After the old cruiser Cormoran was stripped for Tsingtao's defense, the captured merchant vessel Ryazan was converted and given her name and some of her guns. The improvised ship became an early example of a German surface raider created from a merchant hull. She avoided Allied forces, sank no ships, and was eventually interned at Guam before being scuttled when the United States entered the war in 1917. Even so, uncertainty about her location and about whether other armed merchantmen existed forced opponents to consider threats beyond what they could immediately see.
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Cormoran and the fear of an unseen raider
The converted raider Cormoran achieved little materially, but her uncertain whereabouts still imposed an operational burden on the Allies.