Colbert (C 611)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Battleship Strasbourg, Dunkerque's sistership
Career French Navy Ensign
Ordered: 1953
Laid down: December 1953
Launched: 24 March 1956 in Brest
Commissioned: 5 May 1959
Decommissioned: May 1991
Fate: Museum ship
Struck: 1991
General Characteristics
Displacement: 11,093 tonnes
Length: 180.47 m
Draft 7.90 m
Beam: 20.31 m
Propulsion: 2 TE CEM-Parsons groupes
Speed: 31 knots
Range: 4,000 nautical miles (7,400 km) at 25 knots.
Complement:
  • Original version:
    • 70 officers
    • 19 chief masters
    • 52 masters
    • 108 aid masters
    • 748 quarter-masters and sailors
    • 2 400 men
  • Missile cruiser version
    • 25 officers
    • 208 petty officers
    • 329 quarter-masters and sailors
    • 500 men
Armament: *Original version:
    • 16 × 127 mm AA guns
    • 20 × 57 mm mod 51 guns
  • Missile cruiser version:
Planes 1 helicopter
Motto:

The C611 Colbert was an anti-air cruiser, later transformed into a missile cruiser, of the French Navy. It was the sixth warship to be named after Jean Baptiste Colbert.

It was the second of the series of the De Grasse, and became the flagship of the squadron of the Mediterranean Sea in Toulon. In June 1967, it ferried General De Gaulle to Canada (at this occasion he said his famous "vive le Québec libre").

Between 1970 and 1972, it undertook extensive modifications in Brest to become a missile cruiser. Its only war mission was the Gulf War (operation "Salamandre") just before it was decommissioned.

It is now a museum in Bordeaux.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

The Colbert on the Garonne in Bordeaux.
The Colbert on the Garonne in Bordeaux.
In other languages