Fictional capital military spacecraft (frequently called space battleships, space cruisers) are spacefaring warships most often found in science fiction, which play similar roles to contemporary warships, though real spacecraft are used for military purposes.[1] They may fight slow-paced battles across vast distances with long range guided weapons, never attaining visual contact,[2] or fast-paced, relatively close range combat with unguided weapons and combat maneuvering.[3]
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In addition to various military science fiction-typical parallels derived from historic and existing naval customs and technologies, fictional space battleships also often have some specific sea warfare battleship parallels, especially to those used in World War I and World War II:
In science fiction, the meaning of the word "battlecruiser" is generally somewhat different from the historical warship of the same name. Usually it denotes a spaceship more comparable to the fast battleships of World War II: A large, fast and tough vessel with both high firepower and enough protection to dish out and take considerable amounts of damage (unlike the battlecruisers of World War I, which proved to have 'glass jaws'). However, in the Honorverse, the battlecruisers are more like the historical version, or the Alaska class cruisers which the United States deployed during World War II.