pbA new history of the large, fast and long-ranged armored cruisers of the US Navy, and the roles that these warships played in the fleet as America developed into a great naval power.b pAt the dawn of the Steel Navy era, the rapidly expanding US Navy's fleet of capital ships consisted not only of battleships but also armoured cruisers, the forerunner of the battlecruiser. Armoured cruisers sacrificed the battleship's superlative firepower and protection for superior speed and range but, as this study shows, their role was not always easy to define. Controversial because they were as large and expensive as battleships but not able to withstand a battleship in battle, contemporary strategists pointed out that, naval wars are not won by running away from stronger ships. pDespite the US Navy producing them at great expense, tactically they never really had a legitimate mission-traditional deployments were commerce raiding and protection, but this role was minimal. After 1906, some replace