was an ironclad barbette ship built for the French Navy in the 1870s and 1880s; she was the first vessel of that type built by France. She carried her main battery of four guns individually in open barbette mountings, which offered increased fields of fire compared to earlier central battery ships, though they were less well protected. was ordered as part of a French naval construction program aimed at countering the growth of the Italian fleet, which had begun work on the very large ironclads of the and es in the early 1870s. The Italian vessels, armed with guns, prompted public outcry in France that pressured the navy to develop larger guns for its own ships. s design served as the basis for several follow-on classes, including the and es.
The ship served with the Mediterranean Squadron for most of her active career. In the 1880s and 1890s, the ship took part in numerous training exercises. She suffered an accidental explosion in one of her main guns, though reports of the timing and casualties vary. was reduced to the Reserve Division in 1895, serving as its flagship for the next three years. The ship continued to regularly participate in training maneuvers with the rest of the squadron. By the late 1890s, more modern pre-dreadnought battleships began to enter service, and in 1898, she was transferred to the Northern Squadron, based in the English Channel. In 1901, the ship was withdrawn from service to be modernized as part of a program to upgrade the ironclads still in service, though by the time work was completed after 1905, saw no further active duty. Instead, she was struck from the naval register in 1909 and subsequently broken up.
Design
In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the French Navy embarked on a construction program to strengthen the fleet in 1872. The initial ships followed the same general pattern as the ships built in the 1860s, but by the early 1870s, the French design staff in the (Board of Construction) had to grapple with the challenges posed by technological developments and foreign construction programs.
In the early 1870s, the Italian (Royal Navy) had begun its own expansion program under the direction of Benedetto Brin, which included the construction of several very large ironclad warships of the and es, armed with 100-ton guns. The French initially viewed the ships as not worthy of concern, though by 1877, public pressure over the new Italian vessels prompted the Navy to order . The public outcry also forced the French to design new steel guns to compete with the gigantic Italian guns; the Model 1870 gun was quickly surpassed by the Model 1875, which was installed aboard .
As the power of guns continued to grow, thicker armor was needed to protect the ships; the full side armor of earlier ironclads could not be thickened without prohibitively increasing displacement. This led to intense discussions in France (and in foreign navies) as to the best way to protect new capital ships; in France, designers considered (de-armoring) their next generation of ironclads. This involved eliminating most of the side armor of the hull and concentrating a sufficient thickness at the waterline only. Guns would be placed in lightly armored barbettes on the upper deck. The French decision was driven by a desire to protect their ships' ability to maneuver, as the unarmored ends of the citadel ships could be easily damaged and flooded. They viewed the ram as a decisive weapon, and a vessel that could no longer maneuver effectively would easily fall victim to a ramming attack. The French differed from their British and Italian counterparts, who decided to shorten the length of their belt armor to save the weight necessary to thicken the remaining portion of armor.
Work on the design began with French Naval Minister Charles de Dompierre d'Hornoy's order for the to prepare two options for the new first-class ironclad on 20 October 1873. Work on the project was led by the Director of Materiel, Victorin Sabattier. One of the options, a combination barbette and central battery ship, was developed further into the . The other, which carried all of its heavy guns in barbettes on the upper deck, went through a series of alterations and Sabattier eventually submitted it to Léon Martin Fourichon, who was then the naval minister, on 8 March 1876. Fourichon approved it on 5 August, and the contract for the vessel was awarded on 4 December. Apart from the main battery arrangement, the ship was in most respects similar to the s.
The ship provided the basis for the very similar design; most of the French ironclads built in the 1880s were developed from these two designs. The and es, intended for overseas deployments in the French colonial empire, were scaled down versions of .
Characteristics
was long at the waterline and long overall, with a beam of and a draft of aft. She displaced . Her hull featured a pronounced ram bow and had a short forecastle deck that extended from the stem to the forward main battery guns. A small conning tower was placed between the forward barbettes and a secondary tower was placed aft, between the stern barbettes. Her hull was divided by sixteen watertight transverse bulkheads and several longitudinal bulkheads. Her transverse metacentric height was about . She was fitted with three pole masts equipped with spotting tops for her main battery guns, and she carried two searchlights. The crew consisted of 712 officers and enlisted men.
Her propulsion machinery consisted of two vertical compound steam engines with three cylinders apiece, each driving a screw propeller, with steam provided by twelve coal-burning fire-tube boilers. The boilers were vented through a pair of large funnels located side-by-side just aft of the conning tower. Her engines were rated to produce . On her initial trials conducted in 1882, her engines reached a maximum of for a top speed of . Coal storage amounted to . At a cruising speed of , the ship could steam for . was designed with a three-masted schooner rig to supplement the steam engines, though it was removed before she was completed.
Her main armament consisted of four , 18-caliber guns mounted in individual barbette mounts, two side-by-side forward, one amidships, and one aft, the latter pair on the centerline. These guns had a very low rate of fire between seven and fifteen minutes. They were operated with a pressurized water mechanism that worked the training and elevation gear. The guns had to return to the centerline to be reloaded, and only one gun could be moved at a time.
The main battery was supported by a secondary battery of one and fourteen guns, all carried in individual pivot mounts. The 163 mm gun was placed in the bow as a chase gun, while the 138 mm weapons were located in an unarmored gun battery in the main deck, seven guns per broadside. All of these guns had a very limited firing arc. For defense against torpedo boats, she carried twelve 1-pounder Hotchkiss revolver cannon, all in individual mounts. Her armament was rounded out with four torpedo tubes in above-water mounts. Two tubes were carried on each broadside, one pair ahead and one pair astern.
The ship was protected with wrought iron armor; her belt extended for the entire length of the hull from above the waterline to below. It was thick amidships, tapering to on the bottom edge, while the bow and stern were protected by at the waterline. A lower section extended down at the bow to reinforce the ram. An armor deck connected to the belt at its top and was of mild steel on a layer of plating. The barbettes for the main battery were thick and the supporting tubes were ; the gun shields were . Her conning tower had of mild steel on the sides. Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships notes that "she was very vulnerable above [the waterline] and would not have stood much chance against ."
Modifications During a refit in 1887, the number of 37 mm guns was increased to eighteen. An additional pair of search lights was fitted as well. In 1892, three of her main battery guns were replaced with the slightly longer 21-caliber M1881 variant of the 340 mm gun, though she retained one of the shorter, original weapons. The light battery was expanded significantly with a pair of guns, two 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns, and sixteen 37 mm guns. The torpedo tubes were updated to the M1885 model.
By 1895, the old 340 mm gun was replaced with an updated version, and the 138.6 mm guns were replaced with new guns. The 47 mm guns were removed and four more 65 mm guns were added. She also had her masts reduced to two, which were fitted with two fighting tops apiece.
was withdrawn from service in 1901 to be modernized, along with many other French capital ships of the period. The ship received new water-tube boilers and her engines were overhauled. The center 340 mm gun and its barbette were removed, and an armored battery of 163 mm guns was installed in their place.
Service history Construction – 1889 The keel for was laid down at the shipyard in La Seyne-sur-Mer outside of Toulon in January 1877. The new ship was to be named for Admiral Guy-Victor Duperré. She was launched on 11 September 1879 and fitting-out work on her machinery was completed by 11 May 1881. She was placed in limited commission ten days earlier with a crew of 99 men to conduct her trials, which lasted through 20 November 1882. The ship was placed in full commission on 17 April 1883, and five days later, she joined the Mediterranean Squadron, based in Toulon. On 2–3 March 1886, she took part in experiments with torpedo boats to determine the effectiveness of various attack angles. Later on the 3rd, and the ironclads , , , , and conducted shooting practice using the old ironclad as a target. They fired at a range of and scored 22 percent hits with cast iron practice shells, though they conducted the test under unrealistic conditions, with anchored in a calm sea. The year's large-scale maneuvers were held off Toulon from 10 to 17 May, and they tested the effectiveness of torpedo boats in defending the coastline from a squadron of ironclads, whether cruisers and torpedo boats could break through a blockade of ironclads, and whether a flotilla of torpedo boats could intercept ironclads at sea.
Another major set of exercises was held from 2 to 12 June at Ajaccio on the island of Corsica; and several other ironclads simulated a fleet attacking the port, which was defended by a coastal defense ship, three cruisers, and twenty torpedo boats. The ironclad squadron thereafter sailed to Oran, French Algeria, for another round of maneuvers that began on 25 June. During these exercises, the ironclads simulated an enemy fleet passing through the Strait of Gibraltar to attack the French Mediterranean coast; torpedo boats attempted to intercept them off Mallorca. From the year's maneuvers, the French concluded that the torpedo boats of the day were not sufficiently powerful enough to achieve any of the goals that had been assigned to them, particularly further from coast, but nevertheless still posed significant threats to blockading warships. These lessons spurred the development of larger torpedo boats better able to operate at sea. Later that year, underwent repairs to her boilers; the work lasted into 1887.
In May 1887, took part in exercises to practice convoy escort; the French Army kept significant forces in French North Africa, and these units would have to be transported back to Europe in the event of a major conflict. The ship was assigned to escort a convoy of four simulated troop ships, along with and the ironclads and . A squadron of cruisers and torpedo boats was tasked with intercepting the convoy. The convoy used bad weather to make the passage, as heavy seas kept the torpedo boats from going to sea.