Vanguard_ class--the _Westfaelen, Nassau,
Rheinland_, and _Posen_, built in 1909 and 1910. Their heaviest
guns measured 11 inches, while those of the English ships of the
same class measured 12 inches. The displacement of these German
fighting ships was 18,600 tons. In point of speed they showed some
improvement over the older German ships, making 19.5 knots. Germany,
like England, was now committed to the building of larger and larger
ships of the line. The _Helgoland, Thueringen, Oldenburg_, and
_Ostfriesland_, which were put into the water in 1911 and 1912,
were consequently of 22,400 tons displacement, with a speed of
20.5 knots and carrying twelve 12-inch guns, fourteen 5.9-inch
rapid-fire guns, fourteen 3.9-inch rapid-fire guns, a few smaller
guns, and as many as six torpedo tubes.

While England was maintaining her "two to three" policy, and while
the United States stood committed to the building of two first-class
battleships a year, Germany, in 1913, put five of them into the
water. These were the _Koenig Albert, Prinz Regent Luitpold, Kaiserin,
Kaiser_, and _Friedrich der Grosse_, each capable of speeding through
the water at a rate of 21 knots, displacing 23,310 tons and carrying
an armament of ten 12-inch guns, fourteen 5.9-inch guns, and a
large number of rapid-fire guns of smaller measurement. Their armor
was quite heavy, being 13 inches thick on the side and 11 inches
thick where protection for the big guns was needed.

The largest ships in the German navy which were launched, fitted,
and manned at the time that the war began, were those which were
built in 1914 and which had a displacement of 26,575 tons. These
ships were the _Koenig, Grosser Kurfuerst_, and the _Markgraf_. The
corresponding type in the British navy was that of the _Iron Duke_,
built in the same year. The British ships of this class were 1,000
tons lighter in displacement, a bit faster--making 22.5 knots to
the 22 knots made by the German ships--and their armament was not
so strong as that of the German type, for the German ships carried
ten 14-inch guns, whereas the English carried ten 13.5-inch guns.

In addition to these first-class battleships, Germany had certain
others, individual in type, such as the _Von der Tann, Moltke,
Goeben, Seydlitz, Derfflinger, Fuerst Bismarck, Prinz Heinrich,
Prinz Adalbert, Roon_ and _Yorck, Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau,
Bluecher, Magdeburg, Strassburg, Breslau, Stralsund, Rostock_, and
_Karlsruhe_.