I found it an interesting programme,it does slightly niggle me that they at times don't get the classification of ships correct.Scharnhorst[along with her sister ship Gneisenau]was not a battleship but a battlecruiser.
That happens all the time in especially the "populus" documentaries as I call them which just cater for average joe public who think all big warships are "battleships".
Of course the ships mentioned were battlecruisers, and belonged to a class totalling 5 ships, which included my favorite
Prinz Eugen which, whilst with the
Bismark, entered battle with our
HMS Hood. The weaknesses apparent in all the Royal Navy battlecruisers from WW1 era, like the
Hood and the German superiority of build and fire control sadly proved fatal for
Hood and showed the fire power of the German battlecruisers, especially when supported by the battleship
Bismark!
Although they did exceed the limitations placed on Naval new builds by the
Versailles Treaty 1919, the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 (which affected the design and build of the RN Battleships
HMS Nelson and her sister
HMS Rodney), and the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament / London Naval Treaty (1930), Germany NEVER fully accepted the limitations placed on it by the
Versailles Treaty which they were not party to. Once Hitler came to power he denounced completely that "agreement", and managed to get a new one in the form of the
Anglo-German Naval Agreement (1935) Second London Naval Treaty (1936), which greatly increased the allowed size of any new warships and the type of naval fleet in use, which was controversial from the start (as was the original
Versailles Treaty), and which Hitler denounced anyway in 1939 as of course by then he had ripped up the "rule book" on Germany's military limitations and was bent on war.