French ironclad Neptune
Neptune was an ironclad barbette ship of the French Navy built in the 1880s and early 1890s. She was the second member of the , which included two other vessels. The "Marceau" class was based on the earlier of barbette ships, but with smaller guns: four weapons compared to the three guns of the earlier vessels. They introduced the lozenge arrangement for their main battery that became common for many French capital ships built in the 1890s. "Neptune" and her sister ships suffered from a number of problems, including poor stability, insufficient armor protection, and excessive displacement. "Neptune , completed in 1892, had a relatively short and uneventful career, which she spent in the Mediterranean Squadron conducting training exercises. New pre-dreadnought battleships began to enter service in the mid-1890s, which displaced the Marceau"s to the Reserve Division, where they were used as training ships. "Neptune" and her sisters were modernized with new water-tube boilers in the early 1900s, but she saw no further active service. She was struck from the naval register either in 1908 or 1913, and she was sold to ship breakers and dismantled. Design. The "Marceau" class of ironclad barbette ships was initially intended  to be similar to the , but by the time work on the design was being completed in 1880, the very large guns used in the earlier vessels had fallen out of favor in the French Navy. Lighter guns allowed a fourth weapon to be added to the main battery, which were rearranged into a lozenge layout that would be used in most French capital ships built over the following ten years. The class was to have comprised four vessels, but the first unit, had to be redesigned with a reduced armament after construction began when it became apparent that the  initial design was not feasible on the specified dimensions. Work on the remaining three vessels had not yet begun, so their design could be enlarged to accommodate the intended armament. The design of the "Marceau"-class ships was revised repeatedly during construction, and by the time they were completed, they were seriously overweight, which submerged much of their belt armor and degraded their stability. These problems were common for French capital ships of the period. "Neptune" was long between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced . She was fitted with a pair of pole masts equipped with  fighting tops that carried some of her light guns and spotted for her main battery. The crew included 643–651 officers and enlisted men. Her propulsion machinery consisted of four compound steam engines that drove a pair of screw propellers. Steam was provided by twelve coal-burning fire-tube boilers. Her engines were rated to produce for a top speed of . Her main armament consisted of four Modèle 1881, 28-caliber (cal.) guns mounted in individual barbette mounts, one forward and one aft, both on the centerline, and two amidships in wing mounts. These guns were supported by a secondary battery  of sixteen 30-cal. guns, all carried in individual pivot mounts in an unarmored gun battery in the hull, eight guns per broadside. For defense against torpedo boats, she carried an extensive battery of light guns, though the numbers vary between sources. Gardiner reports a range of three to six guns, nine to eighteen 3-pounder guns, eight to twelve 1-pounder five-barrel Hotchkiss revolving cannon; naval historian Eric Gille gives four to seven 65 mm guns, nine to twelve 47 mm guns, and eight 37 mm guns; naval historian Paul Silverstone says six 65 mm guns and twelve  47 mm guns. There is similar disagreement over the torpedo armament, with Gardiner providing three to five torpedo tubes, Gille reporting five to six tubes, and Silverstone stating five tubes. The ship was protected with a combination of mild steel and compound armor; her belt was thick and extended for the entire length of the hull. Horizontal protection consisted of an armor deck that was thick. The barbettes for the main battery were thick and the supporting tubes that connected them to their magazines were . The guns themselves were protected by thick gun shields. Her conning tower was thick. Service  history. The contract for "Neptune" was authorized on 7 October 1880, though work on the ship did not begin until her keel laying in February 1882 at the Arsenal de Brest. She was launched on 7 May 1887 and was completed in July 1892. After completing sea trials, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron in 1893, along with both of her sister ships and the ironclads , , , , "Hoche", and . She participated in the fleet maneuvers that year as part of the 3rd Division, in company with her sister and "Dévastation", the latter serving as the divisional flagship. The maneuvers included  an initial period of exercises from 1 to 10 July and then larger-scale maneuvers from 17 to 28 July. During the 1895 maneuvers, which began on 1 July, "Neptune" and the rest of the Mediterranean Squadron conducted a training cruise and practice shooting while the Reserve Squadron mobilized its ships. The main period of exercises saw the fleet divided into three units and "Neptune" was assigned to the second unit, tasked with operating with the first unit to attack the defending third fleet in Ajaccio. The maneuvers concluded on 27 July. The following year, the Mediterranean Squadron consisted of  Neptune, her two sisters, the two "Amiral Baudin"-class ships, "Courbet", "Dévastation", the ironclad and the new pre-dreadnought battleship . That year, she served in the 3rd Division of the squadron. She participated in the fleet maneuvers that lasted from 17 to 30 July, during which "Neptune" served as part of the simulated enemy fleet. By 1897, additional pre-dreadnoughts began to enter service, including and . They joined "Neptune" and the other "Marceau"s, "Brennus", "Amiral Baudin", and "Redoutable" in the Mediterranean Squadron. During the 1897 fleet gunnery trials, which saw the first use of a new system of centralized fire control  in the French fleet, "Neptune", "Marceau", and "Brennus" all achieved more than 25 percent hits at ranges of between and . She remained in service with the Mediterranean Squadron in 1898. The French fleet was reorganized in 1899, and the three "Marceau"-class ships were organized as a separate division attached to the Mediterranean Squadron for torpedo and gunnery training purposes. The unit was commanded by Rear Admiral Gabriel Godin. In the 1890s, the French began rebuilding older ironclads to prolong their useful lives, and modernizations for the three "Marceau"s were authorized that year. "Neptune" and her two sisters were assigned to  the 1899 fleet maneuvers, which lasted from 5 to 25 July. "Neptune" was withdrawn from service in 1900 to be modernized, though the work was not immediately started and in January 1901, "Neptune" had returned to the Reserve Division of the Mediterranean Squadron. Work on the ship finally started in 1902, and involved cutting down her heavy military masts in favor of lighter pole masts, her propulsion system was modernized with new boilers. "Neptune" saw no further service, and during a debate over naval expenditures in 1908, the senator Alcide Poirrier expressed opposition to further such reconstructions and pointed out  the waste of funds that the work on "Neptune" and several other vessels represented. According to the contemporary "The Naval Annual", the French Navy struck "Neptune" from the naval register that year, though "Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships" reports that she remained on the list until 1913. She was thereafter broken up.