(CA/PS) Deutschland Class

Specifications:

Type: Heavy cruiser
Displacement: 12,100 t standard; 16,200 t full load
Length: 610 ft (190 m)
Beam: 71 ft (22 m)
Draught: 24 ft (7.3 m)
Propulsion: Eight MAN diesels driving two screws, 52,050 hp (40 MW)
Speed: 28.5 knots (52.8 km/h)
Range: 8,900 nautical miles at 20 knots (16,500 km at 37 km/h)
Electronic warfare
and decoys: From 1937, 60 cm Seetakt FuMO

Armament:

Armament:

6 × 280 mm (11 inch) guns
8 × 150 mm (5.9 inch) guns
6 × 105 mm (4.1 inch) guns
8 × 37 mm
10 × 20 mm
8 × 533 mm (21 inch) Torpedo Tubes
Armour: turret face: (160 mm)
belt: (80 mm)
deck: 40 mm)
Aircraft carried: one catapult with Arado 196 seaplane(s)

History:

The Deutschland class was a series of three Panzerschiffe ("armoured ships"), a form of heavily armed cruiser, built by the German Reichsmarine more or less 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). She and her sister ships, the Admiral Scheer and the Admiral Graf Spee, were all launched between 1931 and 1934 and served in Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II.

The British began referring to the vessels as pocket battleships ("a battleship that fits into a pocket"), in reference to the heavy firepower of the relatively small vessels. They were considerably smaller than a true battleship and their armor and guns were far inferior to those of battleships and battlecruisers; however, they could outgun any contemporary cruiser. The ships were actually two feet longer than the American Pennsylvania-class battleships, and superficially resembled contemporary battleships due to their massive main gun turrets, unusually high conning tower/bridge and the masts of the Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee. The Deutschlands design and displacement was very similar to that of a heavy cruiser, though they were armed with guns larger than the heavy cruisers of other nations, albeit at the price of a lower speed than a cruiser. The Panzerschiffe had a greater cruising range than the following Hipper class cruisers, making them more suitable as high seas raiders. The term capital ship typically encompassed battleships and battlecruisers, and not heavy cruisers, but the Deutschlands were sometimes classified as capital ships (though by importance rather than attributes).

The Deutschland cruisers illustrate one aspect of fleet in being in that the hunt for the Admiral Graf Spee in 1939 alone tied up a total of three battleships, two battlecruisers, four aircraft carriers, and 16 cruisers.

Deutschland class ships were initially classified as panzerschiffe or "armoured ships", but the Kriegsmarine reclassified them as heavy cruisers in February 1940.

This informatin and more can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland_class_cruiser