Ships equipped with barbette mountings did not see a great deal of combat, owing to the long period of relative peace between their appearance in the 1870s and their obsolescence in the 1890s. Some barbette ships saw action during the British Bombardment of Alexandria in 1882, and the participated in the Battle of Fuzhou during the Sino-French War in 1884. The two Chinese ironclads, and , that took part in the Battle of the Yalu River during the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, carried their main battery in barbettes, though they were equipped with extensive gun shields that resembled turrets. The shields were nevertheless only proof against small-arms fire. Three of their opponents at the Yalu River, the Japanese s, also mounted their guns in open barbettes. Those barbette ships that survived into World War I were typically used only for secondary purposes. For example, the French was used as a repair ship for submarines and torpedo boats, while the German was employed as a torpedo training ship. A handful of barbette ships did see action during the war, including , which bombarded German positions in Flanders in 1914 and 1915.