Germany built only three Deutschland-class replacements while Hannover, Schlesien, and Schleswig-Holstein remained available into the Second World War. These pre-dreadnoughts dated from 1905-06 and were already more than twenty years old during the interwar rebuilding period. Retention made the fleet look larger, but each old ship still demanded crew, maintenance, and supporting infrastructure. That tradeoff is another example of force numbers obscuring the cost of delayed modernization.
Notable Point · 31:09-33:08
Retained pre-dreadnoughts as a personnel burden
Keeping old pre-dreadnoughts increased nominal fleet numbers, but it also tied crews and infrastructure to ships that Germany was allowed to replace.