Gueydon-class cruiser

The Gueydon-class cruiser was a three-ship class of armored cruisers built in the first decade of the twentieth century for the French Navy. 

Design and description 

Designed by the naval architect Emile Bertin, the Gueydon-class ships were intended to be smaller and cheaper than the preceding armored cruiser design, .  Like the older ship, they were intended to fill the commerce-raiding strategy of the Jeune École.  The ships measured  long overall with a beam of  and had a maximum draft of .  They displaced .  They had a crew of 566 officers and enlisted men. 

The Gueydon class had three vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single propeller shaft.  Steam for the engines was provided by 20 or 28 boilers and they were rated at a total of  that gave them a speed of .  The ships carried up to  of coal and could steam for  at a speed of . 

The ships of the Gueydon class had a main armament that consisted of two 40-caliber  guns that were mounted in single gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure.  Their secondary armament comprised eight 45-caliber quick-firing (QF)  guns in casemates.  For anti-torpedo boat defense, they carried four 45-caliber QF  guns on the forecastle deck, ten QF  and four QF  Hotchkiss guns.  They were also armed with two submerged  torpedo tubes. 

The Harvey armor belt of the Gueydon-class cruisers extended from  below the waterline to the main deck.  It reached the upper deck for a length of  from the bow and covered the entire length of the ship except for  of the stern where it ended in a transverse bulkhead  thick.  The lower strake of armor was generally  thick, although it reduced to  forward,  aft, and thinned to  at its lower edge.  The upper strake of armor had thicknesses of  and  between the main and upper decks. 

The curved lower protective deck ranged in thickness from 2 to 2.2 inches.  In addition there was a light armor deck  thick at the top of the lower armor strake.  A watertight internal cofferdam, filled with cellulose, stretched between these two decks.  The gun turrets were protected by  armor and had roofs  thick.  Their ammunition hoists had 2 inches of armor and the 100-millimeter guns were protected by gun shields.  The sides of the conning tower were 160 millimeters thick.  The forward end of the casemate compartment was closed off by a  bulkhead and a  bulkhead extended down to the lower deck at the rear end of the compartment. 

Ships 
 Dupetit-Thouars was torpedoed and sunk in 1918. 
 Gueydon was decommissioned in 1935 and used as accommodation at Brest, was bombed and sunk in 1944, with the wreck broken up in 1945/46. 
 Montcalm was decommissioned in 1926 and used as accommodation at Brest, renamed Tremintin in 1934,  was bombed and sunk in 1944, with the wreck broken up in 1946/47. 

References

Bibliography

External links