Some French Pre-Pre-Dreadnoughts

Garlicdesign

Post subject: Some French Pre-Pre-Dreadnoughts

Posted: January 15th, 2017, 10:27 pm

Posts: 1059
Joined: December 26th, 2012, 9:36 am
Location: Germany

Hello again!

This is a project I had cooking on a small flame since nearly two years before I came round to completing it.

Terrible-class coast defence ironclads

These four vessels are the French contribution to the 1870s/1880s fashion of mounting super-heavy guns on battleships. In their case, on rather small battleships. They displaced some 7.500 tons and carried two 420mm/22 guns; secondaries were limited to four 100mm, four 47mm and 16 37mm pieces. They had low freeboard and were good for 15 knots; their armour belts were the strongest ever mounted on French ships at 500mm, although it was typically shallow. For all their questionable fighting value - their RoF was four rounds an hour - they had a strangely modern appearance, with two tall tripod masts and two funnels abreast. They were laid down in 1878 and took nine to ten years to complete; they never were really up-to-date, but apparently sturdy and well built, because three of them remained in service for over 25 years, one of them as long as 32 years. No two looked entirely alike.

The class ship Terrible had square fighting tops (the other three had round ones). Her main guns were shortened to 19 calibers after cracks developed at their muzzles during proof-firing; the other three did not have this problem.
[ img ]

The Requin resembled Terrible, but had another bow shape and somewhat more elaborate superstructure. The unarmoured gun housings atop the barbettes had a slightly different shape.
[ img ]

The Indomptable had higher tripod masts than the first two and fully encased funnels. Her gun covers were also differently shaped. Her anchor hoists were much less prominent.
[ img ]

The Caiman resembled Indomptable in most respects, but had two-storey fighting tops, unlike all others in her class, and some variations in the forward superstructure.
[ img ]

In the mid-1890s, Caiman and Indomptable had their aft tripods removed and replaced by shorter pole masts with a new rig, and their funnel encasements were cut down so they now resembled the funnels of the other two; this was probably an effort to reduce silhouette and topweight.
[ img ]

Terrible's main guns apparently were unsatisfactory after having been shortened; they were replaced with 340mm/35 pieces in 1898. Lacking any photographs of her after this refit, I quite simply can't say if she retained her aft tripod or not, thus she is shown with both masts. She soldiered on in this shape till 1911, when she was the first of her class to be scrapped.
[ img ]

Caiman and Indomptable were much more radically re-armed in 1901, receiving 275mm/40 guns with a RoF of three rounds per two minutes (twenty times the RoF of the 420mm pieces!) in fully enclosed armoured turrets. The number of 100mm guns was increased to six, and these were of a new model; twelve 47mm now were the tertiary battery. The remaining tripod mast was cut down as well and replaced with a pole mast, reducing silhouette even more; the bridge structure also was completely remodeled. They now bore little resemblance to their original looks and served till 1913, when they were hulked; they lingered through the first world war and were scrapped in the early 1920s.
[ img ]

Requin received the most thorough rebuild; she was rearmed like Caiman and Indomptable and also received similar masts and bridgework; in addition, she also was re-engined and reboilered, and became the only ship of her class with two funnels on the centerline.
[ img ]

Requin was reactivated in 1915 and served in the Mediterranean during the first world war; her masts were somewhat shortened and re-rigged, but otherwise she remained pretty much as she was. She was stricken as late as 1920 and scrapped in 1927.
[ img ]

Greetings
GD

Top

Shipbucket

Some French Pre-Pre-Dreadnoughts

Who is online