Suffren (ship, 1899)
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 The suffren |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Ship of the line |
| Shipyard | |
| Order | April 21, 1898 |
| Keel laying | January 5, 1899 |
| Launch | July 25, 1899 |
| Namesake | Pierre André de Suffren |
| Commissioning | February 3, 1904 |
| Whereabouts | Sunk on November 26, 1916 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
12,432 t, max. 12,892 t |
| length |
125.5 m over everything |
| width |
21.4 m |
| Draft |
8.4 m |
| crew |
668 men (as flagship 742) |
| drive |
24 Niclausse boilers, |
| speed |
17.9 kn |
| Range |
3086 nm at 12 kn |
| Armament |
• 4 × 305 mm cannons |
| Armor |
Harvey system |
| Armored deck |
up to 60 mm |
| Belt armor |
up to 300 mm |
| artillery |
up to 290 mm |
The Suffren was a ship of the line of the French Navy , which was launched in July 1899 and remained a single ship. During the First World War , the Suffren was sent to the Dardanelles in September 1914 with the ship of the line Vérité to support the British in the blockade. After a brief overhaul, she returned to the Dardanelles in January 1915 and became the flagship of the French squadron under Rear Admiral Émile Guépratte . They shelled the Turkish fortifications and on March 18, 1915 took part in an attempt to force passage through the straits. She suffered 14 hits in 15 minutes in the front row. Badly hit and burning, she started back with the other French ships. After its repairs, it supported the land troops during the campaign on Gallipoli .
On the way to an overhaul in Lorient after further operations in the eastern Mediterranean , the Suffren was torpedoed by U 52 off Lisbon on November 26, 1916 and sank with the entire crew (648 dead).
Building history
The Suffren was the fifth ship of the French Navy, which was named after the Admiral Pierre André de Suffren de Saint-Tropez (1729-1788). She was appointed to the Arsenal in Brest on April 21, 1898 . The keel was officially laid on January 5, 1899 and the launch on July 25, 1899. Its completion was significantly delayed by late delivery of components and equipment, and in particular the armor, only from July 1900. The Suffren began their test drives in November 1903 but not put into service until February 3, 1904.
In order to be able to build the ship faster, the Suffren should actually only be a slightly modified version of the previously built ship of the line Iéna . However, the large number of changes finally decided by the “Conseil des travaux de la Marine” led to a significantly changed ship that only had the basic external design in common with the Iéna . The biggest change was the installation of the greater part of the middle artillery in towers. The belt armor was also evenly thick and did not taper towards the ends. For this purpose, the ammunition supply for the heavy weapons was increased from 45 to 60 rounds per gun. Despite these changes, the Suffren was only slightly larger than the Iéna with a length of 125.5 m . The width was 21.4 m and the draft between 7.39 m forward and 8.22 m aft. It was also only a little heavier than the previous ship and displaced 12,432 t normal and 12,892 t with full equipment. In addition, the Suffren had bilge keels to make their movements smoother.
Propulsion system
The Suffren had three triple expansion machines of the Indret type , which worked on their own shafts. The central shaft had a three-bladed screw, the two outer shafts four-bladed; all had a diameter of 4.39 m. The steam for the machines was generated in 24 Niclausse boilers, which operated at a pressure of up to 18 kg / cm². The engines should deliver 16,200 PSi and in the sea tests the Suffren reached 16,809 PSi and a top speed of 17.91 knots. So she stayed slightly below the planned speed of 18 knots. The ship could load up to 1233 t of coal, which gave it a range of 3,086 nm at 12 kn. To improve the combustion, 52.15 tons of oil were still on board, which could be sprayed over the coals if necessary. The ship had an electrical 80-volt network and generated electricity with two 600- ampere and three 1200-ampere dynamos .
Armament
Like the Iéna , the Suffren also had four 305 mm L / 40 cannons of the 1893/96 model in a bow and stern twin turret as main armament. The cannons could be raised to 15 ° and fired 340 kg grenades at a rate of up to one shot per minute. With a muzzle velocity of 780 m / s, a firing range of up to 12,000 m was possible with the maximum increase.
The Suffren's middle artillery consisted of ten 164 mm L / 45 cannons of the 1893 model. Six were set up in individual towers on the sides of the superstructure, and four more stood in individual casemates one deck below the towers. The casemates were raised slightly above the arched hull. In 1906, projectiles were on board for the cannons, which could theoretically reach a rate of fire of two to three rounds per minute. The 52 kg shells could be fired up to 9000 m. There were also eight 100 mm L / 45 cannons of the 1893 model with protective shields on the Suffren , which were distributed over the deck and superstructure. With a maximum increase of 20 °, the 12 kg projectiles could still reach targets at a distance of 9500 m. The theoretical rate of fire of these cannons was six rounds, in practice three rounds per minute was a satisfactory rate. The ammunition supply for these eight cannons was 2264 shells.
Twenty 47 mm L / 40 rapid fire guns of the Hotchkiss 1885 type for torpedo boat defense were distributed on the superstructure and the combat marshes, which could fire their 1.5 kg projectiles up to 4000 m. The rate of fire of these cannons, at seven rounds per minute, was also only half of the theoretical values. The ammunition supply for these guns was 15,000 rounds. In addition, there were two 37 mm Hotchkiss automatic cannons on the upper bridge, which had a rate of fire of 25 rounds per minute.
When commissioned, the Suffren also carried four 450 mm torpedo tubes. Two were underwater behind the front tower and were oriented rigidly forward at an angle of 30 ° on either side. There were also two overwater pipes. The two overwater pipes had limited directability. One training torpedo and two operational torpedoes were available for each of the four tubes.
Armor protection
The Suffren was fully armored with Harvey steel in the waterline . The armored belt was 2.5 m high and 300 mm thick. The lower end of the belt was 120 mm thick throughout. In addition, the Suffren had an upper belt armor with a thickness of 110 mm, which protected the casemates. The armored deck was up to 60 mm thick and the front and rear armored bulkheads were both 110 mm thick.
The towers of the heavy artillery had a thickness of 290 mm on the sides and a 50 mm thick roof. The barbeds had a 250 mm thick armor. The turrets of the middle artillery had armor from 102 mm to 192 mm. The walls of the command tower were armored 224 to 274 mm thick and the communication lines extending from there were armored with 150 mm.
Mission history
The Suffren took on 18 August 1903 even before its entry to a fire exercise with the battleship Massena front of the Ile Longue part. A 55 cm thick steel plate, 225 cm long and 95 cm high, was attached to the side of the Suffren's front tower to test the resistance of an armor plate to large-caliber projectiles. Masséna shot at the plate from close range. The first three 305 mm training grenades struck splinters from the plate, two more shells with a full charge broke the plate. The tower of the Suffren remained fully operational including the installed electrical fire control system and six sheep housed in the tower (!) Were unharmed. However, one of the splinters tore a hole in the masséna above the armored belt and another nearly hit the Minister of the Navy, Camille Pelletan, who was watching the exercise . In November 1903 the test drives of the Suffren began and on February 3, 1904 they put them into service.
Pre-war missions
The Suffren was assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron and became their flagship on February 10th. In April, the President of France, Émile Loubet , used it for a state visit to Naples . Soon several defects in the ship became apparent. The capstan was too weak to lift the anchor safely from a depth of 15 to 20 m. The medium machine and its shaft also heat up considerably. During a naval exercise off the Îles des Hyères on February 5, 1906, the Suffren rammed the submarine Bonite , which had misjudged the movement of the fleet when it was launching a training raid. When the Bonite extended her periscope, she was only 30 m in front of the Suffren , who immediately turned off while the Bonite initiated another diving maneuver. Nevertheless, the two vehicles came into contact, causing considerable damage to the Bonite , which only narrowly escaped sinking and immediately had to be put into dry dock .
In the summer of 1906, the Suffren's surface torpedo tubes were removed again. On March 12, 1907, the Suffren was in dry dock in Toulon near the Iéna , when an ammunition magazine exploded on this. The Suffren was hit by rubble and a fire broke out on board, but she suffered no serious damage. In early 1908, a Barr and Stroud type 2 m range finder was installed on the upper bridge. During the maneuvers off Golfe-Juan on August 13, 1908, the Suffren's port wave broke and the screw sank to a depth of 26 m. While a new shaft was ordered from Indret , the port shaft of the severely damaged Iéna was installed, which proved so successful that the engineers demanded its continued use and initially did not want to use the new shaft as a reserve shaft. The Navy Ministry refused and ordered the renewed exchange. At the same time, the bearings of the medium shaft were revised, which successfully reduced their overheating. Nevertheless, in November 1910 there was another broken wave on the starboard side and another loss of a propeller. This time the Suffren could not use a replacement shaft and had to wait three months for the repair. The time was used for a complete overhaul of the boiler. Another accident occurred on February 14, 1911 when an anchor chain broke, killing a sailor and seriously injuring two. During a naval exercise on May 28, 1914, the Suffren suddenly lost her engine power and drifted against the ship of the line Démocratie . She was only slightly damaged and tore off the port anchor including the anchor hawse.
War effort
The Suffren's first war mission was to secure the troop transports from Algeria to France, where they were used together with the ships of the line St. Louis , Gaulois and Bouvet . Shortly after the start of the World War , the Suffren received more rangefinders and the front 100mm guns were installed lower down. On September 26, 1914, she was commanded with the ship of the line Vérité to the Dardanelles to support the British ships located there and to prevent the German Mediterranean Division (battle cruiser Goeben , Kleiner Kreuzer Breslau ) from breaking out back into the Mediterranean. On November 3, the two French ships of the line, together with the British battle cruisers Indomitable and Indefatigable, shelled the Turkish fortifications at the entrance to the Dardanelles. The brief bombardment of the French ships for eleven minutes caused little damage, but made it clear to the Turks that reinforcement of their positions was urgently needed. On November 16, the Suffren , which was replaced by the Gaulois , broke off their mission and ran back to Toulon for an overhaul.
On January 9, 1915, the Suffren arrived again in front of the Dardanelles and became the flagship of the four French ships of the line deployed there under Rear Admiral Émile Guépratte . On February 19, the Suffren shelled the Turkish Fort Kum Kale on the Asian side, with the Bouvet transmitting target corrections via radio and the Gaulois trying to eliminate the coastal artillery , some of which were mobile . Later that day, the British Vengeance attempted a similar attack on Orhaniye Tepe Fort, which is also on the Asian side , but came under heavy fire early on. The use of the battle cruiser Inflexible did not bring any significant relief to the British liner. Suffren and Gaulois therefore intervened and the Vengeance was able to withdraw. Suffren fired 30 305 mm shells and 227 164 mm rounds that day. On February 25, the attack on the same targets was repeated more successfully, as this time the targets were within 3,000 m. On March 2nd and 11th the French attacked targets on Gallipoli in the Gulf of Saros and on March 7th they supported an attack by the British on the aforementioned forts, fighting the positions of the coastal artillery.
On March 18, the planned main attack took place, initially with British ships leading the association. As the narrow point of the Dardanelles was approached, the French ships took the lead in order to shut down the forts protecting them. The suffren was hit 14 times in the first 15 minutes and caught fire. A medium artillery magazine also had to be flooded to prevent an explosion. A hit in the bow resulted in more water in the ship. The British commander, Admiral de Robeck , therefore exchanged the first series of attacks again and let the French ships retreat. The Bouvet hit a mine and sank within 55 seconds. The suffren managed to save 75 men with the Admiral's dinghy. She then accompanied the even more heavily damaged Gaulois from the Dardanelles, who had severe water ingress in the bow and had to be aground ten kilometers northeast of Tenedos in the Karayer Adaları archipelago with the islands of Tavşan, Yılan, Orak and Pırasa, ten kilometers northeast of Tenedos , in order not to sink completely . On that day, the British ships of the line HMS Ocean and HMS Irresistible were lost and the Allies decided to break through on land via the Gallipoli peninsula .
The Suffren were then assigned to secure the makeshift sealed Gaulois . The damaged liners should return to Toulon via Malta from March 25th . On the 27th, both ships got caught in a severe storm and had to take shelter in the Bay of Navarin . The Suffren reached Toulon on April 3rd and was repaired by May 20th, before returning to the Dardanelles. She then supported the troops ashore on Gallipoli with her artillery and carried out her last mission on December 31, 1915.
When she returned to her anchorage at Kefalos on Kos , she collided with the British freighter Saint Oswald , which was evacuating horses from Gallipoli. The freighter sank and the Suffren was severely damaged. The Suffren reached Toulon on January 20, 1916 and was repaired by April. She was assigned to the French squadron of six ships of the line, which should prevent the Greek fleet from intervening against the Allied Saloniki operation . On July 9th, the Suffren became the flagship of this squadron when the Patrie moved to Toulon for overhaul. On October 7, Patrie , Démocratie and Suffren ran into the port of Eleusis ready to fight to occupy the Greek liners Kilkis and Limnos and the cruiser Elli . The Greek ships of the line were disarmed and the cruiser Elli was used by the French until the end of 1917.
Loss of the suffren
An overhaul of the Suffren was to take place in Bizerta at the end of 1916 . However, since the shipyard in Lorient had free capacity, the Suffren should go there. She left the anchorage of the fleet on November 15 and ran through Bizerta and Gibraltar , where she coaled, into the Atlantic. On the morning of November 26, 1916, she was torpedoed about 50 nm off the Portuguese coast near Lisbon by the German submarine U 52 under Lieutenant Hans Walther . The torpedo apparently hit a magazine and the solo Suffren sank within seconds with the entire crew of 648 men at position 39 ° 10 ′ N , 10 ° 48 ′ W . U 52 , which was on the march to the Austro-Hungarian base Cattaro , unsuccessfully searched the sinking site for survivors. For U 52 and its commander it was the second sinking of a warship after the sinking of the British cruiser Nottingham on August 19 in the North Sea. The future Rear Admiral Walther was awarded the order Pour le Mérite in 1917 as the seventh submarine commander .
literature
- Philippe Caresse: The Drama of the Battleship Suffren. In: Warship Conway, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-84486-110-1 , pp. 9-26.
- 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
- Cuirasse Suffren (French, accessed May 30, 2011; PDF; 447 kB)
- Access to historical plans of the Suffren (French, accessed May 30, 2011; PDF; 67 kB)
- La perte du Suffren (November 26, 1916) on pages14-18 (French, accessed May 30, 2011)
- French battleship Suffren (accessed May 30, 2011)
- battleship Suffren (accessed May 30, 2011)
- Navies of World War I: French Navy (accessed May 30, 2011)
Footnotes
- ↑ Ships with the name Suffren (French, accessed May 30, 2011)
- ↑ a b Caresse, p. 10
- ↑ Caresse, p. 10 ff.
- ↑ Caresse, p. 11f.
- ↑ 305 mm / 40 (12 ") Model 1893/1896
- ↑ a b Caresse, p. 12
- ↑ 164.7 mm / 45 (6.5 ") Models 1893 and 1896
- ↑ 100 mm / 45 (3.9 ") Model 1893
- ↑ Hotchkiss 3-pdr (1.4 kg) 1.85 "/ 40 (47 mm) QF Marks I and II
- ↑ 1-pdr (0.45 kg) 1.46 "(37 mm) Marks 1 through 15
- ↑ a b Caresse, p. 12 f.
- ↑ Caresse, p. 11
- ↑ Caresse, p. 13 ff.
- ↑ Carresse, p. 16
- ↑ Caresse, p. 16 f.
- ↑ Caresse, p. 17
- ↑ Caresse, p. 17 ff.
- ↑ Caresse, p. 20
- ↑ Caresse, p. 21 f.
- ↑ Caresse, p. 22
- ↑ Caresse, p. 22f.
- ↑ Caresse, p. 25
- ↑ Caresse, p. 26
- ↑ Herzog, p. 144