Shipbucket

What are the many advantages that you claim this has over the Lion? I don't think extra manoeuvrability is going to count for much in 1909. Most battles were conducting in line of battle. And you also don't want to be turning too much because it'll throw your firing solution off (see the RN ending up firing second after making a big turn at the battle of Jutland).

The big advantage over Lion is that it will cost much less, so that more can be built, and used for tasks for which Lion cannot be risked.
Ship-to-ship single combat is not what navies are for. Of course, if you want to fight Lion 1-to-1, this ship won't do. Remember Blucher.

I think you're right, if I were a commander and I had a proper battlecruiser and this for a risky mission close to the enemy coast I'd go for the Surigao like night follows day. But on the flip side it costs more than a contemporary armoured cruiser, by a fair wedge, so you might be tempted to send a squadron of them instead of a couple of these. I also think that it might give a smaller navy a foot in the door to the battlecruiser club. If Italy had gotten hold of a few of them it might well have made things in the Med very interesting. I think their strength vs 1st gen battlecruisers might cause a few headaches to. The one issue I have is I know that if I was playing against the thing in a Victory at Sea campaign or similar I'd always be doing my best to hunt the thing down with a proper battlecruiser (or a whole squadron of them) so it might not get a chance to do its bushwhacking armoured cruisers party piece. One final thought though, if Smurfania went to war with...pretty much anyone this thing would be an utterly lethal commerce raider.

As Smurfania is at war, one or two thoughts:
I agree entirely that Surigao would be an excellent commerce raider, so long as she carries enough fuel.
With money tight, Jellicoe wanted 4x2 9.2in cruisers in 1907/08, (about 15,000tons, 25knots, to kill armoured cruisers) but von der Tann appeared and Indefatigable was built.
"Battlecruisers wound up getting their teeth kicked in by real battleships whenever they encountered them"
I think you have to wait for Bismarck to kill Hood at very long range for a British battlecruiser to be sunk by a battleship. The QE's had 15in guns firing 1900lb shells, which would give battleships a hard time, though German battlecruisers were better protected than RN battlecruisers. That said, the Jutland disasters to three RN battlecruisers were at the hands of German battlecruisers, not battleships, and their magazine explosions were all more likely due to unsafe ammunition handling with exposed cordite ready in ammunition passages to increase rate of fire, set off by hits on turrets rather than hits penetrating magazines. That was reported but rather hushed up at the time. Lion survived a similar hit by prompt closing of doors and magazine flooding.

this is a really good work by you .... well done

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Graduated from Soran University with First Class Degree with Honours in Computer Science

I predict a golden comment, bellow this post...