Alsace class
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The battleships of Alsace-Class is a draft of the French Navy from the 1940s, the entire development and construction, however, due to the war did not come into existence more. As the planned successor to the Richelieu class , the Alsace class was the last draft of the French Navy for a battleship. On May 15, 1940, the French naval admiral's staff announced the following four names to the Ministry of Defense for the two planned units: Alsace , Normandie , Flandre and Bourgogne .
prehistory
Since at the end of the 1930s various nations began to rearm their fleets with new battleships, France was forced to modernize its fleet as well, in order not to lose touch. Above all, the two H-Class battleships that were laid down in Germany in the summer of 1939 led to these considerations. With the signing of the International Naval Agreement of June 1938, which was signed by the USA, Great Britain, Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union in addition to France, it was now possible to increase the standard displacement for battleships from 35,000 t to 45,000 t. On April 1, 1940, a corresponding bill was submitted to the French parliament, which provided for the construction of new battleships. On April 15, the bill received the approval of a majority of MPs, provided that the two newbuildings would replace the two older Courbet-class battleships , the Courbet and the Paris . The aim was to get two battleship divisions with three ships each with the new ships. These should consist of the aforementioned two new buildings and the four units of the Richelieu class already under construction ( Richelieu , Jean Bart , Clémenceau and the modified Gascogne ).
planning
There were different variations in the design of the new battleships. Here you thought basically because they like the Gascony to build and aft with main artillery on the foredeck. As with the Richelieu class, the speed should also be around 30 knots to prevent the ships from slowing down a task force unnecessarily. The armor protection as well as the secondary and anti-aircraft armament were based on the specifications of Gascony .
Since the ships were now allowed to be 10,000 t heavier due to the new fleet agreement, they wanted to take advantage of this in the form of greater clout. To this end, three alternatives were considered.
- Alternative I envisaged a ship with a displacement of around 40,000 t and a length of 252 m. The 170,000 hp propulsion system should enable the 35 m wide design to reach a speed of 31 knots. For the main armament, consideration was given to the use of nine 38.0 cm guns in three triple turrets each, two of them on the forecastle and one aft.
- Alternative II should also be equipped with three triplet turrets, but these should be equipped with 40.6 cm guns, similar to the American battleship newbuildings. Due to the larger guns, the displacement increased to 42,500 ts. In order to continue to achieve the desired 31 knots, this design would have had a 190,000 hp drive. The dimensions of the hull were given as 256 m long and 35.5 m wide.
- Alternative III, however, would most likely have won the bid. The 45,000 t design was provided with twelve 38.0 cm guns in three quadruple turrets, of which two should be placed on the forecastle and one aft, as with the other alternatives. A slightly smaller caliber would have been chosen with the quadruple storms than with the Alternative II or the German H-class battleships , but a lot of research time and costs would have been saved, since these were already used in the Richelieu class and were adopted almost unchanged could become. In addition, a uniform 38.0 cm caliber of the six battleships would have had certain logistical advantages. The 220,000 hp engine should accelerate the ships to 32 knots. With the dimensions of 255 m length and 35.5 m width, this was almost identical to alternative II.
It can be assumed that the propulsion of the ships would have been carried out by four propellers, similar to the ships of the Dunkerque class and the Richelieu class . The accommodation of the board aircraft equipment would be similar to the Gascogne already planned, carried aft. In contrast to the other ships of the Richelieu class, a new solution was required there due to the attachment of the heavy artillery in the stern. Here one was inspired by the American cruisers of the Brooklyn class , which had a lower deck hangar. At times, Gascogne also considered setting up the facilities in the central nave, similar to the German Bismarck class, for example . However, this proposal was rejected again because there were concerns that the risk of failure in a fire would have been too high.
Due to the increased displacement and dimensions, the number of building docks available was reduced. Only the following locations were considered for construction:
- Dry dock No. 9 in Laninon / Brest, with the disadvantage of a great distance to the arsenal.
- Helgen No. 1 in St. Nazaire, which at that time was still occupied by the aircraft carrier Joffre and which could not be launched until mid-1940 at the earliest (without war delays).
- Caquot building dock at St. Nazaire would have been vacant after Gascony had left it. However, that would not have been until the end of 1942, as at the beginning of 1940 only preparatory work on the building materials for the ship had been done and the actual construction on the ship had not even started.
Completion of the two ships was therefore not to be expected before 1946 or 1949. However, these plans became obsolete with the conquest of France by the Wehrmacht, and the Alsace class project was obsolete.
Conclusion
With their solid armor and their twelve 38.0 cm guns, the battleships would have been a serious opponent for both the German battleships of the H-class and Bismarck-class, as well as for the Italian battleships of the Littorio class , especially when you consider that the two planned units would have had the same firepower as three Bismarck-class ships. However, it remains questionable to what extent these battleships would have played a role even if the war had not broken out, on the one hand because of their late availability (1946 and 1949) and on the other hand because of the increasingly stronger influence of the aircraft carriers, to which even powerful ships like the Yamato class are victims fell who had significantly stronger anti-aircraft armament.
literature
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . JF Lehmann, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-86070-044-8 .
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1921–1997 -Internationaler Battleshipbuilding- . Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-7637-6225-6 .
