Dunkerque class battleship
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| Class overview | |
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| Name: | Dunkerque |
| Preceded by: | Planned: Lyon class battleship Built: Bretagne class |
| Succeeded by: | Richelieu class battleship |
| Completed: | 2 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | battleship |
| Displacement: | 36,380 (Strasbourg approx. 780 more) tonnes |
| Length: | 215.1 m (706 ft) |
| Beam: | 31.1 m (102 ft) |
| Draught: | 8.7 m (29 ft) |
| Propulsion: |
6 Indret boilers |
| Speed: | 31 knots (57 km/h) (30.4 knots (56 km/h) Strasbourg) |
| Complement: | 1,381 |
| Armament: |
8 330mm/50 Modèle 1931 guns in quadruple turrets |
| Armour: |
225 (283 Strasbourg) mm (side belt) |
| Aircraft carried: | 4 floatplanes, 1 catapult |
| Notes: | Ships in class include: Dunkerque — Strasbourg |
The Dunkerque class was a new type of warship of the French Navy, labelled as "fast battleship". Not as large as other contemporary battleships, they were designed to counter the threat of the German pocket battleships of the Deutschland class. As it turned out, they were also superior to the later German 11-inch main gun Gneisenau class battlecruisers (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau).[1]
The design was very innovative: the whole of the main armament was mounted forward. This had been the case for the Royal Navy's Nelson class battleships but they had three turrets carrying nine guns and the angles of fire for the rearmost were limited by the turret in front. The Dunkerque used two quadruple turrets which gave unrestricted forward fire. In the context of the Washington Naval Treaty which limited the upper displacement of ships, the quad arrangement had the advantage of saving weight on turret armouring, compared to four double turrets, while retaining the same firepower. The drawback was that a single lucky shot immobilising one of the turrets would effectively put half the main artillery out of action. On the other hand, the entirety of the main artillery was able to fire forwards, as the ship closed in to her enemy, in an angle where she made the smallest possible target.
The mounting of all the armament in quadruple turrets was a feature unique to the late design French battleships, and was also found on the subsequent Richelieu and Jean Bart.
The armour protection of the class was also very modern, as it used the "all or nothing" armour scheme, unlike contemporary German warships. The Strasbourg was an updated design, with heavier armour. While the belt armour could only withstand the 280 mm German naval guns, the deck armour proved its worth against the 15-inch (381 mm) shells of the Royal Navy in the attack on Mers-el-Kébir in 1940 though Dunkerque was damaged by gunfire and had to be run aground and needed repairs and refloating before it could return to France.
Both ships, the Dunkerque and the Strasbourg, were kept by Vichy France and eventually destroyed in the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon.
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- History of the Dunkerque Class. www.bobhenneman.info. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.
| Dunkerque class battleship |
| Dunkerque | Strasbourg |
List of battleships of France |
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