Shire Class Armoured Cruiser

Shire Class Summary
The Shire class was a very large armoured cruiser that served as the main British battleline unit in the Pre-Dreadnought Era, that was designed to replace the pre-dreadnought in front line combat roles. It had fast firing 8" guns and 30 6" guns (15 guns per broadside), meaning this class could easily take on other smaller armoured cruisers and could take on enemy pre-dreadnought, when having a slight numbers advantage. It was able to do this because of its thick 8.5" armour belt and 3" deck, using the sloped deck armour scheme. This meant the ship could get into close combat with 12" armed vessels. It also had a very good top speed of 22 knots but with only normal engines, sustaining this speed could drop the top speed to 20 knots if the ship went 22 knots for a long time.

The main downside of the class was its cost, which was _______. This is more expensive than the Rodney class pre-dreadnought. Fleet Admiral Requis said this was a necessary sacrifice as he stated in an interview when the Devonshire was being commissioned,

"We must think of the future. These ships will last 15, maybe 20 years whilst I see pre-dreadnought being obsolescent within the next 3 or 4 years."

Other naval officials were against this type of ship as the 8" guns wouldn't be able to penetrate thick armour belts found on foreign pre-dreadnoughts but Fleet Admiral Requis refuted by saying,

"Neither can 12" guns at the moment."

In total, ___ ships were constructed with ____ lost and ____ scrapped.