 Dutch intelligence believed that the Imperial Japanese Navy would deploy its capital ships (aircraft carriers and battleships) against their counterparts of the United States Navy and the British Royal Navy, leaving heavy and light cruisers, along with seaplane carriers, as the largest ships available for an advance into the East Indies.As such, the 1047s were shaped by the need to be able to fight their way through a fleet composed of these ships and smaller destroyers.It was hoped that this capability would allow the battlecruisers to act as a fleet in being.