 As early as 1903 , questions arose in the Naval War College ( NWC ) about the overall effectiveness of large armored cruisers such as the Pennsylvania class and Tennessee @-@ class vessels just then coming into service . The NWC 's 1903 annual summer conference report , which included a staff memorandum on all @-@ big @-@ gun capital ships , also suggested a new type of cruiser that would be armed and armored much like a battleship . The following year , the summer conference considered tactics for a ship armed with four 12 @-@ inch ( 305 mm ) , twenty @-@ two 3 @-@ inch ( 76 mm ) guns , four submerged torpedo tubes and battleship @-@ type protection . Ships such as these were essentially Tennessee @-@ class ships in which the 6 @-@ inch ( 150 mm ) intermediate battery had been traded for heavier main guns and protection . These ships figured in the college 's studies for several years , and its 1906 summer conference report on a US building program strongly advocated the ships ' construction for use in scouting and as fast wings in a fleet action , and for their resistance to 12 @-@ inch gunfire ( much greater than the Tennessee class ) . Although the General Board and the Secretary of the Navy refused to adopt the proposed new armored cruiser , perhaps because the Navy already had 10 new armored cruisers on hand , the college continued to test the design against a variety of foreign vessels , including the British Invincible @-@ class battlecruiser . 
