Châteaurenault (ship, 1898)
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 The Châteaurenault 1910 |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Protected cruiser |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | October 12, 1895 |
| Launch | May 12, 1898 |
| Namesake | François Louis de Rousselet, Marquis de Châteaurenault |
| Commissioning | October 10, 1902 |
| Whereabouts | Sunk on December 14, 1917 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
8,200 t |
| length |
140 m waterline, |
| width |
18.0 m |
| Draft |
7.5 m |
| crew |
625 men |
| drive |
28 Niclausse kettles, |
| speed |
23 kn |
| Range |
7500 nm |
| Armament |
• 2 × 164 mm cannons |
| Armor |
Harvey system |
| Armored deck |
30-75 mm |
| Command tower |
160 mm |
| artillery |
54 to 230 mm |
The Châteaurenault was a 1st class armored cruiser of the French Navy launched in 1898. Like other large 1st class protected cruisers, the single ship was intended to wage a trade war in the event of war. During the First World War , the Châteaurenault was sunk as a troop transport on December 14, 1917 in the Ionian Sea by the German submarine UC 38 with two torpedoes. The escort ships and additional helpers were able to save 1,162 men. 270 soldiers and sailors were killed when the Châteaurenault sank . UC 38 was sunk by the escort destroyers.
Building history
The Châteaurenault was delayed by a strike on March 24, 1898 in La Seyne-sur-Mer at the Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée shipyard . She remained a single ship in the French Navy. Their appearance was determined by the four evenly one behind the other standing chimneys - completely unique in the French fleet, whose large cruisers were characterized by two groups of chimneys that were widely spaced. The ship, ordered on May 23, 1896, was one of four 1st class protected cruisers (croiseur protégé de 1e classe) procured by the French Navy at the end of the 19th century. With roughly the same size of a little over 8000 t, the cruisers, which were primarily intended to wage trade wars in the event of war and were therefore also known as "croiseur corsaire", were designed quite differently. Of the other ships, only the Guichen had an identical armament.
The cruiser was the first ship in the French Navy to be named after the Marshal of France and Vice Admiral François Louis de Rousselet, Marquis de Châteaurenault (1637-1716), who had commanded the French fleet in 1702 when Vigo was defeated.
The main armament of the cruiser was two 164 mm L / 40 cannons of the 1893 model on the bow and stern in single mounts with protective shields. There were also six side-mounted 138 mm L / 45 rapid-fire guns of the model 1888 in swallow nests on the sides of the ship, also with protective shields for operation. Light guns and two rigid torpedo tubes on the sides completed the armament. The Châteaurenault had an armored deck up to 75 mm thick made of armor plates based on the Harvey system. From October 15, 1899, the acceptance tests of the armed ship began in Toulon.
Mission history
Trials of the Châteaurenault dragged on until 1902. Then she was sent to East Asia, where she served as the flagship of a division of the French East Asia Squadron. On November 7th, 1904, she had an accident off Phan-Ran when she rammed a previously undetected underwater rock. To repair the damage, she was relocated home, where the repairs were carried out in Cherbourg and she was then part of the local reserve.
On January 15, 1910, it was put into service again. As early as January 30, 1910, she ran aground near Cape Spartel at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar and was finally released on February 18 with the help of the armored cruiser Victor Hugo , who towed the Châteaurenault to Toulon, where she was assigned to the reserve there after repairs has been. In 1913 she was assigned to the "école des manœuvriers et charpentiers" in Brest for the training of young seafarers.
War effort
When the war broke out, the Châteaurenault was taken back into active service and from 1915 used for security tasks in the Mediterranean. In February 1916 there was a search voyage into the South Atlantic to defend against German auxiliary cruisers . On October 5, 1916, she reached the sinking point of Gallia 35 nautical miles southwest of the island of San Pietro off Sardinia , which had been sunk by U 35 the day before and was able to save 1200 men. In 1917 she was mainly used as a troop transport for the so-called l'Armée d'Orient between Taranto and Itea on the Gulf of Corinth .
Loss of the Châteaurenault
On December 14, 1917, the German submarine UC 38 under Oberleutnant zur See Hans Hermann Wendlandt discovered the Châteaurenault accompanied by the destroyers Mameluck , Lansquenet and the Rouen in the approach to Corinth . The cruiser had 1,432 men on board, including 985 soldiers who were transferred to Salonika . UC 38 attacked the cruiser and shot a torpedo that hit the Châteaurenault at 6:47 am amidships. UC 38 then dived to about 38 m when the Mameluck and Rouen ran towards them, while the Lansquenet tried to pick up the people who had been thrown overboard by the explosion. Châteaurenault ordered her companions to take over the army personnel on board, which was completed around 7:26 a.m. The fish steamer Balsamine , who had arrived to help, tried to tow the Châteaurenault .
The UC 38 , which had come back to periscope depth, fired a second torpedo at the still floating Châteaurenault , which hit at 8:20 a.m., whereupon the Châteaurenault quickly reached the position 38 ° 15 ′ N , 22 ° 20 ′ E, began to decline. The crew remaining on board could be removed. Lansquenet passed the launch site while picking up the lifeboats and threw seven depth charges, which caused a leak on the submarine. Wendlandt ordered to dive to get out of range of the depth charges. However, due to an incorrect maneuver, UC 38 rose and a second explosion brought the boat to the surface, severely damaged, forcing the commander to abandon his boat. Mameluck immediately opened fire on the emerging submarine and threw more depth charges. Mameluck and Lansquenet continued to fire at the boat, which was abandoned by its crew, until it sank at 8:40 a.m. After that, the French destroyers picked up the survivors. The information about the German casualties fluctuates, a French report assumes 20 rescued and 5 confirmed dead and a crew of 27 men. German sources give 20 or 25 rescued people out of 8 or 9 dead. 1,162 men were rescued
from the Chateaurenault by the Rouen , Mameluck and Lansquenet as well as additional fish steamers, the fatalities were mainly caused by the first hit by the explosion and the flooding of some locked rooms.
The other 1st class cruisers
| Fate of the ships | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surname | Shipyard | Launch | in service | fate | |
| D'Entrecasteaux | F. & Ch. Méditerranée, La Seyne-sur-Mer |
June 12, 1896 | 1899 | 1898 Aegean Sea, 1899 Indochina, 1900 Boxer Rebellion, 1903 Reserve, 1915/16 blockade of the Asian Minor and Syrian coasts, 1916 Morocco, 1917 Black Sea, 1 June 1921 canceled, 1923 to Belgium, 1927 to Poland, 1932 largely disarmed and as Hulk Baltyk Deployed in Danzig, September 1, 1939 Artillery support for the Polish Army, canceled in 1942. | |
| Guichen | A. & Ch. De la Loire, St Nazaire |
October 26, 1897 | 1898 | from 1915 in the Mediterranean (defense of the Suez Canal, then participation in the evacuation of the Armenians from Musa Dağı ), sold for demolition in 1922. |
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| Jurien de la Graviere | Arsenal Lorient | June 26, 1899 | 1903 | from 1915 in the Mediterranean, November / December 1916 blockade in Greece, 1920 Syria, sold for demolition in 1922. | |
Model of the D'Entrecasteaux
The Guichen
The Jurien de la Graviere
The image of the D'Entrecasteaux differed greatly from that of the other three units. With a length of 126 meters, it was shorter and had three chimneys (group of two at the front + a single chimney further back). Their armament consisted of two 240 mm guns in rotating turrets as well as eight 138 mm guns, six of them in casemates.
The Jurien de la Graviere was 127 meters long and armed with eight 165 mm guns, six of them in casemates.
When they were put into service, these cruisers were already out of date. But this also applies to the British cruisers of the Diadem class and the Cressy class, which were put into service at about the same time, or the German SMS Prinz Heinrich and SMS Prinz Adalbert (1901) , mainly because of the casemate guns that are unusable in rough seas, the lack of underwater protection ( Belt armor ) against torpedo attacks and the main armament of some ships of this class, limited to a caliber of approx. 150 mm, which already a few years later formed the standard armament of the small cruisers .
literature
- Roger Chesneau, Eugène M. Koleśnik, NJM Campbell: Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1860-1905. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 .
- Bodo Herzog: 60 years of German submarines 1906–1966. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1968.
- John Evelyn Moore: Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I. Military Press, New York 1990.
Web links
- CHATEAURENAULT Croiseur corsaire de 8 000 t (1902 - 1917) - site pages14–18 (French, accessed May 19, 2011)
- Châteaurenault (accessed May 25, 2011)
Footnotes
- ↑ Information on the 164 mm cannon (accessed on May 25, 2011)
- ↑ Information on the 138 mm rapid fire gun (accessed on May 23, 2011)
- ↑ a b c d UC 38 (French, accessed May 23, 2011)
- ↑ Mameluck , Lansquenet, both of the 450 t type Spahi
- ↑ a b c d e Chateaurenault (French, accessed May 23, 2011)
- ↑ 14-18: D'Entrecasteaux (French, accessed May 24, 2011)
- ↑ 14-18: Guichen (French, accessed May 19, 2011)
- ↑ 14-18: Jurien de la Gravière (French, accessed May 19, 2011)