The term großer Kreuzer comes from the German naval law of 1900. It did codify with an annual building rate the build up of a large fleet composed of in legal terms torpedo boats,small cruisers,large cruisers and ships of the line. Renegotiating the law with the Reichstag was an anathema for tirpitz, so the german destroyers had to be called torpedoboats and battlecruisers grosse Kreuzer, the fast battleship was a horror idea for tirpitz because of costs and legal problems, the cruising speed of the battle line was16 knots, a 25 knot ship of the line would lead to questions if tirpitz was following the law.

As far as Von der Tann being superior to Incincible, there is a very important distinction. Invincible was never built to stand in the line of battle. She was designed to hunt down and kill armored cruisers that were on commerce raiding missions. Von der Tann was designed as a counter to the Invincible. So comparing the two is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. The Indefatigable class that followed the Invincibles should have been redesigned to fit the evolving mission profile of battlecruisers making them absolutely inferior to the Van der Tanns.

@johnfisher9692

5 ай бұрын

Well said, the Invincible classs were NOT battlecruisers, they were conceived, designed and built as Dreadnought Armoured Cruisers. The Indefagitables were the same but Treasury penny pinching made them worse as the politicians wanted more for less money. Von Der Tann had the immeasurable advantage of seeing what the other side had built and designing to counter it. And IMO it was the only Battlecruiser Germany built, the follow on classes were all designed to supplement the battle line and should more properly be called Light Fast Battleships.

@trauko1388

4 ай бұрын

Nope. The brits were convinced that their shells were state of the art, that no one had better, so they expected 15cm of armor to be able to stop a 30cm shell at long range... they were horribly wrong, their shells were awful an their propellent even worse, so their ships exploded. Both the KM and RN armored their ships to withstand enemy shells, it is only that one side had crappy shells and assumed they were top dog. They were not. But yes, VdT was a fast battleship, was as well armored as a contemporary RN BB and had the broadside of a KM BB.

@johnfisher9692

4 ай бұрын

@@trauko1388Double Nope. Firstly Von Der Tann is an SMS ship not Hitlers KM. 2. The Invincible and Indefagitable classes were NOT designed to slug it out against Battleship level guns. Their designed role was to hunt down and destroy enemy cruisers raiding merchant ships and to scout. When used in that role they were proven to be excellent ships. See the Battle of the Falkland Islands for proof of that. The losses sustained by them at Jutland was because they were used in a role they were not designed for. Which makes the Lion class the first true British Battlecruisers. SMS Von Der Tann was built as a Battlecruiser, the only one Germany constructed IMO. All other members of 1stSG from Moltke class onward were designed to scout and supplement the battleline and should be rated Light Fast Battleships which give up a little armour and 1 turret for speed.

@trauko1388

4 ай бұрын

@@johnfisher9692 KM=KAISERLICHE Marine son, get a clue... The Is were expected to act as heavy scouts too, they were expected to retreat upong contact with capital ships, hence the need to survive hits at long range. Go check Brown. "Although while she was building Indefatigable was hailed as a great advance on Invincible, the actual improvements were small. She was to expose the great weakness of Fisher ’s original concept for the battlecruiser. They were to overwhelm the enemy’s scouting line with their superior gun power, locate and even engage the enemy battle line, but no thought seems to have been given to the possession of similar ships by the enemy." The Lions were just as crap because the used the same dangerous propellent and crappy shells. The KM made no BCs, they classified them all as large cruisers... but they certainly were not that, much less BCs, a non-German term. What they were was fast battleships, as armored as a RN BB and with the broadside of a KM BB, but the speed of a cruiser.

@johnfisher9692

4 ай бұрын

@@trauko1388Maybe it is YOU who needs to "Get a Clue" son. The ships of the KAISERLICHE Marine were prefaced by the letters SMS, like SMS Von Der Tann. If you keep using KM to preface these ships people will automatically assume you mean the Kriegs Marine = Germany's WW2 navy. Yes the Invincible classes were expected to be used as scouts BUT they were never intended to face Sustained!! fire from BB grade guns, they were to "go have a look and get the hell out of there" not sit there and slug it out against battleship grade guns. They were misused. But that is my opinion DK Brown aside. You paragraph says They were to overwhelm the enemy’s "Scouting line" with their superior gun power, locate and even engage the enemy battle line. It does NOT say they were expected to engage equivalent ships, as none existed at the time. They would take a few shots at teh enemy at long range while taking word back to their main fleet, radio being very much in it's infancy back then. To say the Lions were crap ships due to poor shells and unstable propellant is total BS. They stood up to Hipper's fast battleships and after Jutland were still At sea, still Combat Capable and looking to continue the fight while 1stSG had run for home, whimpering in fear, crippled by those same crappy shells despite all the battleship grade armouring. The loss of Queen Mary is less about the ships design and more about dangerous propellant plus good and very lucky shooting in hitting turrets. Something the HSF had great luck in doing throughout the battle. If you say the ships themselves were crappy due to elements not part of their design is poor thinking and it can be said ALL German ships were crappy due to the poor quality coal they used. A day or two's hard steaming and they're dead in the water. That's no more the fault of the ships design than the shells and propellant were for the Lions. And you can say all large German ships of WW2 were crappy due to their faulty shells which had a very high failure rate.

Von Der Tann is certainly one of my favorite German battlecruisers. Her South American cruise was one of my favorite things to research when I made my video on her, which makes me think I should remake that video.

@wolfganghuhn7747

5 ай бұрын

She drew first blood

Another very well made and informative Video. Thank you very much

The reason the name Von Der Tann wasn't reused for any of the Reichsmarine/Kriegsmarine warships (unlike for example, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Blucher, and Lutzow) is hilariously petty. The captain of Von Der Tann at Jutland had been Hans Zenker, who became the head of the Reichsmarine until 1928. And his successor, Erich Raeder, hated him. He wasn't going to allow the name of Zenker's beloved ship to get reused.

@trauko1388

4 ай бұрын

Interesting bit, Raeder should have a monument in London.

HMS Invincible was an ironic name for that particular ship.

Well, Von der Tann was actually a fast battleship, the first of its kind.

Great video Skyena, I am wondering if you could discuss the Graff Zeppelin class carriers in a later video?

Her speed was kept down by low quality coal. Also her speed trials were done at very specific depths.

A very interesting and informative video

Von der Tann was certainly a luckier ship than her British counterpart. Not every ship steams away from a decisive battle where all her turrets to knocked out.

@trauko1388

4 ай бұрын

More than that, she steamed around during most of the battle without any working turrets, just absorbing hits for the ships that could return fire.

And here come the apples/oranges arguments. Sigh... VDT was just simply better than what the redcoats were making at the time.

@kenduncan3221

5 ай бұрын

Was the Von der Tann a better ship? Undoubtedly yes. Was the Invincible design to a different and lower standard again yes it was.

@SennaAugustus

5 ай бұрын

Von der Tann got bested by the ships that replaced the battlecruiser, which was the fast battleship, with the Queen Elizabeth class. The compromise between armour and speed... Why not both?

@kenduncan3221

5 ай бұрын

​@@SennaAugustus I like to think of the Queen Elizabeth's as the only British examples of fast battleships during WWII. The German BCs were the German equivalent just with a bit smaller guns.

@trauko1388

4 ай бұрын

VdT WAS a fast battleship. It was 21.000t full load, a QE was 33.000t+ No contest, it wasnt bested, the QEs were simply a lot larger and rather mediocre for the displacement.

You're missing very important details. The attacks on Whitby, Scarborough AND HARTLEPOOL , took place on the 16th of December 1914, beginning at 8.10 am. The bombardment of Hartlepool lasted 43 mins , the German ships ( Seydlitz, Moltke and Blücher ) firing 1150 shells into the town and caused the deaths of 130 people ( 37 children ) and 450 wounded. The guns of the Heugh Battery and Lighthouse Battery returned fire, resulting in the death of 9 crew on the Blücher. The first British soldier to killed by enemy fire on British soil in WW1, died outside Heugh Battery along with 8 others in total. Heugh Battery is the only WW1 battlefield site in the UK and is now a volunteer- led museum.

Pronunciation: Fon der Tann, o and a are very short vowels here.

Battle cruising barge.