After the commissioning of the British Invincible-class and creation of the battlecruiser as a type of warship, the Kaiserliche Marine desired battlecruisers of their own and the Construction Office began work on a unique warship that was to be the first German battlecruiser. Although Admiral Tirpitz wished to create a German version of the Invincible class, with heavy guns and light armour, he was overruled and the Von der Tann was designed with guns 22 mm smaller than the British ships, but with considerably greater protection and speed, setting the trend that subsequent German battlecruisers would follow: greater protection at the expense of lesser firepower. Due to being a pioneering design, the resulting SMS Von der Tann featured several new quirks unique to any German capital ship at that time. She was the first large German warship to be powered by steam turbine, which granted her a very high top speed for a capital ship of the time. In addition, she also had a peculiar staggered wing turret arrangement that allows all of her guns to be fired full broadsides and therefore saved weight, a feature that would later be featured on the Kaiser-class battleships before being superseded by superfiring turrets.
After spending her time bombarding British coasts during the early half of the Great War, Von der Tann would participate in the Battle of Jutland between 31 May and 1 June 1916, during which she managed to sink the British battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable during the opening stage of the battle, although she suffered damage and malfunctions that rendered all of her main guns inoperable. Like most of the German high sea fleet ships, Von der Tann met her end at Scapa Flow after she was scuttled to prevent the fleet from being divided between the Allied powers.
Introduced in Update "Hot Tracks", the SMS Von der Tann is the first battlecruiser on the German battlecruiser line and serves as an introduction to the German battlecruiser design, being significantly faster than its peers with serviceable armour at the cost of relatively small main guns. Due to her staggered wing turret placements, she is capable of firing full broadsides with the same firepower as her battleship counterpart SMS Westfalen, which, when combined with her speed and heavy secondary armaments, allows her to perform very well at closer ranges except against heavier battleships. Due to these qualities, Von der Tann excels at harassing enemy cruisers, where she is capable of outranging them while being highly resilient to their returning fire.
