French armoured ship design took a radical turn with the armoured cruiser Dupuy de Lôme. Prior to this, the armouring scheme used for French ships consisted of a thick waterline belt, from stem to stern, with high, unprotected sides. In the Dupuy de Lôme, the sides were now protected by armour, although of only 4 inches in this case. The Dupuy de Lôme was a reaction to the threat of quick firing guns. The previous armour scheme was only protecting against armour piercing shot, not shell fire. The Dupuy de Lôme displaced 6,297 tons, had dimensions of 374ft x 51ft-6in x 23ft-6in. The ship was had three screws, including one on the centerline. The engines produced 14,000 IHP to achieve a 20 knot speed. For 1890, this was fast, at least for a large ship. The armament consisted of 2-7.6in and 6-6.4in guns. By modern standards, the Dupuy de Lôme had excessive upper works. Admiral Fournier considered this type of vessel as the basis for La Jeune École ("the Young School"). The idea was to concentrate on commerce raiding rather than building a battlefleet.
1 comment:
Looking at a few of your photos here it seems the French favored the down turned ramming prow.
This is of interest to me as my group is encaged in a small naval arms race at the moment with each person taking a nationality or faction and then building the appropriate craft.
This will be scaled down a bit
to accommodate the 15mm size
of our troops but, it should be fun..)
Post a Comment