SMS Von Der Tann - Development

Development

The preceding German large cruiser design, Blücher, was an incremental increase over previous armored cruisers. Blücher was armed with twelve 21 cm (8.3 in) guns, and designed to counter what the Germans knew about the British Invincible class, which were assumed to be larger iterations of the basic armored cruiser type. Once sufficient information about the new British cruisers became available, it was obvious that they were not simply an enlargement on previous designs but a whole new type of warship—the battlecruiser—to which Blücher was quite inferior. However, there were insufficient funds to alter Blücher's layout, so the cruiser assigned for 1907 would have to be an entirely new design.

Design of Von der Tann began in August 1906, under the name "Cruiser F", amid disagreements over the intended role of the new ship. Admiral Tirpitz advocated a ship similar to the new British battlecruisers of the Invincible class: heavier guns, lighter armor, and higher speed with the intention of using the ship as a fleet scout and to destroy the opposing fleet's cruisers. Tirpitz had no intention of using the ship in the main battle line. Kaiser Wilhelm II however, along with most of the Reichsmarineamt (Imperial Navy Office), was in favor of incorporating the ship into the battle line after initial contact was made, which necessitated much heavier armor. This insistence upon the capability to fight in the battle line was a result of the numerical inferiority of the German High Seas fleet compared to the British Royal Navy.

Several design proposals were submitted, all calling for heavy main guns, between 30.5 cm (12 in) and 34.3 cm (13.5 in) calibers. However, financial limitations dictated that smaller, less expensive weaponry would be used instead. The final design therefore used the same 28 cm (11 in) double turret introduced for the last two Nassau-class battleships — hydraulic elevated Drh LC/1907 instead of electrical elevated Drh LC/1906. In compensation, the design was given a relatively heavy secondary armament.

At a conference in September 1906, many of the disagreements over the ship's design were resolved. The Naval Constructor, von Eickstedt, argued that since the explosive trials for the proposed protection systems for the new battlecruiser had not been completed, the construction should be postponed, to allow for any alterations to the design. He also argued that guns of 21 cm (8.3 in) or 24 cm (9.4 in) caliber would be sufficient to penetrate the armor of the new British battlecruisers. However, Admiral August von Heeringen, of the General Navy Department, stated that for the ship to be able to engage battleships, the 28 cm (11 in) caliber guns were necessary.

Admiral Capelle, the deputy director of the Reichsmarineamt, stated that by mid November 1906, the testing for the underwater protection designs would be complete. He suggested that if the torpedo bulkhead needed to be strengthened, the ship might be too heavy for the 28 cm (11 in) guns, if the displacement of around 19,000 t (21,000 short tons) was to be retained. Tirpitz refused to consider using smaller guns, even if it meant increasing the displacement of the ship. Von Eickstedt proposed employing a secondary battery of 17 cm (6.7 in) guns instead of the 15 cm (5.9 in) the design called for, but the increased weight would have made it impossible to mount eight main battery guns.

On 22 June 1907, the Kaiser authorized construction of Cruiser F, to be named Von der Tann, after Ludwig Freiherr von und zu der Tann-Rathsamhausen, a Bavarian general who fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The contract was awarded to the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, on 26 September 1907. The keel was laid on 21 March 1908, and the ship was launched nearly a year later, on 20 March 1909. The ship cost 36.523 million Marks.