I can't believe its not a destroyer.

Yeah, so, I was thinking with the whole coastal defense ship thing "we really need a screen for this." Then I realized, coastal defense ships are cheaper than torpedo cruisers, you can totally just have lightly armored coastal defense ships to screen for your capital coastal defense ships. Like, yes, you want cheap destroyers to go with this still, but these still add a great deal of resistance to enemy destroyer guns while having some torpedos to sweep the enemy backlines. Only issue being, you will want underway replenishment to keep this ship at the ready, and well, destroyers to pad out your screen cheaply. Destroyers to block out torps, coastal defense ships to stonewall light guns.