@Graingy Better suspension doesn't equal higher max speed. What it does is softening the bounce effect on uneven terrain (less energy loss by minimizing vertical motion). On smooth flat surface without any deceleration, both suspended and non-suspended vehicles horizontal max speed are the same (actually suspended one is slower due to added weight but ignore that). Also, larger track wheel diameter indeed increase max speed than smaller wheel with the same engine output. However, it has lower acceleration than smaller wheel which is still a considerable performance trade off for a tank. So, it's still not a close comparison to hydrodynamics. I think it's more comparable to ship propeller since both involved gear dynamics.

I mentioned Panhard EBR because it featured non-tracked wheel. It's not a light tank but it was the closest example I could think of since the gun is too big for an armored vehicle. I don't know any other tank with a certain chassis system that revolutionized the speed meta without downgrading gun, armor, or other important aspects.

Certainly different oceans have different water density and sea state. But it's not as diverse as paved road vs muddy dirt vs soft sand vs [insert any other terrains]. Unless everyone agreed to fight only on solid flat ground, then wheeled tank could be the new meta (not ideal for weight distribution but still do-able at least)

Stop trying to act like you're half-right, you're not. By basically saying 'there's no inherently special about fast battleships', you already made a fool of yourself. A 'battleship' is a broader term for ships that fits the role of 'capital ships intended to fight other (capital) ships using their heavy artillery'. A battlecruiser would not fit this classification, you see as they were not intended to fight capital ships but rather harass smaller ships and 'kite' other slower (bigger) ships and use their speed to their advantage. A fast battleship would be able to fit this description you see, as fast battleships are still designed of fighting other capital ships, but they are more versatile in their roles as they can protect faster allied ships, especially fleets that are faster and more mobile (like carrier task forces). This is a literal, specific, in-depth explanation as to how roles affect the terms and namings of literally anything military, even tanks.

Also, why do you think (or try to imply) that fast battleships reach their speed because they've shed armour or reduced any normal specifications of a battleship to reach their speed? That's a very layman-way of thinking. Take, again, battleship Iowa for example. The class were capable of reaching 31 knots and New Jersey, her sister ship, even claimed to have reached 36knots during her sea trials. Are you saying that Iowa class only reached that speed because they were 'zippy weakling battleships'? Because, I kid you not, people will literally argue for hours that they aren't. Please, before engaging in an argument you literally have little knowledge about, know your facts.

@Graingy. And I also do not see how tanks come into this. Tanks are way too different when it comes to specific comparisons. Also, it's literally relevant to the discussion as we're talking about speed, you would not call something fast when compared to something faster than it, no? What I'm literally saying that you don't understand is that tanks are WAY too different when compared to ships and even by putting it in an analogy, it doesn't make sense. By sampling your analogy, I'd say the Tiger wasn't classified as a super-heavy tank compared to the MkIV because the term wasn't as used before it (and because there's no damn Tiger when the MkIV was still in service). A Maus is a super-heavy compared to a Tiger because, you know what? It's compared to other heavy tank variants of the same era, including both Tigers. By putting the same logic, even the Queen Elizabeth class battleships were considered as super-dreadnaughts in their time due to their better specifications compared to other ships of the same era. In late 1940s, Yamato was considered (and was made) to be a super battleship as it was literally DESIGNED to be more powerful than similar ships of her era (and also future ones). This is literally how roles come into play, a battleship doesn't just get a 'fast battleship' classification just because it was fast but because it can fill in roles that is more versatile and fitting to newer needed roles (which were being easily replaced/added by aircraft carriers). The term is also binded to their displacement weight. Take the German capital ship Scharnhorst for example, it was typically classified as a (fast) battleship due to them reaching 31 knots. The construction started at 1935 and she weighed around 38,000 tons. Compare this to a Yamato class battleship, construction started at 1937 (just two years after Scharnhorst) and she weighed 72,000 tons, do you see a difference? Exactly. Yamato, although only younger by two years, was much heavier and capable of carrying a heavier armament compared to Scharnhorst, their intended design and supposed-to-be role affected their designation. Roles and overall design take part in what their final classifications will be and as such, roles become tied to their classification (what don't you get in that?)

@Graingy Saying that it sounds silly when taken in a vacuum is a pretty nonsensical argument if you think about it. Everything sounds silly when taken in a vacuum. "Light tank" is a rather silly term when taken in a vacuum, considering that those tanks are still several tons in weight. It only makes sense when taken in the context of other tanks.
"While there is nothing inherently special about fast battleships", I literally wrote it to you in my previous comment how they represented a different doctrine of ship building, read it again. And fast battleships were anything but "zippy weakling battleships relative to what could be built", as they were the most powerful vessels on the seas until aircraft carriers became mature enough to take their place. You seem to think that something can only be stronger if it has more armour volume and bigger amount+size guns, which is a very uneducated take (even if we consider that most fast battleships DID have better armour and more powerful guns than dreadnoughts), even the weakest fast battleship could probably come out on top against a dreadnought in 1v1. And you still seem to be under the impression that fast battleships sacrificed something for their speed which is false, I wrote to you multiple times that they retained their armour protection and firing power or even increased it compared to dreadnoughts, while still also increasing their speed (what you are thinking of, are battlecruisers, those are that sacrificed armour or armament to achieve greater speed). This "more advanced ships with the same balance attributes" that you talk about in your own terms (that is, further increasing armour and armament compared to dreadnoughts without giving speed too much of an increase) would essentially be super-super-dreadnoughts, which is a nonsensical idea and there is a reason those were never built, fast battleships were the obvious next step in battleship construction: a ship that has equal or better armour and armament while having much increased speed. This is balanced. in fact, it was dreadnoughts that were not balanced. Sure, they were faster compared to pre-dreadnoughts but not fast compared to other types of contemporary ships (cruisers, battlecruisers etc.) specifically because they focused solely on armour and firepower while only having enough speed to be able to keep up with the battleline's speed. fast battleship changed that by increasing the speed while keeping (or as I said, often even increasing) armour and firepower. That sounds pretty balanced to me.

@BMilan So I suppose we can meet half way.
While I still think in a vacuum the term is silly, I will concede there is value in the term in the context of older ships, many of which were still operational by WWII due to naval treaties resulting in a gap in development and construction. When you have a set of ships capable of operating by their own, and another set capable of operating alongside a new fleet structure, I suppose there is use in a new classification. While there is nothing inherently special about fast battleships, if you have an older class of ships and a newer, faster one which can serve effectively alongside another new type of vessel, an apparent distinction would seem to form to you. It's a "can" and a "cannot", rather than a sliding scale of effectiveness. I, again, suppose that if presented with this issue, you may lean into it to produce what is, in essence, semi-battlecruisers.
So, under this premise, fast battleships were zippy weakling battleships relative to what could be built (more advanced ships with the same balance of attributes), but wasn't due to lack of need.
@ShiroNeko I... do not see how SP comes into this? SP is extremely bad at accurately modeling ships and tanks.
I don't see how the specifics of what limits a tank's or ship's speed is relevant to classification?
Should a direct comparison be made, a Tiger I was not a superheavy tank just because it weighed twice as much as a Mark IV, tanks had just gotten heavier. Both were breakthrough vehicles, mind. While they worked different tactically, tactics were in general different between wars anyways.

@Bogey The tank equivalent of hydrodynamics would be, I believe, suspension and track design. More advanced suspensions can permit higher speeds, larger wheels give less resistance IIRC. Early vehicles didn't need that so weren't designed with large wheels (or suspension), but as roles shifted it became increasingly necessary. Large wheels can improve speed without massively increasing weight (then there's the issue of ground pressure, but overlapping wheels solves that at the expense of maintenance issues).
I don't really see the EBR comparison. So far as I understand no armoured land or sea vehicles are fast enough for aerodynamics to present a significant issue. Likewise, the EBR was an armoured car, not a tank, so was in a different design class altogether. Even the 1915 Rolls-Royce armoured car could, according to Wikipedia, reach 72kph on roads.
Ships do need to be designed with seakeeping in mind, both to get around without issue and to be a stable gunnery platform. The ocean is not all calm.

As such, comparing tanks to a ship is, trust me, completely wrong. Tanks, although still sophisticated on their own, have very different things to consider when compared to ship. Tanks (an MBT for example) has to consider their engine, drive train, and weight to reach max speed, as well as the terrain and how rough it is (to say the least). Ships on the other hand have to consider not just propulsion- that includes a balanced propeller size (so they don't make unnecessary drag) and powerplant (efficiency or maximum output, depending on the situation), but also on how they sit in the water (volume) and current sea conditions. Not to mention that the shape of the vessel is also a consideration as water drag has a major role on a ship's max speed (hydrodynamics). Each one of these are just some of the things you need to consider to 'almost reach' their max speed in a good day, so no, 'fast battleship' IS NOT just a buzzword term nor is it something people just say because 'it has a slightly faster speed', it is what it is because speed is something to consider, but not the entirety of what makes it.
If you're confused, which I'm pretty sure you are, try making a ship in SP and you'd get the very basic idea.
 
Sorry, it doesn't fit in a single comment as it's limited to 4,000 characters.

@Graingy, Oh you're in it now.
As BMilan said, 'fast battleships' were coined because of the difference of speed compared to similar ships of her era. Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were considered the very first fast battleships as they were 2 knots faster than their predecessors and counterparts. That being said, it wasn't just a 'buzzword' for a """slightly improved product""". Speed is one of the most precious asset of a ship, especially considering their size (the bigger the ship, the bigger guns you can put on it, and the faster that ship can go, the more mobile it can act especially in a battle). Not all fast (battle)ships were classified as 'fast battleships' as there are still other things to consider. The well-known HMS Hood wasn't called a fast battleship just because it was fast and had heavy guns (as per battleship standards) but was classified as a battlecruiser due to her armour being less than a typical battleship. Yes it was big, yes it had big guns, but it wasn't classified as a battleship because of her armour. As per your analogy, yes the M4 was fast, but it does not warrant a comparison to a landship older than it, with a COMPLETELY different purpose. HMS Hood was classified as such because it had different roles to a battleship. A battlecruiser was designed to do escort missions, assault smaller convoy ships, and attack other vessels of similar size (do note that the idea of a battlecruisers was much older than naval aviation). A battleship was designed to do fleet battles against other ships, they were THE capital ships that were used to do battle against other fleets, they also fill a role in shore bombardment.
 
Take Kongou (battlecruiser, 1913) as an example, she was classified as a battlecruiser but was rebuilt to have faster speeds and thicker armour in the late 1920s and was reclassified as a battleship. She was refitted again in 1935 to have an even thicker armour and faster max speed (30 knots). They were classified as fast battleships because they reach a maximum top speed compared to other battleships within the Japanese navy which had an average of 24 to 26 knots. At this time, Naval aviation became a crucial part in naval fleets and fast battleships became important as they were capable of escorting faster carrier fleets. This is also true to more advanced ships like the Iowa where she primarily supported carrier fleets and act as an escort against aircraft and surface vessels, especially in the Philippines.

@BMilan nah, it's still a good explanation

@Bogey Sorry about that, feel free to delete my comments if you feel like it's too much, I just felt the need to clear up some things to Graingy

@BMilan lmao. I just got home and greeted by wall of text

@Bogey lmao I was about to write about same

@ThatrandomguywholikesSP You need retract (turn off) landing gear and turn off activation group 6

@Graingy While dreadnoughts were indeed faster than their predecessors, their mission role was still (just as with pre-dreadnoughts and all the other classes before them) to sail in a battle line and engage the enemy's battle line. Fast battleships changed that, as I mentioned in my previous comment, they were designed to be able to fulfill other roles, some of which required greater speed than what a dreadnought could do. These included escorting roles (where the escorted ships such as carriers or troopships would be considerably faster than a dreadnought, whereas a fast battleship could keep up with them), hunting roles (such as hunting enemy convoys, cruisers, battlecruisers or even other fast battleships, which once again required greater speed) so them having a different role is also a part of why they got their name.
As for the changed design doctrine, allow me to show you a picture of USS Oklahoma (in the back), a dreadnought and USS Wisconsin (in the foreground), a fast battleship. Do you notice anything? If you guessed length, you are correct, one of the main thing that allowed fast battleships to be faster is their longer, sleeker shape that reduced water resistance (and before you say that Wisconsin is simply bigger because it was built much later than Oklahoma, longer ships were already possible to build during WW1, as proven by the many classes of battlecruisers that were all longer than their dreadnought counterparts, for example HMS Hood being launched in 1918, was longer than most interwar battleships, or the Lexingtons which were originally intended to be battlecruisers, were also similarly long) they simply didn't want to build normal battleships to be this long because of aforementinoed mission role, there was no need to make them longer and faster, so only battlecruisers were built like that (because they sort of already had the same mission role as later the fast battleships, but many of them did so by sacrifcing armour so they were only capable of hunting smaller ships like cruisers. Fast battleships changed that by being able to engage other battleships)
Other improvements included reduced amount of main turrets (the first few generations of dreadnoughts all had 4-5-6 or in one case, even 7 turrets, fast battleships lowered that to 3-4 turrets but with powerful guns) which reduced weight and made space for more boilers and engine space, so even more speed. I also already mentioned their more mod

@Graingy Thanks @BMilan for the explanation! But if you still wonder where the out of nowhere bonus speed came from, it's because of hydrodynamics (which doesn't apply to ground vehicles speed, firepower, armor trinity). 2 ships can have same guns and armor but different in speed because of hydrodynamics difference. The older battleships have noticeable rounder short hull while the later generations have sleeker long hull. Physically, droplet has better fluid-dynamics efficiency than a ball. If you want to apply the similar comparison to tanks where hull affect speed, the French Panhard EBR might be the best candidate but it wasn't a revolutionary design to deserve "fast light tank" title because it compromised off-road performance. Tanks are designed to crawl on various terrain while battleships step on the pretty much the same water everywhere

@BMilan Perhaps, though it still seems a rather nonsensical name as the Dreadnoughts themselves could have been considered "fast" battleships. And the Pre-Dreadnoughts to the ships before them, and so on. So far as I'm aware they didn't represent any particular change in design doctrine, unlike Dreadnoughts, so for ships to suddenly gain the name "fast" is odd. I guess you could classify them as a sort of heavy battlecruiser (and to be fair, devoting more displacement to propulsion would give such diminishing returns for such brief sprints it would not really be a practical direction to take even in theory, so at that point you might as well use newer tech shaving off weight to increase armour and armament). If they didn't have a balance of attributes. But some did, at least I think? Idk, it's late, I'm trying not to go insane, and I couldn't be bothered to go down a research rabbit hole.
Let me specify my point about tanks: I more talk about the tendency to attribute the result of technological progression to some magically "MBT" nature. MBTs don't have the "armour of a heavy tank, mobility of a light tank, and armament of superheavy tank". They have those capabilities compared to the previous generation. Which isn't super impressive. If you made a modern Maus, even to the same weight (which would be about half the proportional weight to the common medium tank, 30/180 vs 60/180, though still a superheavy seeing as the Maus was just that big), its armour and armament would most certainly blow a 60 tonne MBT out of the water. Just like the Mark IV and the M4 Sherman, it wasn't that the Sherman had the armour of a heavy tank, it's that the new heavies are 40-70 tonnes. If you made a light tank (meant to be fast, not just cheaper/easier to transport) you could probably create something a lot quicker than an MBT. Maybe not faster, I doubt track links would like that, but I'm sure better acceleration and general mobility could be acquired.
My overall comparison is that lumping in any battleship made after a certain point as a "fast battleship" is strange as the mythical MBT.
I suppose I will concede that while comparing speed and armament is somewhat simple, armour is a lot tougher. Armour thickness and layout is very complicated on ships, so less easy to get a comparison for to see if its a directly comparable progression. I suppose you could use armour mass...

@Graingy "relates to the vessel's supposed attributes", correction to that, it relates to the vessel's supposed attributes compared to previous ships. The name is not meant to be taken literally and out of context but insterad, relatively to something. You can't just talk about fast battleships without acknowledging the existence of the "slow" battleships (which are named the "dreadnoughts"). They are called fast because they are faster than their predecessors.
As for the dreadnought not meaning anything, well this is why I said comparison to tanks is unwise. With a tank, you can categorize it with literal words such as "light", "medium" or "heavy", and it pretty much describes the main idea of that tank (but you don't find any "sherman class" or "tiger class" tanks). But ship names don't always follow a similar convention. "dreadnought" refers to specific design principles (primarily among others, the idea of all-big-gun configuration and the use of steam turbine for propulsion) and it is named after the first ship that introduced these design principles, hence in a sense, it has a meaning, it's just not as direct as "light" or "heavy", it needs some background knowledge as to what these principles are that the word refers to. Fast battleship is similarly indirect a bit, because it doesn't just refer to these battleships being fast, it refers to battleships that were built based on the idea that they should be faster than their predecessors, so they can fill other roles such as carrier escorting and so on (roles that dreadnoughts could not fulfill) and one needs to be aware of that idea to understand why they are called "fast battleships" and not just a new generation of battleships.

@BMilan
The difference is that "fast" is actually a word in its own right, and relates to the vessel's supposed attributes. "Dreadnought" doesn't really mean anything in the context of a ship, it's just a name (and any hunk of steel that isn't a robot is gonna be fearless anyways).
Also, I absolutely hate the designation of MBT as a descriptor of attributes. Sure, to describe the vehicle as the primary tank used (literally in the name), but whenever it's used to describe the abilities of a vehicle I die a little inside.
As I said earlier:

It's like saying MBTs have light tank mobility and heavy tank armour. No, they don't, there's just nothing around to show how absurd that notion is.

You could make a 90t heavy tank today with more armour and firepower (and equal or lesser mobility, depending on cost range) today, it's just that nobody does. Light tanks do exist, in a strange aluminum way. Most "MBTs" are Medium tanks or high performance heavy tanks (e.g. Tiger I - better or equal to equivalent mediums by being more maintenance heavy, tougher to move to ship around, and more expensive, not through giving up mobility or other capabilities). I'm not prepared to speak on the doctrines of different lines of MBT. Frankly it's a little silly to classify an M1 and a T-72 as the same thing from an abilities perspective. One was a mass assault tank, the other was (to my understanding) a defensive vehicle meant to counter numerical superiority. The only thing they have in common (apart from big guns and heavy armour) is being the Main Battle Tank of their respective users. I'm getting off topic.

@Graingy The reason the term fast battleship was created because the difference between fast battleships and "slow" battleships (dreadnoughts) was so considerable that it needs a different classification. The same way how pre-dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts are differentiated. You wouldn't say the HMS Dreadnought was just a faster version of the HMS Swiftsure, because it had vastly different design principles and technological advancements that made it a whole new class of battleship. Same deal with the fast battleships, they just can't be compared to a dreadnought because they use different design principles (it's not just about technological advancements). If we only used the word "battleship" to all vessels that can fit into the category in their own time, then by that classification, 1st-3rd rates, ironclad battleships, pre-dreadnought battleships, dreadnought battleships and fast battleships would all fall under the same category. In your words, something like HMS Royal Sovereign (1891) would be classified the same as Yamato (1940), hell, maybe even HMS Victory (1765) could count here, she was sort of a battleship of her time. Now you see why a different classification is needed?
Or let's go with your tank analogy then, why don't we just call the Mark IV an MBT? for it's time, it could probably count as one, it was technically the main battle tank of Britain in WW1

I love this ship so much!!
Thank you for making it!

@BMilan Completely missed my point.
And no, comparing landships to water ships is not the worst comparison. Armour, armament, mobility.
For a comparison:
Is the M4 Sherman, 30 or so tonnes capable of roughly 40kph, a fast heavy tank simply because it's faster than the 30 tonne, 6kph Mark IV of WWI? Of course not, it's simply the progression of technology.
Within a given weight advancements in technology could be used to keep the same speed while devoting more displacement to armour and armament. "Fast battleships" aren't "not compromising" on armour and armament, they're just using newer technology to retain parity with older designs in those domains while being faster... if they're actually built that way. Meanwhile, a reasonable progression in all three domains (speed, firepower, armour) would just be... a battleship. All three points go up, balance remains the same, no need for new classification. It's the old thing but more advanced and bigger.
While obviously not the case, it reminds me of a company coming up with some new "generation" buzzword for a slightly improved product.

@Graingy If you never understood it, why not try looking it up and reading about it? The wiki page for fast battleships clearly explains that the main design goal of the fast battleship was to have the same armour and armament as a regular battleship, but be faster in order to fulfill other roles as well. Being the biggest and heaviest is not always the goal. Armour schemes also matter, a late interwar fast battleship might have the same amount of armour as a ww1 dreadnought but still have better protection in general, because of the way that armour is applied to the ship.
But here is a fun fact, they did actually try slapping more amour and bigger guns on a faster ship: the IJN Yamato was the heaviest battleship in history, had the biggest guns ever mounted on a warship and had much much thicker armour than a ww1 dreadnought... and yet, she was still faster than the HMS Queen Elizabeth (which is generally considered to be the first fast battleship class) so yes, even things like this were possible (do note however, there is like a 20+ year gap between those two ships), and that's not even getting into the whole battlecruiser-fast battleship debate which is way longer than what can be explained in a single comment. Also, comparing it to tanks is unwise, it's a vastly different topic

Impressive.
I never understood descriptors like "fast battleship". If you're making it faster with the same armament and armour as older ships, then you could also make it go the same speed with heavier armament and armour.
It's like saying MBTs have light tank mobility and heavy tank armour. No, they don't, there's just nothing around to show how absurd that notion is.

I am having a slight problem being that the aircraft won’t throttle up.

Your back and with the only battleship I have ever steeped foot on