Pocket battleship

Pocket Battleship was a colloquial description applied to three German warships, built in the early thirties.

After Germany's defeat, in World War 1, the victorious powers applied various sanctions to prevent German re-armament. Germany was allowed to maintain an Army, but it was capped at 100,000 men. Germany, which had a fleet of Dreadnaughts, at the beginning of the war, that rivaled the Royal Navy. She had been forced to surrender all her surviving dreadnaughts to Britain. She was allowed to retain a handful of obsolete pre-Dreadnaught battleships. They were slow, and only displaced about 10,000 tons.

The victorious powers were prepared to let Germany replace its ancient pre-dreadnaught battleships, when they were completely worn out. This is one reason the three vessels earned a name that included the word "battleship". But they were not battleships. The vessels mounted six 11 inch guns -- guns the size of the smallest main armaments of the smallest dreadnaught battleships. But they lacked the armour of a true battleship. The vessels differed from battleships, and most other warships, in another significant way. They were powered by diesel engines, not steam turbines. At the time these were the largest diesel engines ever built.

The three vessels were the KMS Deutschland (1933), KMS Admiral Scheer (1934) and KMS Admiral Graf Spee (1936).

All three vessels were sunk during World War 2