SMS Gneisenau
SMS "Gneisenau" was an armored cruiser of the German navy, part of the two-ship . She was named after August von Gneisenau, a Prussian general of the Napoleonic Wars. The ship was laid down in 1904 at the AG Weser dockyard in Bremen, launched in June 1906, and completed in March 1908, at a cost of over 19 million goldmarks. She was armed with a main battery of eight guns, had a top speed of , and displaced at full combat load.
SMS Gneisenau
By 13:20, the faster British ships had caught up with "Gneisenau" and the other cruisers, and began to fire at a range of . Von Spee realized his armored cruisers could not escape the much faster battlecruisers, and so ordered the three light cruisers to attempt to break away while he turned about to engage the British with "Gneisenau" and "Scharnhorst". However, Sturdee detached his armored and light cruisers to pursue the German light cruisers, while the battlecruisers dealt with "Gneisenau" and "Scharnhorst". "Inflexible" attacked "Gneisenau" while "Invincible" opened fire at "Scharnhorst". Sturdee attempted to widen the distance by turning two points to the north to prevent von Spee from closing to within the range of his smaller guns. Von Spee counteracted this maneuver by turning rapidly to the south, which forced Sturdee to turn south as well. This allowed "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" to get close enough to engage with their secondary guns; their shooting was so effective that it forced the British to haul away temporarily.