Deutschland Class Cruiser

The Deutschland Class was a class of three armourd cruisers built in the nazi Germany to operate in the Kriegsmarine, seeing action in the World War II.

Description
The Deutschland class were ships launched by Germany from 1931, thy are the curious result of the charges to which Germany was subjected from the end of the World War I. Following the war, the country could not build new battleships, nor could build ships with a displacement of over 10,000 tons. This German trick, led to a lot of Western press was referring to the vessels as pocket battleships, while the Germans referred to them as armored vessels.

Deutschland's weapons were far superior to cruisers (280mm cannon was the common armament of battleships until World War I). The armored cruiser designation was used in the late nineteenth century by ships with armour below the battleships, but able to face any cruiser. In practice, the Deutschland was the last representative of this concept.

German naval engineers found an ingenious solution, designing a ship with a displacement relatively small, but that was the biggest armed with cannons placed on a vessel of this size. Was once considered the possibility of installing only two 305mm cannons. Maximum speed that ships could reach (28 knots) was such that the Deutschland could destroy any faster ship with their main cannons, while with his speed he could escape virtually all ships armed with more powerful cannons.

The Deutschland also innovated by using diesel propulsion entirely, however that was the source of many problems which affected the ships after their release. The lower consumption, also allowed greater autonomy, which is suited to the role that the Germans envisaged for its surface ships, which should serve to destroy merchant ships and cargo.

Though officially the draft by a stay displacement close to 10,000 tons actually this goal showed unenforceable and ships, received modifications that increased its maximum displacement to 16,459 tons, which transformed them into a kind of super-heavy cruiser, but without having sufficient power to confront better armed ships. Besides the main battery of two towers each with three guns the ship was equipped with secondary armament of 150mm. It was initially planned to build eight ships of this type, but later negotiated agreements between Britain and Germany, which led to only three were built since then Germany has chosen to build two larger vessels that constituted the Scharnorst class battleship.

Yet before the start of the war, the Deutschland was attacked by two Soviet bombers SB-2 Katyusha at the service of the Spanish Republic, that confused the ship with the Canarias heavy cruiser (the service of the rebel forces of Francisco Franco). The incident caused 114 casualties, 31 of them fatal, almost taking Germany to declare war to the Spanish Republic.

Following the onset of World War II, the ships had different purposes, but undoubtedly the most famous of all was that the Admiral Graf Spee was sent to the South Atlantic before the start of the war in 1939. When in September of that year, with the invasion of Poland was started the conflict, the Graf Spee attacked several vessels in waters of the South Atlantic. After being chased and entered into combat with British ships, he sailed to Rio de la Plata and porting in Montevideo in Uruguay.

There, much of the crew was put ashore and the ship was sunk by the Germans. The ship had been hit by fire from British cruisers, which had failed to inflict serious damage. However, damage had managed to damage auxiliary systems that were vital for long journeys, such as oil purification system, without which the ship had no chance of returning to Germany. With no other options, the Germans chose to sink the ship. The end of the Graf Spee, showed that the idea of armored cruisers weren't so good.

Ships in Class

 * Deutschland - On December 15, 1939 in Wilhelmshaven, was re-named as Heavy cruiser Lützow. Survives the war, but is tanken by the soviets and sentenced to serve as experimental ship for ballistic tests, being sunk on 20 July 1947.
 * Admiral Scheer - Made several attacks against allied supply routes in the Atlantic. In 9 April 1945, while stationed in Kiel for repairs, it was attacked by the Royal Air Force, suffering heavy damage
 * Admiral Graf Spee - Sunk on December 17, 1939, after the Battle of the River Plate in the South Atlantic, near the port of Montevideo, Uruguay.

Specifications

 * Displacement:
 * Standard Displacemen: 12293 TonAdmiral_Scheer_in_Gibraltar.jpg
 * Full Load: 16459 Ton.
 * Propulsion Type: 8x MAN Diesel Engine 9cyl. (54000cv/hp)
 * Crew: 1150
 * Autonomy: 32000Km 15 knots
 * Maximum Speed: 28 knots

Armament

 * 6 x Krupp 280mm L/52 - SK-C28 (1928) (Caliber: 280mm/Range: 36.4Km)
 * 8 x Krupp 150mm SK C/28 - Ger.Mod.1934 (Caliber: 150mm/Range: 23Km)