They were two different ships, built to different specifications, for sure, but they had the same basic role. They were scouting ships with capital ship armament, designed to run down enemy battleships and survive long enough to hold that enemy battle line in place. in 1913-1920 there were no treaty limits, Germany and Britain were building the best ships they could with the technology and resources available.
This is an interesting argument because as you know and as supported by the article I just posted, the design of the Hood changed substantially from its initial concept especially after Jutland. Its initial design is not what actually commissioned, but more on that later.
As for knowing what the other side was up to, keep in mind that the Germans did not see the British as their natural enemy.
The Derfflinger was designed well before the war. It commissioned in 1914 a month after the war began.
As for knowing that the British were working on the Admiral class, that would be pretty hard considering that according to this article, the request for investigating the design that became the Hood did not even happen until 1915.
You also must know that the resources available to the Germans was not nearly equal to those available to the British.
Whilst there were only a handful of yards that could handle a ship the size of the hood, I believe the germans had access to such ports. moreover the germans were aware British were designing and building the hood class, just as the british knew basically what the germans were building. This is what makes the Imperial fleets decisions about their new ships perplexing. They made similar mistakes 20 years later with their bismarck classes and even moreso in the way they went about designing and building carriers.
First of all, the ports and facilities between the two nations was not equal. I believe that waterways (Kiel Canal?) needed to be dredged to allow a ship the size of Bismarck to pass. This was decades after the Great War, so Mackensen / Scharnhorst was probably as big as their infrastructure could support at the time.
Regarding size of Bismarck: With Washington Treaty limits at 35,000 tons, this was a pretty big stretch of the truth. When the limit escalated, obviously they were not going to be replacing her. King George V class had the same issue with being well under the "Treaty Limit" but even more so.
As history shows, the tiny little Nelson, KGV, and Queen Elizabeth classes and the even smaller and older ships were not so much a problem in the end. The big difference in the number of units in each navy was the worst problem for the Germans.
War was not supposed to come quite so early for the Germans. If it had been delayed another 5 years or more, perhaps Bismarck would have had more company. Perhaps Graf Zeppelin would have been finished and given the Germans some experience with aircraft carriers though I don't see how they could have built more very quickly.
In the big scheme of things, a half dozen German battleships would not have made that much difference either
Just to show what a mistake the Alaskas were they were nearly as expensinsive as an iowa to build. The 12in guns were a new design and because only a few were made, they were very expensive to build....the most expensive guns in the US inventory....
Consider that only three ships were built along with a new design for a naval gun, that is not all that surprising.
Suppose that the post-war navy had settled on a ship between the size of Baltimore and Alaska armed with 12 inch guns as a standard platform? Maybe the 12 inch gun would not have been so expensive in quantity.
- Ivan.