The Deutschland class comprised three German armored cruisers, Deutschland (later renamed Lutzow), Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee, built by Germany's Reichsmarine and Kriegsmarine between 1929 and 1936 and popularly nicknamed pocket battleships because they carried battleship-caliber guns, six 28cm guns in two triple turrets, on a hull far smaller and lighter than a true battleship, achieved partly through extensive use of welding rather than riveting and all-diesel propulsion for very long range. Designed within the tonnage limits Germany was still nominally bound by after the First World War while giving the ships enough speed and range to outrun any warship powerful enough to sink them, the class was intended for commerce raiding against enemy merchant shipping far from home waters. Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled by her own crew off Montevideo after the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939, while Lutzow and Admiral Scheer were both destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945.
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