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It's not German. A flick through Groner Vol.1 makes that clear. The hull layout, underwater hull, armament, bridge layout, conning tower placement do not conform any German design built from 1900 to 1917. The closest German underwater hull form would be that of Pillau (aka Maraviev Amurskyy).

Those guns look British to me. I wondered if it might be a British entry for what became the Svetlana class. So I looked through Friedman's British cruisers and the drawings and photos in there. There is no pre-war cruiser with tripod foremasts and foretops like that were not common until 1916-17. The shields on the 6in guns are not pre-war, as the breeches are much more exposed. No British design has a raised quarterdeck and forecastle arrangement like this. Square hatches in the hull sides also are not British, nor German. The bridge and CT placement still do not entirely match British practice. The armoured belt does not look anything like British arrangements which normally go right up to the upper deck. The rudder arrangement looks wrong too, but some British cruisers have that long slope aft. The bows do not match British style. As pointed out by Krakatoa above, the British favoured sloped funnels.

This seems an odd amalgam of old 1910-style hull, 1910-style four funnel layout (so assumes at least 8 double-ended boilers which seems high for a light cruiser) 1917-style foremast and bridge, 1917-18-style AA gun placement, no torpedo tubes either AW or UW (odd for a light cruiser and especially if this is meant for Russia). The external belt seems a bit out of date too for 1916-17 practice. It does not feel right for 1916 and seems to embody a lot of wartime experience in the design leaning more towards 1917-18. I'm starting to feel this is a fake or designed by another nation other than GB, Germany or France and probably not Russia given the events of 1917. I would 100% say this is not a pre-war design.

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reminds me on some french cruisers...

I don't know if anyone will look at this after 8 months, but the prize goes to Alvama.
The drawing appears on p22 of "Hr Ms Kruisers Java en Sumatra" by J. Anten.
Caption: 'The initial Dutch design for the Java class cruisers by ir, J F van Beck (April-May 1915)
A drawing of the first Germania design 21 June 1915 appears below it.
Original drawing by A. van Dijk in Maritiem Gezien 1985/3
Over the page (pp24-25) is a larger scale set of drawings - profile and 4 deck plans
Caption: J F van Beck (April-May 1915) cruiser design based on new RNN staff criteria established only 2 months earlier. The new class was to be 1 knot faster than all other cruisers and more heavily armed than the Japanese Chikuma, to which this 6170ton design with its four funnels and lower midship bears a striking resemblance
[So 2nd prize to ABetterName who should have stuck to his guns!]
from these diagrams length 154 m; beam 15 m; draft 5.3 m. The 10 main guns are 15cm plus 4 x 7.5cm (actually 14.91cm)
A set of 3 pictures on p19 has caption: The Dutch 'cruisers of 1914' could have been adapted from the Austrian Helgoland or the German Karlsruhe, [hence the Blueprints error, perhaps] but early in 1915 new criteria were set by the large and heavily armed Japanese Chikuma class.
There is lots more in the book, but as it's in Dutch with English captions it's a very slow process for me to get any more out of it.

if you are able to scan stuff you find interesting, I might be able to help being interested in these kind of ships as well, and having dutch as first language......

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
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Thanks for the offer, but the book is 200 A4+ pages and I come back to ships fairly rarely these days.
As you are interested I looked for second hand copies, but they are about $80 now ...
http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?autho ... t=sr&ac=qr
It is THE book on Java and Sumatra, though, with detailed fold out plans about 40cm long

Many thanks for this answer smurf, it feels quite satisfying when a mystery is finally solved and put to rest.

_________________
Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

I meant more if you find parts you want to know the meaning off, I can help translating the entire book might be a bit more work then I would have time for, so I was not proposing anything like that haha

_________________
Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin