During the design process for the class, the General Department issued a request that the new cruisers be capable of fighting in the line of battle in the event that German battleships were damaged and unable to continue fighting. Up to this point, this had not been a consideration in German armored cruiser construction, and so a significant increase in both firepower and armor protection would be required to accommodate it. This in turn required much larger ships, and the "Scharnhorst"s were accordingly about heavier than the preceding s. The weight increase secured a doubling of the main battery, a 50% increase in belt armor, and an increase in top speed by more than a knot over the "Roon" class. The speed increase was achieved by the addition of two boilers that provided more power for the propulsion system. As a result of these improvements, the "Scharnhorst" class was the first German armored cruiser design that compared favorably to its foreign counterparts.