Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 5, 2015
The four battlecruisers of the Mackensen class were the last to be built by Germany in World War I, although they were never completed, to free up wartime resources for more U-boats. The lead ship was named for Field Marshal August von Mackensen; the others were Graf Spee, Prinz Eitel Friedrich, and Fürst Bismarck. In response to these ships, the British Royal Navy began construction on the Admiral-class battlecruisers, but only one was completed, HMS Hood, after the war. The Mackensen class was an improvement on the preceding Derfflinger class, and was followed by the Ersatz Yorck class. That class was slated for larger guns than the 35 cm (14 in) main-battery guns of Mackensen, after the Battle of Jutland in 1916 demonstrated the need for larger guns, but little progress was made on those ships before they too were cancelled. The four Mackensen-class ships were broken up for scrap metal in the early 1920s. (Full article...)
Part of the Battlecruisers of the world featured topic.