Foch (R 99)

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Career

Ordered:	1955
Laid down:	15 November 1957
Launched:	23 July 1960
Commissioned:	15 July 1963
Decommissioned:	15 November 2000
Fate:	Sold to the Brazilian Navy, re-named São Paulo.
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	24200 tonnes (32800 full load)
Length:	265 m
Width:	51,20 m
Beam:
Draught:	8,60 m
Propulsion:	6 Indret boilers, 4 steam turbines producing 126 000 hp, 2 propellers
Speed:	32 knots
Range:	7 500 mn in 18 knots
Complement:	1338 men, including 64 officers (1920 men including the air group). 984 men if only helicopters are carried.
Armament:	8 × 100 mm turrets (originally) ; in the 90s, 4 are replaced by 2 SACP Crotale EDIR systems, with 52 missiles; 5 × 12.7 mm machine guns.
Electronics:	Radars 1 × DRBV-23B air search radar 1 × DRBV-50 low-altitude or surface search radar (later replaced by a DRBV-15) 1 × NRBA-50 approach radar 1 × DRBI-10 tri-dimensional air search radar several DRBC-31 fire-control radar (later DRBC-32C) DRBN-34 navigation radars
Planes	about 40 aircraft: 15 Dassault Super Étendard 4 Dassault Étendard IVP 8 Crusaders F-8P 8 Breguet Alizé 2 Eurocopter Dauphin Pedro helicopters 2 Super Frelon helicopters
Motto:

Foch (R 99) was the sister-ship of Clemenceau. She was the second warship named in honour of Marshal Ferdinand Foch, after a heavy cruiser commissioned in 1932, and scuttled in Toulon on November 27, 1942.

After a 37-year career in the French navy, on November 15, 2000, she was sold to the Brazilian Navy, and renamed São Paulo. As of 2006, she is still in service. In the French Navy, she was succeeded by Charles De Gaulle (R 91).

[edit] Popular culture

Foch was featured as fighting in the Battle of the Atlantic in Tom Clancy's 1986 novel, Red Storm Rising, which detailed a conventionally-fought Third World War between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In this book, the ship was destroyed and is reported to have at least 40 F-8E(FN) Crusader fighters on board.

Foch was also featured in the 1995 film Crimson Tide.