Just like their earlier sisters in WWI, the  battlecruisers of all nations would work
harder, steam farther,  fight  more  often, and  take  more  casualties  than  their
battleship  contemporaries  in WWII too. The battlecruiser story started with the
British, but continued with German, French, Japanese, US and Turkish navies.

The battlecruisers  typically carried 8-15 in. guns  (Hood, Repulse and Renown
carried  the  biggest calibers) like  the  battleships. The  WWI  battlecruisers  all
carried 8-12 in guns, at the speed of 28 knots on the unheard  displacement  of
17.250 tons. The Dreadnought, the  world' s most  powerful  battleships carried
10 X12  inch  guns  and  displaced  about 15.000  tons and  the  most  powerful
armored  cruisers  carried  4 X 9.2  inch  guns. The  other  striking  thing  about
these huge ships was that they were armored only to resist cruiser gunfire.

This was perfectly consistent with their role as envisioned by their creator. They
would  be  cruiser  terminators. They  would  scout  for  the battle fleet (in which
role they could brush aside the armored  cruisers  that  the  enemy  customarily
deployed to foil such scouts),  they  could equally prevent enemy scout cruisers
from approaching the battle  fleet. They  could  chase  and  dispatch  residuals
after  a  battle. They  would  also  be  tremendously useful  in running down and
destroying enemy commerce raiders on the high seas, as  well  as  interdicting
enemy commerce. They could be useful  as  a  fast  wing  of  the  battle  line. In
fact, battlecruisers succesfully did these things during WWI.

THE FIRST BATTLECRUISER HMS INVINCIBLE AT SCAPA FLOW

What  they  were  not  intented  to  do was, join the battle line itself and shoot it
out  with  enemy  battleships. Unfortunately,  over  and over in the history of the
battlecruisers, Admirals were  unable  to  resist  the temptation of adding their
big gunfire power to the  line of  battle, hoping that enemy shells would not find
their  weakly  protected  vitals. But  history  showed that enemy shells seem to
have an  affinity  for  just  such weaknesses.  During  the  Battle  of  Skagerrak
(Jutland), three British battlecruisers (including the HMS Invincible) were sank
by  enemy  shells. A German  battlecruiser  SMS Lutzow,  was  shot to pieces
during the same battle and sank. Another battlecruiser, Derfflinger  was  badly
shot up but returned to port with  difficulty. Battlecruisers  were  the  real losers
at the Battle of Skagerrak.

During WWII, another  two British  battlecruisers sank. These were HMS Hood
and  HMS Repulse. Hood  was  sank  due to shells of German battleship DKM
Bismarck, and Repulse was sank due to torpedoes of Japanese bombers.