class fast battleships that the 1906-1909 Battlecruisers.
Of course as there were only 4 (7 if you count the Deutschland and sisters) before the the Alaskas show up it is a bit hard to generalize. The 1930s ships also had treaty restrictions and political considerations and were not totally governed by military needs and budgets.