Helgoland repeats Nassau's costly turret geometry

Germany's second dreadnought group repeated Nassau's hexagonal layout, paying for twelve 12-inch guns while bringing no more than eight onto a broadside. The ships also retained triple-expansion machinery instead of turbines, although their roughly 20.5-knot speed kept them close to Dreadnought. They were balanced ships with attractive lines, but the larger criticism is strategic. Germany knew it could not match British shipyard capacity, and even the United States did not expect to do so. A navy in that position needed a more proactive design response. Helgoland instead used scarce construction capacity for an expensive refinement of Nassau's geometry.