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The Deutschland class was a series of three panzerschiffs, a form of heavily armed cruiser, built by German Reichsmarine in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The class is named after the first ship of this class to be completed (the ''Deutschland''). All three ships were launched between 1931 and 1934, and served with Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The British began referring to the vessels as pocket battleships, in reference to the heavy firepower contained in the relatively small vessels; they were considerably smaller than battleships and battlecruisers, and although their displacement was that of a heavy cruiser, they were armed with guns larger than the heavy cruisers of other nations. Deutschland class ships continue to be called pocket battleships in some circles. Deutschland class ships were initially classified as panzerschiffs (armoured ships), but the Kriegsmarine reclassified them as heavy cruisers in February 1940. Description German capital ships were restricted by the Treaty of Versailles to a displacement of 10,000 tons for "armoured ships" (Panzerships). The idea was to limit Germany to nothing more than coastal defence ships - effectively pre-dreadnought types - which could not challenge the major naval powers of Britain, France and the United States. A number of technical innovations were used by Germany to build a formidable warship within this restricted weight; among them were the large-scale use of welding to join hull components together (as opposed to the then-classic rivets), triple-gun main armament turrets (which had first been used by the Austro-Hungarian Navy in battleships in the ''Tegetthoff'' class of 1912), and the use of diesel engines for propulsion. Even so, all members of the class were well over that weight limit (first constructed as 10,600 tons, later enlarged to 12,100 tons), although for political reasons their announced displacement was always misrepresented as the 10,000 tons of the Treaty limit. Though the Deutschlands had much more in common with heavy cruisers than battleships/battlecruisers, there were nonetheless considered capital ships. They also superficially resembled contemporary battleships due to their unsually high coning tower/bridge and the masts of the Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee. The principal feature of the Deutschland design was that it had guns of large enough calibre -- i.e., 280 mm (11 inches) -- to out-gun almost any enemy cruiser fast enough to catch it, while being fast enough to outrun most any enemy powerful enough to sink it. The Royal Navy had three modernized battlecruisers that could be effective in pursuing the Deutschlands; the HMS Renown, HMS Repulse, and HMS Hood were equal to the Deutschland ships in speed and were better protected and better armed. Some World War I-era Japanese battlecruisers could do the same. The German naval staff also knew that new ships would be built that were both faster and more powerful than the Deutchland class ships - the announced intention to build six of the Deutchland ships led the French, for example, to draw up their own small "fast battleship" (the ''Dunkerque'' class) - but they hoped for a temporary advantage. The advantage did not last long: Deutschland ships had a maximum speed of 28.5 knots, which would already be considered to be too slow at the beginning of the Second World War, only eight years after the first ship was launched. The ships had a range was about 30,000 km (18,650 miles). The Kriegsmarine, which superceded the Reichsmarine and thus inherited the ships, was much more cognizant of the ships' limitations, and during the war they intended to use the Deutschland ships purely as commerce raiders on the high seas. In the early years of the conflict, before the Allies closed the air gap over the North Atlantic, developed better Huff-Duff (radio triangulation equipment) and airborne centimetric radar, and provided escort carrier protection to the merchant ship convoys, the Deutschland ships' speed and heavy armament made them very difficult to bring to task, as they could generally avoid any fight they did not like; indeed, they were ordered not to fight enemy ships unless they were much stronger than them. Ships in class Though all ships were technically of the same class, there were some considerable differences between the members, with the Admiral Graf Spee being the most improved, as well as being the heaviest. German pocket battleship Deutschland|Deutschland / Lützow The lead ship of the class, Deutschland was renamed Lützow upon the outbreak of World War II due to fears of the political liability of having a ship named Deutschland (Germany) sunk. She generally remained close to home through the war, doing service in the Baltic in support of German troops. Deutschland survived until the last weeks of the war. German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer|Admiral Scheer The most successful commerce raider of the class, Admiral Scheer made several raids into the North Atlantic and operated as far as the Indian Ocean during her raiding. On one occasion she sank the armed merchant cruiser HMS ''Jervis Bay'' and several cargo ships after catching convoy HX84. In 1945 she was bombed by the RAF while docked in Kiel, causing her to capsize and sink. German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee|Admiral Graf Spee Admiral Graf Spee destroyed nine British merchant ships (totalling 50,089 tons) before being cornered by three British cruisers in December 1939. In the ensuing battle of the River Plate she damaged the heavy cruiser HMS ''Exeter'' so severely that it had to break off the action. However, the German ship suffered significant topside damage (though the British 6-inch shells could not penetrate her armour), and after spending several days trapped at Montevideo, she was deliberately scuttled on 17 December 1939, rather than risk a battle with the blockading heavy cruiser HMS ''Cumberland'', the light cruisers HMS ''Ajax'' and HMNZS ''Achilles'', and a superior Royal Navy force assumed to be approaching. Her captain, Hans Langsdorff, committed suicide three days later. See also Further reading | |||||||
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