What Renown revealed about the Deutschland class

What did Renown's threat to Graf Spee reveal about the Deutschland class?

Renown's 15-inch guns could have finished Graf Spee, while British cruiser groups made commerce raiding a precarious wartime role for the Deutschlands.

Renown was closing as a threat: her accurate 15-inch guns could finish Graf Spee. The Deutschlands' 11-inch guns and cruiser-scale protection also look weak against a full County-class cruiser and two Town-class cruisers, a fight presented as heavily one-sided. The ships still served as industrial learning exercises, flag-showing vessels, and peacetime deterrents. Their credible wartime task was commerce raiding under strict orders to avoid damaging fights. A raider could therefore become strategically trapped once British forces found and damaged it.