page_title: Roon-class cruiser
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Roon-class cruiser / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: German armored cruiser SMS Roon
context_page_description: The Roon class was a pair of armored cruisers built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the 1900s. The two ships of the class, Roon and Yorck, closely resembled the earlier Prinz Adalbert-class cruisers upon which they were based. The Roon class incorporated slight incremental improvements, including a pair of extra boilers. The ships were easily distinguished from their predecessors by the addition of a fourth funnel. Though the additional boilers were meant to increase the ships' speed, both vessels failed to reach their designed top speed. In addition, the ships had comparatively light armament and thin armor protection, so they compared poorly with their foreign contemporaries, particularly the armored cruisers of their primary opponent, the British Royal Navy.
  The two ships served in I Scouting Group, the reconnaissance force of the High Seas Fleet after they entered service in 1905–1906. During this period, Yorck and Roon served stints as the group flagship and the deputy commander flagship, respectively. By the early 1910s, the first German battlecruisers had begun to enter service and Roon was decommissioned in 1911 and placed in reserve; Yorck joined her in 1913.
caption: Roon, likely during her visit to the United States in 1907
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