Ironclads vs Cruisers

In 1880 you should be building cruisers to screen your battleships.

Even with just guns, one cruiser will give three ironclads a run for their money. I haven't seen any posts that are really clear about how torpedo attacks go though, so I'm pretty sure you'd want some screens on those ironclads, or the cruisers would just clean up.

EDIT: Oh yes, the cruisers would definitely clean up. Torpedo Attack is a straight-up multiplier to the damage it deals to an enemy capital ship. Yes, cruisers get a 900% damage increase against capitals. I'm not sure if it's enough for them to go toe-to-toe with battleships, but you definitely don't want to put a doomstack of ironclads up against even a fifth of their number in cruisers. The ironclads would have an unreal coordination penalty, making it hard for them to bring their numbers to bear on the cruisers, and the cruisers would shred them.

FURTHER EDIT: While the game claims that it's a 10x multiplier, it seems to function as an extra +10 to attack.

Yes, not to mention that you can only build ironclad in home port whilst cruiser can be built in any level 4 port. So all these carefully calculated odd like 5 ironclads > 1 cruiser is very highly unlikely to materialize.