British Light Battlecruisers - WW1

In 1915 Fischer ordered the construction of three "large light cruisers" or Light Battlecruisers if you prefer. Courageous & Glorious were completed with two twin 15" turrets. Furious completed with two single 18" turrets, but then soon after lost her fore turret, but gained a flying off platform, before later being converted into an aircraft carrier. All three ended up as WW2 carriers.

The three ships are noticeably absent in the FAI ships logs, which is a shame as Courageous & Glorious with Repulse took part in the 2nd battle of Heligoland Bight, 17th Novenber 1917.

How should the ships logs of these Light Battlecruisers be designed?

On tonnage values according to the hull box pdf :-

 - are they 6 hull box BD with (BB) turrets

 - or 9 hull box CL with (BB) turrets?

Their hull armour is weak, but they are large Dreadnought era ships.

The Courageous class of "light battlecruisers" or "large light cruiser" were simply enlarged versions of the then standard C-Class light cruiser, built to the same standard.    

In game terms, they would fall into the CL class of ships with CL armor (the belt armor was only 2" to 3" with deck armor of 1" to 2").  The main battery armor was similar to the Renown class, so would be BB.  There would be no armor for the secondary battery.  No conning tower was fitted (so no CT on the log).  The hull boxes would be 9 (due to the large hull).  Top speed would be 32 knots.

^{Thanks for your response to my question. The CL classification certainly makes them very weak in game terms.}

^{On the point you mention on CT (Conning Tower) - there was one fitted and the Armour was 10" same as Repulse.}

^{If you meant to say DCT, then according to Wiki, there were two Directors for the Main Armament, and a further one for the secondary battery.}

^{https://en.wikipedia...er#Fire_control}

^{I don't have access to the two references quoted, so cannot verify the Wiki reference, but it would have been remiss not to have DCT on main batteries at this stage in the war, as the Dreadnought and Erin (not sure about Agincourt) had standard Fire control installations post Jutland.}

These ships are assumed to mount the normal director control systems common on late war construction (this would include light cruisers, so common had it become).  As for the Conning Towers; it appears there may be some contradictory sources regarding this.  That said, I would assume a CT was mounted (although its use as a command station was falling out of favor).  

As for CL rating:  In truth these ships were "White Elephants"; far too lightly built to stand against any heavy opponent (such as BBs or BCs) while far too large and valuable to stand against like armored opponents (such as CLs).   How to utilize these ships as built was an ongoing question that was never resolved.       

If you are still interested, below is a diagram from Brassey's 1923 edition showing the armor layout of the Courageous-class "large light cruisers'"
it clearly shows an armored conning tower rather better armored than their turrets.
(Note that the forward director has an armored 'hood.')

 Glorious_class_cruiser_diagram_Brasseys_1923.jpg   109.63KB   0 downloads