Bretagne French battleship

THE BRETAGNE CLASS

Built on the same hull as the earlier Courbet class, the Bretagnes mounted 340mm (13.4in) guns in place of 305mm (12in) but maintained the same displacement, having the two twin wing turrets deleted and replaced by a single twin turret amidships on the centreline. Bretagne was constructed at the Brest Naval Dockyard. Laid down on 1 July 1912, she was launched on 21 April 1913 and completed in September 1915. She was sunk by the Royal Navy at Mers-el-Kebir, Algeria, to prevent the Germans from employing her after the fall of France, on 3 July 1 940.

ARMAMENT AND EQUIPMENT

The ships of the Bretagne class were generally well thought out, but had a major shortcoming their main gun mountings only allowed 14 degrees of elevation, which meant that their maximum range was limited to 14,500m (7.7nm), considerably less than that of other battleships of the period. Though that was improved somewhat by modifying the mountings, during the course of a series of re-builds during the 1920s and 1930s (which also included the replacement of their boilers and the introduction of partial oil firing, which unfortunately did nothing to improve their performance), little could be done to bring them up to truly modern standard, and they were certainly obsolete at the start of the Second World War.

TECHNICAL DATA

Type: Battleship
Machinery: 4-shaft, two geared turbines giving a total of 29,000shp
Dimensions (overall): Length 166m (544.5ft); beam, 26.9m (88.25ft)
Displacement: 23,230t standard; 25,000t deep load
Draught: 9.8 m (32ft) full load
Complement: 1124
Speed: 20 knots (37km/h)