The start of the German armored cruiser program after 1906

The British disrupted their rivals by changing the rules on warship building. The last pre-Dreadnought armored cruisers built in Germany were the archaic-looking Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. They had military masts, four funnels, and most of their armament in casemates on the broadside. British misinformation seemed to indicate that they would build armored cruisers with a uniform 9.2in gun armament. This was seriously contemplated, the last design study being for a ship with 16-9.2in guns. Since the Germans wanted to respond as quickly as possible, they laid down the Blücher with 12-8.2in guns and a 24 knot speed in February 1907. The Blücher had the same armament layout as the new German dreadnought battleships, in the so-called lozenge arrangement with two wing turrets on each side and one turret at each end. The pre-Dreadnought mindset that infused the naval administrations could largely not think about more modern alternatives. The American response to all big gun rumblings was to build the diminutive Michigan and South Carolina. These were built on a pre-dreadnought hull with a modern armament layout: 8-12in guns in superfiring twin turrets. When the Germans finally realized that the British were building armored cruisers with 8-12in guns, they responded with the Von der Tann, with 8-11in guns and capable of as much as 27 knots. The Germans were able to achieve cross-deck firing, albeit over limited arcs. The Von der Tann was greatly superior to the Invincibles, although she suffered from too light an armament. The 11in/45 guns was much less capable than the 12in/45. The main feature where the Von der Tann excelled was that she had a 10in belt, while the Invincibles and Indefatigables only had 6in belts. The follow-on German ships still had only 11in guns, although they were 50 calibers in length. It was not until the superb Derfflinger was laid down that they had a world-beater. The Derfflinger was the first modern fast battleship. She still suffered from an inferior armament, but in every other way was better than her British counterparts. The WWII German capital ships were simply extrapolations of the Derfflinger with more modern technology.