Danton class
 The Danton
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The Danton- class was a class of ships of the line in the French Navy at the beginning of the 20th century. It represented a transition type between the unit ships of the line of the pre-dreadnought era and the dreadnought type.
Concept and design history
The Danton class was after the Liberté class and the République class to build the second attempt of the French Navy, a larger number of ships of the line according to a uniform design. The two previous classes were originally planned as one class. However, due to the long construction times of the French shipyards, the design was adapted after the first two ships. With the Danton class it was possible to create a uniform class of six ships, but the plans were revised several times, the last time in June 1908, when the keel had already been laid for five of the six ships .
When designing the class, the French Navy assumed that in a sea battle the decision would be made at a distance of between 5 and 7 km. At longer distances, according to French ideas, the hit probability and thus the hit frequency would be too low for the stronger fleet to demonstrate its superiority.
In addition, the French Navy concluded from the naval battle near Tsushima that rapid fire from medium-caliber artillery (so-called garnet hail, French "la rafale") was decisive in the battle, as it would destroy the superstructure, ignite fires and put the enemy out of action. The heavy artillery would occasionally land decisive lucky hits, but its actual task was to sink the enemy ships that were incapable of fighting. According to these ideas, the middle artillery had to be able to penetrate armor plates of medium thickness at the usual combat distance.
Based on these considerations, the specification of the Supreme Marinerate (French: “conseil supérieur de la marine”) of May 1905 saw a 16,500-ton ship
- with an armament of four 30.5 cm guns and twelve 19.4 cm guns,
- with a 3-shaft drive with triple expansion engines for 18 knots
- and with armor protection like that of the République class, but with improved protection against torpedo hits.
The specifications were too ambitious for the intended size. Other proposals included ships of 16,700 or 17,000 tons with different numbers of 19.4 cm or 24 cm guns. A lower water displacement or a stronger middle artillery went hand in hand with a waiver of underwater protection.
Since the ships would not be fast enough in relation to potential opponents to determine the combat distance, combat distances at the upper edge of the aforementioned range had to be expected, i.e. around 7 km. For this distance, the 19.4 cm gun of the previous class was considered too weak as a medium artillery, so the choice fell on the 24 cm caliber. Ultimately, a displacement of 18,000 tons and twelve 24 cm guns were specified. 18,000 tons were set as the upper limit by Minister of the Navy Gaston Thomson .
On the basis of the considerations outlined above, the 24 cm guns were considered to be the main armament of the ship. There were similar ideas around the turn of the century in the British Navy, where the 15.2 cm caliber central artillery was sometimes seen as the main armament. The First World War refuted these views. The French navy was shocked to discover that fire in the Falkland Islands was opened at a distance 3 to 4 km beyond the range of French ship guns.
Following the designation in modern literature, the main armament in the following refers to the strongest caliber guns, i.e. those with a caliber of 30.5 cm.
Further discussions between the budget commission and the construction department (French "service techniques de construction naval") revolved around the speed of the design, but did not lead to any result, so that by March 1906 the technical committee (French "comité technique") two drafts were submitted for evaluation. The design by the head of the Lhomme construction department was accepted in March 1906, but the naval staff insisted on improvements in fire control and turrets with the aim of achieving the highest possible rate of fire.
In this context, a uniform armament with 30.5 cm guns was discussed against the background of developments in other navies. The 24 cm double towers would have been replaced by 30.5 cm single towers. But this would have required a larger design. In addition, the weight of a broadside and likely the frequency of hits would have been reduced. The 24 cm caliber was also chosen because it was the largest caliber in which the aiming mechanisms allowed the gun to be continuously aimed at the target despite the ship's rolling .
There were also considerations of uniform armament with 20 24-cm guns or with 16 27.4-cm guns.
In the parliamentary debate, the use of expansion machines instead of steam turbines , which are considered more advanced, has been questioned. A technical mission was then sent to the UK to study turbine drives and other technical issues. Upon their report, the design department initiated a program in July 1906 with the aim of equipping the class with Parson- type turbines . At this point in time, the naval shipyards in La Seyne and St. Nazaire had already received orders for the first two ships. Towards the end of 1906 the final decision was made in the parliamentary debate to equip all ships of the class with turbines, and orders were placed with private shipyards for the remaining four ships.
Other changes compared to the previous plan included a heavy 30.5 cm gun with a larger caliber length, four shafts instead of the previous three and the omission of the ram bow . The correspondingly modified construction plans were available at the end of March 1907.
Technical specifications
The ships had an overall length of 146.6 m, a width of 25.8 m and a draft of 8.44 m. When completed, they displaced 18,754 tons.
The ships carried the forward main turret level with the long foredeck, which extended to the rear turret. The 24 cm twin towers stood at the same height on both sides of the ship and flanked the boiler rooms and the generator room. The aft main turret was one deck below the main deck. The ships had five chimneys, three for the front and two for the rear boiler room. In between there was a characteristic gap for the engine room and generator room as well as coal bunkers and ammunition chambers. The hull sides of the ships showed a strong side dip, as was characteristic of French warships of this period.
The scheduled crew was 28 officers and 824 sailors, as the flagship 12 officers and 51 sailors more.
Armament
The main turrets each carried two 30.5 cm L / 45 guns of the model 1906. These fired a 440 kg armor-piercing shell with a muzzle velocity of 780 m / s. The propellant consisted of four quarter loads each weighing 36 kg. The maximum increase was 12 °, with a range of 14.5 km was achieved. The rate of fire was 1.5 rounds per minute and tube. The turrets were connected to the magazines below via continuous ammunition elevators (i.e. without a reloading chamber). The normal ammunition supply was 65 rounds per gun, a maximum of 75 rounds.
The grenade was a new model that was about 100 kg heavier than its predecessor and whose explosive charge consisted of picric acid instead of black powder . It had a multipurpose detonator designed to be effective against both lightly and heavily armored targets. The detonator was a new development and was to become the standard for heavy French grenades. Little is known about this type of detonator, according to John Jordan and Robert Dumas, but it appears to have been effective.
The secondary armament consisted of twelve 24 cm L / 50 guns of the Model 1902-1906. The 240 kg armor-piercing shell had a muzzle velocity of 800 m / s. The propellant consisted of three thirds of the load, each weighing 25 kg. The rate of fire was 2 rounds per minute and tube.
The towers allowed a maximum pipe elevation of 13 °, with which a range of 14 km was achieved. The ammunition elevator was divided into two parts. The lower part led into a reloading chamber, which was located directly under the guns and rotated with the turret. The upper part of the elevator connected the loading chamber with the guns. Only the middle turrets were directly above their ammunition chambers. In the front and rear 24 cm towers, the width of the boiler rooms with the flanking coal bunkers did not allow this; the magazines were located in front of boiler room 1 and behind boiler room 2 next to the respective 30.5 cm magazines. 80 (maximum 100) rounds were carried per gun.
In both types of towers, the vertical and lateral directions were carried out using electric motors. The propellant charges were stored individually in tin containers in the magazines.
The Danton class was the first French class of ships to have rangefinders whose operation did not require knowledge of the characteristics of the target (such as mast height). The ships carried two coincidence rangefinders from Barr & Stroud with a base length of 6 feet (approx. 1.8 m) on the command tower. In addition, a smaller 4-foot-6-inch (1.37 m) base unit from the same manufacturer was installed on each of the eight towers. As the crew first had to learn how to use these devices, eight stadiametric range finders from Ponthus & Therode were also installed, i.e. measuring devices whose functionality required knowledge of the length and mast height of the target.
To defend against torpedo boats , 16 7.5 cm guns and ten 4.7 cm guns were on board. The 7.5 cm L / 62.5 guns were Schneider-et-Cie guns of the model 1908. They had semi-automatic breeches and fired cartridge ammunition with a 6.4 kg grenade at a maximum rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute . The maximum range was 8 km. Two guns were set up on both sides under the bridge on the upper deck with stroking angles to the front, four guns on both sides also on the upper deck at the level of the forward funnel group and the remaining four guns one deck lower on the main deck near the stern with stroking angles to the aft . The guns had no armor protection and fired through hatches that could be closed by watertight flaps.
The 4.7 cm guns were open on the superstructure. They were Hotchkiss guns from 1902 with a caliber length of L / 40. They fired a 3.45 kg projectile at a maximum of 6 km with a maximum rate of fire of 15 rounds per minute.
In addition, the ships each had an underwater tube for 45 cm torpedoes on each side at the level of the navigation bridge . A total of six torpedoes were carried. Furthermore, the ships were able to carry ten 375 kg Harlé H3 mines model 1906 with them, but could not lay them themselves. The dinghies or other ships should have served this purpose.
drive
The ships were powered by Parsons-type turbines that operated on four shafts . A high-pressure turbine and a further high-pressure turbine intended for reverse travel acted on each of the outer shafts. The inner shafts were each driven by a low-pressure turbine and a high-pressure marching turbine (starboard shaft) or a medium-pressure marching turbine (port shaft). The four turbine sets stood side by side in an engine room, the turbine sets for the outer shafts were separated from the middle turbine sets by longitudinal bulkheads .
The turbines were manufactured under license by Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée and Ateliers & Chantiers de la Loire & Penhoët . When testing on land, the turbines ran without any problems. On board, however, it became apparent that the distance between the rotor and stator was too small. This often led to the loss of the blades . By the First World War, these problems were essentially resolved.
The generator room with four turbo generators was located in front of the engine room .
The machines and generators were fed from 26 coal-fired boilers of the Niclausse or Belleville type. Oil firing for some of the boilers was considered but not implemented. 17 boilers in groups of six, eight and three boilers were located in the front boiler room, which was in front of the generator room. The remaining nine boilers were set up in two groups of three and six boilers in the aft boiler room directly behind the engine room. The Belleville boilers proved their worth, the Niclausse boilers, on the other hand, showed poor combustion with a lot of smoke. They were also less suitable for turbines.
The propulsion system was designed for an output of 22,500 shaft horsepower and a speed of 19.25 knots . The bunker content was 695 tons of coal when the structure was displaced and a maximum of 2,027 tons. This should achieve a range of 3,500 nautical miles at 10 knots.
During test drives, the Voltaire reached the highest speed with 20.66 knots, the other ships reached between 19.7 and 20.2 knots. The most economical speed was determined to be 12 knots, for which the range based on operational experience was estimated at 3,100 to 4,900 nautical miles.
Armor protection
The armor protection was derived from that of the previous Liberté class. Like the armament, it was designed for a short combat range, i.e. for projectiles hitting with a flat trajectory. Accordingly, the armor was concentrated on the vertical surfaces. The thinner armoring of the decks was supposed to protect the vital facilities inside the ship (magazines, propulsion system) only from fragments of the shells that could penetrate the side armor. Due to the high weight of the secondary armament, the armor strengths had to be kept slightly lower than in the previous class.
The side armored belt extended almost the entire length of the ship from the bow to 2.7 m in front of the stern and from 1.6 m below the water line to the main deck 2.4 m above the water line. The belt had the greatest strength from approx. 20 m from the bow to approx. 20 m from the stern, which covered the vital areas. There it was 250 mm thick in the area of the waterline and tapered 220 mm upwards and 100 mm downwards. Towards the bow and stern, the greatest thickness gradually decreased to 180 mm. At the stern, the belt was closed by a 200 mm thick transverse bulkhead .
The armored belt - except for the plates directly on the bow - and the transverse bulkhead were made of armor steel hardened using the Krupp process . The foremost plates were made of homogeneous armor steel. The belt was backed with 80 mm teak .
In order to protect the ships against fire from the front, an additional strip of homogeneous armor steel (so-called “cuirasse mince”) was attached to the forecastle directly above the belt armor described. It extended from the bow to over the barbette of the forward main turret and from the main deck to the upper deck. Its thickness was 64 mm and it had a 58 mm thick wooden backing. Above its rear end, i.e. between the upper deck and foredeck and at the level of the barbed, there was an additional 154 mm thick transverse bulkhead as additional protection against fire that would hit the ship from the front in the longitudinal direction.
The horizontal protection consisted of two armored decks, both of which extended over the entire width of the ship and from the bow to the rear transverse bulkhead. The upper armored deck at the level of the main deck consisted of three layers of 16 mm thick shipbuilding steel and lay on the side of the upper edge of the main armored belt. The lower armored deck was one deck lower and had a slope downwards on the sides and on the bow. In the flat area it consisted of three 15 mm thick layers of shipbuilding steel, on the embankments the upper layer consisted of homogeneous armor steel and was reinforced to 40 mm (a total of 45 mm to a total of 70 mm).
The side slopes were rounded and pulled down to the level of the lower edge of the main armor belt. Its lower end did not hit the main armored belt - as was common in warship construction at the time. Rather, they ended somewhat inboard on the upper boundary of the torpedo bulge (see below). The space on the sides of the ship between the two armored decks was divided into numerous watertight compartments above the embankment (so-called “entrepont cellulaire”). These should limit the ingress of water in the event that the side armor was penetrated by bullets.
The turrets were protected against hits from shells of their own caliber, with the front area being the most heavily armored. The main turrets had protection made of 340 mm of hardened armor steel on the front, 260 mm on the sides and back and a cover made of three layers of 24 mm armor steel each. In the case of the 24 cm towers, the front was 225 mm thick and the sides and back were 188 mm thick. The ceiling consisted of three layers of 17 mm each.
The barbeds of the main turrets were heavily armored at the top, i.e. at the exposed areas, at 246 mm. The armor diminished where they lay behind side armor. In the case of the front barbette, this was done in two stages: behind the “cuirasse mince” the armor was still 166 mm thick, between the armored decks, i.e. behind the main armor belt, it was only 66 mm. At the rear barbette, the 246 mm thick armor extended to the upper armored deck, below which the protection was reduced directly to 66 mm. The barbeds of the 24 cm towers had 154 mm of armor at the top in the realm of the loading chamber, which tapered slightly to 148 mm below.
The command post had armor of 266 mm at the front, 216 mm at the rear, a ceiling made up of three layers of armor totaling 40 mm and a floor made up of three layers of armor totaling 50 mm. The shaft of the command tower had a 200 mm thick protection.
The vertical armored surfaces of the transverse bulkheads and gun turrets and the command tower as well as the wooden backing of the belt armor were attached to a double layer of shipbuilding steel, the thickness of which varied from twice 8 mm (belt armor in front) to twice 20 mm (main gun turrets).
Underwater protection
The ships had a double floor that was pulled up to the lower edge of the armored belt.
To protect against underwater explosions, a 2 m deep internal bead was built into the underwater hull on both sides of the ship , which extended from 20 m behind the bow to 20 m in front of the stern. On its upper side, it met the outer wall of the ship on the lower edge of the armored belt. Its top was connected to the lower end of the armored deck embankment. The lower part hit the double bottom in the area of the rear sight and was pulled through to the outer skin. The bead consisted of three layers of steel with a tensile strength of 60 kg / mm².
In the longitudinal direction, the bulge was divided into a total of 23 2 to 3 m long watertight compartments by transverse bulkheads. Inboard of the bulge were another 16 watertight compartments, four of which served as coal bunkers and the others were empty.
John Jordan criticizes that the system was not designed to absorb the energy of an underwater explosion. Instead, it only made a relatively large floodable area available. A strong one-sided water ingress would quickly destabilize and capsize a ship without an effective counter-flood. This is exactly what happened when the Danton was hit by two submarine torpedoes in March 1917.
Jane's Battleships, on the other hand, rates the underwater protection as good. The book refers to the fact that the Voltaire survived two torpedo hits by the German submarine UB 48 . In addition, the work also cites the torpedoing of the Danton and refers to the fact that other contemporary ships sank "like stones" after comparable underwater damage. The Danton, on the other hand, was held for over half an hour, which meant that a large part of the team was able to save themselves
history
The following table gives an overview of the building history of the class. The naming was unusual: the ships were not given traditional names, but were named after personalities of the French Revolution.
| Builder: | Keel laying | Launch | Commissioning (Armement définitif) |
Namesake | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voltaire | Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée , La Seyne-sur-Mer | June 8, 1907 | January 16, 1909 | August 5, 1911 | Voltaire |
| Condorcet | Ateliers & Chantiers de la Loire , St. Nazaire | August 23, 1907 | April 20, 1909 | July 25, 1911 | Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet |
| Diderot | Ateliers & Chantiers de la Loire , St. Nazaire | October 20, 1907 | April 19, 1909 | July 25, 1911 | Denis Diderot |
| Danton | Arsenal de Brest , Brest | January 9, 1908 | 4th July 1909 | July 24, 1911 | Georges Danton |
| Mirabeau | Arsenal de Lorient, Lorient | May 4, 1908 | October 28, 1909 | August 1, 1911 | Honoré Gabriel de Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau |
| Vergniaud | Forges & Chantiers de la Gironde, Bordeaux | July 1908 | April 12, 1910 | December 18, 1911 | Pierre Vergniaud |
When the Vergniaud was the last ship to be laid down in July 1908, the British Navy had already had the Dreadnought in service for over a year, the Bellerophon class had been launched and the St. Vincent class was under construction. Germany and the USA also already built full-fledged dreadnoughts. Since the French Navy finished building the class, it was not until 1910 that it was able to stack large-line ships with the Courbet class , which were technically more or less up to date.
All six ships were used in the Mediterranean during the First World War . At the beginning of the war they were the most modern operational battleships in France, as the ships of the Courbet class had hardly entered.
The Vergniaud was on 16 August 1914 in the Adriatic Sea on the sinking of the Austro-Hungarian cruiser Zenta by the French Mediterranean fleet involved. On September 1, 1914, they shelled Kotor . The Voltaire was badly damaged on August 16, 1918 by an underwater explosion of unknown cause. The Mirabeau and the Vergniaud were used in the Black Sea in 1919 as part of the intervention of the Western powers against the Bolsheviks , with the Mirabeau being damaged by stranding.
The remaining ships were still part of the French fleet in the post-war period. Voltaire , Condorcet, and Diderot were still part of the battleship tonnage awarded to the French Navy in the Washington Naval Agreement in 1922 . These 3 ships were modernized in the period from 1923 to 1925, whereby the underwater protection was also improved.
The whereabouts of the ships in detail:
- Voltaire: deleted in 1935, scrapped in 1939.
- Condorcet: deleted in 1931, since then used for auxiliary tasks. Damaged when German troops marched into Toulon on November 27, 1942 , sunk by US air raids in August 1944, recovered after the war and scrapped until 1959.
- Diderot: deleted in 1936, scrapped in 1937.
- Danton: Sunk south of Sardinia on March 19, 1917 by two torpedoes from the German U- 64 submarine.
- Mirabeau: Damaged by stranding in the Crimea on February 13, 1919 , not restored to service, used as a target ship.
- Vergniaud: Reserve in 1919, canceled in 1921, then used for experiments, scrapped in 1929.
literature
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . JF Lehmanns Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 .
- Bernard Ireland: Jane's Battleships of the 20th Century . Harper Collins Publishers, London 1996, ISBN 0-004-70997-7 .
- John Jordan: The 'Semi-Dreadnoughts' of the Danton Class . In: John Jordan, Stephan Dent (eds.): Warship 2013 . Conway, London 2013, ISBN 978-1-84486-205-4 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Technical data, unless otherwise stated, based on John Jordan. In: Warship 2013 , p. 49.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905-1970.
- ↑ Armor information according to Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 , p. 442.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar John Jordan. In: Warship 2013 .
- ↑ David K. Brown: Warrior to Dreadnought. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2010 (Reprint 2014), ISBN 978-1-84832-086-4 , p. 154.
- ↑ a b c John Spencer: Conduite de tir Part 2: 1900 to 1913 . In: John Jordan, Stephan Dent (eds.): Warship 2012 . Conway, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-84486-156-9 .
- ↑ a b c Ireland: Jane's Battleships.
- ↑ Information about the predecessor on www.navweaps.com
- ^ John Jordan, Robert Dumas: French Battleships 1922-1956 . Corrected reprint. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2010, ISBN 978-1-84832-034-5 , pp. 33f.
- ^ John Jordan, Robert Dumas: French Battleships 1922-1956 . Corrected reprint. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2010, ISBN 978-1-84832-034-5 , p. 13.
- ↑ Bruno Weyer (Ed.): Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1914. New edition 1968. JF Lehmann's Verlag, Munich 1914.
- ^ John Jordan, Jean Moulin: French Cruisers 1922-1956 . Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2013, ISBN 978-1-84832-133-5 , p. 9 explains the designation of the steel grades.
- ↑ John Jordan. In: Warship 2013 , p. 63 names 40 minutes.
- ↑ Launched for Condorcet and Diderot after Breyer and Weyer's pocket book of the war fleets 1914; Jordan gives April 19 for Condorcet and April 20 for Diderot.
- ^ John Jordan: Warships after Washington. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2011, ISBN 978-1-84832-117-5 , p. 61.