User blog comment:Angren Túrë/Fleet Update 09/07/2014/@comment-24891101-20140908063152/@comment-24891101-20140911000015

Yeah, but the Bumblebee isn't a gunboat, by your own classification; she's not herself meant to do any fighting; if she does, something has gone badly wrong. Saying she does not fight is to avoid the question. And if she were indeed intended as an intimidation vessel of some sort, then she is indeed very much doctrinally flawed, like her never-built sister class; she was supposed to be the backbone of the navy, per carrier doctrine, and to tie such an investment up in mere intimidation, while avoiding actual combat situations, is grand folly indeed. With that in mind, her designers likely took a fair few shortcuts with the design, such that she'd be inferior to peer vessels designed by others. As I recall, when she was first proposed, in-house naval architects shook their heads. Certain design decisions have been vindicated, that is so, but she remains very flawed. No carrier has any reason to not engage in combat as it does, from long range, as the centrepiece of a CVBG. The design was not revolutionary, and subsequent doctrinal developments have surpassed her utility.