sentences:  The "Brandenburg" class was significantly smaller and less powerful than the contemporary British , but roughly equal with the series of French battleships begun with and with the Russian (with the French ships being faster but much less heavily armed and the Russian ship being slower but armed with heavier main guns).Though they were the first modern battleships built in Germany, presaging the Tirpitz-era High Seas Fleet, the authorization for the ships came as part of a construction program that reflected the strategic and tactical confusion of the 1880s caused by theories like the .The ships of the "Brandenburg" class were long between perpendiculars, long at the waterline, and long overall.