The launching of the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, 1933
The pocket-battleship concept was an ingenious response to a stringent clause in the Versailles treaty that limited future German warships to a displacement weight of a mere 10,000 tons. By contrast the Washington Naval Treaties of 1921 and 1922 allowed the world’s five leading sea powers—Great Britain, the United States, Japan, Italy, and France—to build battleships of up to 35,000 tons. Yet the Washington treaties offered the German navy a ray of hope by restricting the cruisers of the five powers to a 10,000-ton displacement and eight-inch guns; bigger weapons were allowed only if they could be considered experimental. The admirals in Berlin responded by drawing up plans for a 10,000-ton warship that would carry heavier guns than such cruisers while sacrificing nothing in the way of speed. The proposed vessel—the pocket battleship—would boast six 11-inch guns and eight 5.9-inchers. To keep its weight down, the ship would carry relatively light armor so that its eight diesel engines would give it twenty-six knots of speed—more than enough to elude rival battleships— and enormous range.