You know, the one before...
SMS Deutschland
The Deutschland-class battleships were the last of the German pre-dreadnoughts and followed the Braunschweig-class. Designed in 1901/02, they were very similar to their predecessors, as those had already reached the limit of the Kiel Channel, the limiting factor for German Navy designs. The notable differences were the partially covered funnels and the larger space between funnels and the main mast. The main artillery were four 280mm guns in twin turrets, fourteen 170mm guns in single mount casemates, twenty 88mm guns in single mounts and six 450mm underwater torpedo tubes (one front, one aft, two on each side). The 170mm medium artillery was an increase of the 150mm guns of the Braunschweig-class and followed the international trend of increasing the medium-weight artillery on battleships, however the guns were still manually loaded, which put an additional strain on the crew.
Deutschland, ordered as “N”, was laid down on 20th July, 1903 at the Germania Shipyards in Kiel, launched on November 19th, 1904 and commissioned on August 3rd, 1906 as the new flagship of the German Navy. Her sisters soon followed over the next two years and made up the II Division. However, at this point the HMS Dreadnought had already changed the playing field, the first German counterparts were already under construction and the Kiel Channel, which had limited the Deutschland’s design, was enlarged as well.
![[ img ]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/89093895/Season%205/BB_Deutschland_1906.png)
) her famous sisters aswell?