French aircraft carrier Clemenceau (R98)

Clemenceau
The last sortie for Clemenceau (Notice the size of the flame de guerre (French: flamme de guerre)
History
France
Name: Clemenceau
Namesake: Georges Clemenceau
Builder: Brest shipyard
Laid down: November 1955
Launched: 21 December 1957
Commissioned: 22 November 1961
Decommissioned: 1 October 1997
Homeport: Brest
Identification: R98
Nickname(s): "Clem"
Fate: Scrapped 2009-2010
General characteristics
Class and type: Clemenceau-class aircraft carrier
Displacement:
  • 22,000 tons (standard)
  • 32,780 tons (loaded)
Length: 265 m (869 ft)
Beam: 51.2 m (168 ft)
Draught: 8.6 m (28 ft)
Installed power:
  • 6 Indret boilers
  • 126,000 shp (94,000 kW)
Propulsion: 4 steam turbines
Speed: 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Capacity: 582 air group personnel
Complement:
  • 1,338 (aircraft carrier)
  • 984 (helicopter carrier)
Sensors and
processing systems:
  • 1 DRBV-23B air sentry radar
  • 1 DRBV-50 low altitude or surface sentry radar (later replaced by a DRBV-15)
  • 1 NRBA-50 approach radar
  • 2 DRBI-10 tri-dimensional air sentry radar
  • Multiple DRBN-34 navigation radars
  • Multiple DRBC-31 fire direction radars (later replaced by DRBC-32C radars)
Armament:
Aircraft carried:

Clemenceau (French pronunciation: ​[klemɑ̃so]), often affectionately called le Clem, was the French Navy's sixth aircraft carrier and the lead ship of her class. The carrier served from 1961 to 1997, and was dismantled and recycled in 2009.[1][2] The carrier was the second French warship to be named after Georges Clemenceau, the first being a Richelieu-class battleship laid down in 1939 but never finished.

The Clemenceau-class aircraft carriers are of conventional CATOBAR design. The landing area is 165.5 m (543 ft) long by 29.5 m (97 ft) wide; it is angled at 8 degrees off of the ship's axis. The flight deck is 265 m (869 ft) long. The forward aircraft elevator is to starboard, and the rear elevator is positioned on the deck edge to save hangar space. The forward of two 52 m (171 ft) catapults is at the bow to port, the aft catapult is on the angled landing deck. The hangar deck dimensions are 152 m (499 ft) by 22 m (72 ft)-24 m (79 ft) with 7 m (23 ft) overhead.[3]

History

The development of Clemenceau represented France's effort to produce its own class of multi-role aircraft carriers to replace the American and British ships provided at the end of World War II. The ship was a small but effective design, using elements of United States carrier design, but to a smaller scale. The vessels were given relatively heavy gun armament for their size, and some stability problems were encountered which required bulging the hull.

Clemenceau went through a major refit from September 1977 to November 1978. She was again refitted with new defensive systems from 1 September 1985 to 31 August 1987, including replacement of four of the 100 mm guns with a pair of Crotale surface-to-air missile launchers.

Clemenceau and her sister ship Foch served as the mainstays of the French fleet. During the carrier's career, Clemenceau sailed more than 1,000,000 nautical miles (1,900,000 km; 1,200,000 mi) in 3,125 days at sea, all over the world.

Career

Since January 12 1962, Clemenceau participated until February 5 to the NATO exercise BigGame, with the United States Sixth Fleet (aircraft carriers USS Saratoga (CV-3), USS Intrepid (CV-11)), in the Occidental Mediterranean, as an anti-submarine aircraft carrier, then the carrier hooked on, March 9 to April 2, with NATO exercise OTAN Dawn Breeze VII, in the Gibraltar zone.

Throughout the course of the aircraft carrier's lengthy career, the carrier participated to the majority of French naval operations:

During the same year, the carrier deployed to the south Pacific for French nuclear bomb testing in Polynesia including Canopus, the first French hydrogen bomb. With the deployment of the fleet, codenamed Alfa Force (French: Force Alfa), the naval force present around two atolls represented more than 40% of the tonnage of the entire French navy. Clemenceau was flagship of a fleet composed of forty ships which massed more than 120,000 tons displacement.[5]

Between 1959 and 1997, the Clemenceau has undergone similarly with the twin aircraft carrier Foch several modifications. Particularly:

Clemenceau has navigated in all world Oceans and Seas totalizing at the of career the impressive summation of more than one million nautical miles, as in having turned around the globe 48 times. Accordingly, the carrier has passed 3125 days at sea, with 80000 hours of functioning and would have conducted more than 70000 catapult-launchings.

In 1983, the bâtiment would the be the first unit of the French Navy to embark female personnel. Three women were assigned on board : one maître principal, one secrétaire militaire and one premier maître.

Loyal to the tradition of the French Navy, Clemencau welcomed on board for a couple of tours, some for a week and other for a couple of months, numerous painting artists.

Disposal

On 31 December 2005, Clemenceau left Toulon to be dismantled in Alang, India despite protests over improper disposal capabilities and facilities for the toxic wastes. On 6 January 2006 the Supreme Court of India temporarily denied access to Alang.[9] After having been boarded by activists, held by Egyptian authorities, and then transiting the Suez Canal on 15 January, a court ruling by the Conseil d'État ordered Clemenceau to return to French waters.[10] Able UK based at its Graythorp yard near Hartlepool received a new disassembly contract to use accepted practices in scrapping the ship.[11][12] The dismantling started on 18 November 2009 and the break-up was completed by the end of 2010.

General arrangement

1 : 100mm cannon ; 2 : Weapons control radar type DRBC-31 ; 3 : Aircraft lift ; 4 : 15 tonne crane ; 5 : Aircraft approach radar type NRBA-50 ; 6 : Altitude radar type DRBI-10 ; 7 : Funnel ; 8 : Proximity radar type DRBV-20 ; 9 : TACAN Antenna; 10 : Combined low altitude and surface-to-air radar type DRBV-50 ; 11 : Proximity radar type DRBV-23 ; 12 : Altitude radar type DRBI-10 ; 13 : Weapons control radar type DRBC-31

See also

References

  1. ↑ "New ghost ship heads to Teesside". BBC News. 8 February 2009. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  2. ↑ "Ghost ships work completed". Hartlepool Mail. 20 January 2011. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Clemenceau". GlobalSecurity.org. 10 June 2013. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  4. 1 2 Roche, Jean-Michel (2012). "Historique du sous-marin Minerve". netmarine.net (in French). Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  5. ↑ Roche, Jean-Michel. "La Marine à Mururoa". netmarine.net (in French). Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  6. ↑ "Porte-avions Clemenceau". ffaa.net (in French). 19 February 2011. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  7. ↑ History of the CV Clemenceau
  8. ↑ Marc Théléri, Initiation à la force de frappe française (1945-2010), Stock, 1997, p.100
  9. ↑ Zubair Ahmed (2006-01-06). "Stay out, India tells toxic ship". BBC News. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
  10. ↑ "Chirac orders 'toxic' ship home". BBC News. 2006-01-16. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
  11. ↑ "Praise for 'toxic' ship scrapping". BBC News Online. 4 January 2010. The dismantling of the former Clemenceau is a positive and pioneering operation in Europe
  12. ↑ "Ghost ship arrives in north-east". BBC News. 2009-02-08. Retrieved 2009-03-05.

Further reading

See also

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