France (ship, 1912)

France

France

Ship data flag  France Ship type Large-line ship class Courbet class Shipyard Ateliers et Chantieres de la Loire, Saint-Nazaire Launch November 7, 1912 Commissioning July 15, 1914 Whereabouts Stranded on August 26, 1922, then scrapped

Ship dimensions and crew length 168.0 m ( Lüa ) 164.9 m ( KWL ) width 27.9 m Draft Max. 9.0 m displacement Construction: 25,000 ts Maximum: 26,000 ts   crew 1,085 to 1,108 men

Machine system machine 24 Niclausse steam boilers 4 Parsons turbines 1 rudder Machine performance 28,000 PS (20,594 kW) Top speed 21.7 kn (40 km / h) propeller 4 three-leaf

Armament 12 × 30.5 cm L / 45 Sk 22 × 13.86 cm L / 55 Sk 4 torpedo tubes ∅ 45 cm (under water) Armor Belt: 180-270 mm Citadel: 180 mm Upper deck: 30û40 mm Battery cover: 12 mm upper armored deck : 45 mm lower armored deck: 40 mm (embankments: 70 mm) Command tower: 270-300 mm Barbettes : 280 mm Towers : 100–290 mm Casemate : 180 mm

The France was a French large-liner of the Courbet class . She was laid down on 30 November 1911 expired on November 7, 1912 from the stack . It was completed on July 15, 1914.

First World War

Diagram of Courbet- class ships

After its commissioning, the France was placed under the 1st Division of the 2nd Squadron. With her sister ship, the Jean Bart , she brought French President Raymond Poincaré and Prime Minister Viviani to St. Petersburg on their state visit to Tsar Nicholas II at the end of July 1914 .

France spent almost the entire period of World War I in the Adriatic . After the sister ship Jean Bart was badly damaged by a torpedo hit by the Austro-Hungarian submarine SM U-12 in December 1914, France took on the task of transporting ammunition for the Montenegrin army . Until the end of the war, the ship remained in the Mediterranean and protected convoys to the Greek islands and Malta .

Whereabouts

In April 1919, the crew of the participating France on uprising in the French Black Sea Fleet , after which they of Sevastopol after Toulon was recalled.

In the early morning hours of August 26, 1922, the France ran into an undersea elevation in the Bay of Quiberon , which was not shown on the nautical charts, and leaked. Although all bilge pumps were used, she was aground four hours later; three crew members died. The France was abandoned and later scrapped on site.

literature

• Breyer, Siegfried: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , p. 439-443 .

• Whitley, Mike J: Battleships of World War II . Motorbuch Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-613-02289-3 .

Footnotes

1. ↑ Holger H. Herwig : Marne 1914 .: A battle that changed the world? , P. 10 online (pdf)

Coordinates: 47 ° 27 ′ 6 ″  N , 3 ° 2 ′ 0 ″  W.