| abstract | - Under the Clone Wars-era Anaxes War College System, however, the term "battlecruiser" was reserved for capital ships measuring between two thousand and five thousand meters in length and designed for long-range, independent operations. Most battlecruisers were large and powerful ships that were among the most powerful in their fleets. A prime example was the Tagge battlecruisers used by the Galactic Empire, as well as the Mediator-class battle cruiser first deployed by the New Republic Most accepted that the first warship that could be formally recognised as a battlecruiser was Kuat Drive Yards' 2.5-kilometer Procurator-class battlecruiser, launched some two hundred years before the end of the Galactic Republic. The heavily-armed design impressed many wealthy Core Worlds planets and sectors and mercantile fleets, and by the time of the Clone Wars, dozens of battlecruisers had been built and filled the Planetary Security Forces of Core and Colonies sectors. The Procurator-class design was refined several times before being supplanted by the four-thousand-meter Praetor-class, though the warship limitations of the Ruusan Reformations limited both classes' hyperdrives to local charts. When the Republic Navy was restored during the Clone Wars, however, the majority of battlecruisers found their way into Republic service. Most defended the Core Worlds against the possibility of the Bulwark Fleet breaking out from Foerost, or the massive battleships Malevolence and Devastation breaking into the Core, but some were uparmored, fitted with powerful new hyperdrives, and became the spearheads of task forces sent against key Separatist worlds, such as the Quaestor at Pammant. After the Declaration of a New Order, the Imperial Navy would commission relatively few battlecruisers. Strategists saw them as less versatile and more expensive than Star Destroyers while not instilling the same terror as Star Dreadnoughts. The Empire operated a handful of smaller battlecruisers known as Star Cruisers, but few recognised this as a formal capital ship class. The Empire primarily used battlecruisers to defend key areas in the Core Worlds, though some acted as the flagships of task forces undertaking dangerous missions on the fringes of Imperial space, such as Admiral Mils Giel's Helmsman.
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