Editing Protected cruiser (section)

===Britain===
{{seealso|List of cruiser classes of the Royal Navy#Protected cruisers}}
The Royal Navy rated cruisers as first, second and third class between the late 1880s and 1905, and built large numbers of them for trade protection requirements. For most of this time these cruisers were built with a "protected", rather than armoured, scheme of protection for their hulls. First-class protected cruisers were as large and as well-armed as armoured cruisers, and were built as an alternative to the large first-class armoured cruiser from the late 1880s till 1898. Second-class protected cruisers were smaller, displacing {{convert|3000|–|5,500|LT|t}} and were of value both in trade protection duties and scouting for the fleet. Third-class cruisers were smaller, lacked a [[Compartment (ship)#Watertight subdivision|watertight]] [[double bottom]], and were intended primarily for trade protection duties, though a few small cruisers were built for fleet scout roles or as "torpedo" cruisers during the "protected" era.

The introduction of [[Krupp armour]] in six-inch thickness rendered the "armoured" protection scheme more effective for the largest first class cruisers, and no large first class protected cruisers were built after 1898. The smaller cruisers unable to bear the weight of heavy armoured belts retained the "protected" scheme up to 1905, when the last units of the {{sclass|Challenger|cruiser|5}} and {{sclass|Highflyer|cruiser|4}}es were completed. There was a general hiatus in British cruiser production after this time, apart from a few classes of small, fast scout cruisers for fleet duties. When the Royal Navy began building larger cruisers (less than {{convert|4000|LT|disp=comma}}) again around 1910, they used a mix of armoured decks and/or armoured belts for protection, depending on class. These modern, turbine-powered cruisers are properly classified as [[light cruiser]]s.