The Gloire-class ironclads were a group of three wooden-hulled armored frigates built for the French Navy in the late 1850s and early 1860s. , the lead ship of the class, was the first ocean-going ironclad warship to be built by any country. The ships of the Gloire class were classified as armoured frigates because they only had a single gun deck and their traditional disposition of guns arrayed along the length of the hull also meant that they were broadside ironclads.
Design and description Designed by the French naval architect Henri Dupuy de Lôme, the ships of the class were intended to fight in the line of battle, unlike the first British ironclads.Gardiner, p. 54 The ships were long,Gille, p. 23 with a beam of . They had a maximum draft of ,Campbell, p. 286 a depth of hold of and displaced . The ships of the class had a high metacentric height of and consequently rolled badly. With their gun ports only above the waterline, they proved to be very wet. They had a crew of 570 officers and enlisted men.
The ships of the Gloire class had a single horizontal return connecting-rod compound steam engine that drove a six-bladed, propeller. The engine was powered by eight Indret oval boilers and was designed for a capacity of . On sea trials, the ships exceeded . They carried a maximum of of coal which allowed them to steam for at a speed of .de Balincourt & Vincent-Bréchignac, Part I, p. 14 The Gloire-class ships were initially fitted with a light barquentine rig with three masts that had a sail area around . This was later changed to a full ship rig of , but later had to be reduced because of excessive rolling.
The ships were initially armed with 36 Modèle 1858 rifled muzzle-loading guns, 34（14 each sides and 2 pivot mounts fore and 4 pivot mounts aft as chase guns）of which were positioned on the single gun deck in the broadside. The remaining two guns were placed on the upper deck as chase guns. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of only and proved to be ineffective against armour.Gardiner, p. 159 They were replaced by rifled breech-loading Modèle 1864 guns in 1868. Six Canon de 24 C modèle 1864 guns were mounted in the middle of the gun deck and on the upper deck two guns replaced the original chase guns.
The wooden hull was completely armoured with wrought iron plates thick. Backed by the sides of the hull, the armour extended above the waterline and below. The Gloire-class ships had an open-topped conning tower with armour thick and of armour underneath the wooden upper deck.
Ships ShipBuilderLaid downLaunchedCompletedArsenal de Toulon4 March 185824 November 1859August 18601 May 1858Silverstone, p. 1014 April 1861March 1862Arsenal de Cherbourg14 September 185810 March 186013 May 1862
Service All three ships of the class had very uneventful careers, spending the bulk of their time with the Mediterranean Fleet aside from a few excursions to foreign waters.Gille, pp. 22–23 Normandie supported the French intervention in Mexico in 1862, the first ironclad to cross the Atlantic. They were active during the Franco-Prussian War, but saw no action. Gloire, the only ship built with seasoned timber lasted the longest, not being condemned and broken up until 1879. Her sister ships only lasted a decade in service before they were too rotten for any further use and were condemned in 1871–1872 and subsequently broken up.
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