SMS Gneisenau
"Gneisenau" was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen, Germany in 1904, under construction number 144. She was launched on 14 June 1906, and commissioned into the fleet nearly two years later on 6 March 1908. The ship cost the German government 19,243,000 goldmarks. The ship had been designed for service with the High Seas Fleet, though it was found to be too weak for service with the battle fleet; instead it was deployed overseas, a role in which it performed well.
Hermann Wissmann
In 1890 a single screw steamship christened SMS "Hermann von Wissmann" was built by the Hamburg Janssen and Schilinsky shipyard. It was built in sections in Germany shipped to East Africa, transported overland and launched in Lake Nyasa in September 1893. It was captured at Liuli by the British in the first naval action of World War I. A similar but smaller version christened the SMS "Hedwig von Wissmann" after Hermann's wife was launched on Lake Tanganyika in September 1900. She was sunk in 1916 in a battle with HMS "Mimi" and HMS "Toutou".