so yeah the French almost could've had a semi-dreadnought battlecruiser closer to the actual Dreadnought-Armored Cruiser concept the UK wanted that evolved into the battlecruiser.Ī preliminary design with the classic VTE steam engines was accepted in March 1906, but various modifications were requested that after a ridiculously drawn out process where even the French parliament overwhelmingly agreed the highly expensive steam turbines were worth the tripled cost over VTEs, eventually resulting in the use of the Parsons steam turbine despite no French company knowing how to build one at the time. The navy also wanted a faster ship, but this could only be done by reducing armor thicknesses without exceeding the 18,000 ton limit imposed by Navy Minister Gaston Thomson for budgetary reasons. The French decided that the increasing range of naval combat dictated the use of secondary capital-grade 240mm cannons instead of large intermediate 194mm guns used on the Liberté class, as the 240mm had greater AP capability at longer ranges while still having a decent rate of fire. though to once again to be fair though to the russians, it helps when the controls aren't jammed and the helmsman isn't dead. Oh and the superior speed and handling of the Japanese ships was also credited with a role in their victory. to be fair though to the russians, if you know how that whole voyage from the Baltic to Tsushima went, it probably didn't help that their entire fleet were formerly floating fuel-air bombs for a couple months, and all the coal residue caked to the inside is hard to extinguish when HE shells laden with shimose powder are igniting anything at all flammable on the ships. (and because France had clearly NOT forgotten or gotten over 1889)ĭiscussions began in 1905 for an enlarged version of the current Liberté-class - the usual kind of iteration on previous designs done when you want a better design but want to cut a few months off on the design process.įrench analysis of the immediately famous Battle of Tsushima in May 1905 credited the Japanese victory to the large number of medium caliber hits that heavily damaged the superstructures of the Russian ships and started many fires that the crews had difficulty extinguishing. The Danton-class ships were ordered as part of the second stage of a French naval expansion program calling for among other things 19 new battleships by 1919, in response to the substantial growth of the Kaiserliche Marine after the turn of the century. particularly since the Danton-class was designed and ordered AFTER HMS Dreadnought caused its famous paradigm shift- though admittedly there are reasons why.ĭanton, Photographed by Marius Bar, date unknown but clearly before 1917, seen in book "Histoire de la Marine française illustrée, Larousse, 1934".Īrsenal model of Danton, on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris. These Semi-Dreadnoughts were a rare transitional type among capital ships put into service around the start of the Dreadnought era. This is a suggestion for the 6-strong Danton-class Semi-Dreadnought Battleships- Condorcet, Danton, Diderot, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, and Voltaire.
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