Gueydon-class cruiser

The Gueydon-class cruiser was a three-ship class of armored cruisers built in the first decade of the twentieth century for the French Navy (Marine Navale).

Design and description


Designed by the naval architect Emile Bertin, the Gueydon-class ships were intended to be smaller and cheaper than the preceding armored cruiser design, FRENCH CRUISER Jeanne d'Arc. Like the older ship, they were intended to fill the commerce-raiding strategy of the Jeune École. The ships measured 137.97 m long overall with a beam of 19.38 m and had a maximum draft of 7.67 m. They displaced 9367 t. They had a crew of 566 officers and enlisted men.

The Gueydon class had three vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single propeller shaft. Steam for the engines was provided by 20 or 28 boilers and they were rated at a total of 19600 - 22000 ihp that gave them a speed of 21 - 22 kn. The ships carried up to 1575 t of coal and could steam for 8500 nmi at a speed of 10 kn.

The ships of the Gueydon class had a main armament that consisted of two 40-caliber 194 mm guns that were mounted in single gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. Their secondary armament comprised eight 45-caliber quick-firing (QF) 164 mm guns in casemates. For anti-torpedo boat defense, they carried four 45-caliber QF 100 mm guns on the forecastle deck, ten QF 47 mm and four QF 37 mm Hotchkiss guns. They were also armed with two submerged 450 mm torpedo tubes.

The Harvey armor belt of the Gueydon-class cruisers extended from 4 ft below the waterline to the main deck. It reached the upper deck for a length of 141 ft from the bow and covered the entire length of the ship except for 13 ft of the stern where it ended in a transverse bulkhead 3.3 - 1.6 in thick. The lower strake of armor was generally 150 mm thick, although it reduced to 3.6 in forward, 3.2 in aft, and thinned to 2 in at its lower edge. The upper strake of armor had thicknesses of 3.8 - 3.2 in and 2.2 - 1.6 in between the main and upper decks.

The curved lower protective deck ranged in thickness from 2 to 2.2 inches. In addition there was a light armor deck 0.8 in thick at the top of the lower armor strake. A watertight internal cofferdam, filled with cellulose, stretched between these two decks. The gun turrets were protected by 160 - 176 mm armor and had roofs 0.9 in thick. Their ammunition hoists had 2 inches of armor and the 100-millimeter guns were protected by gun shields. The sides of the conning tower were 160 millimeters thick. The forward end of the casemate compartment was closed off by a 4.7 in bulkhead and a 4 in bulkhead extended down to the lower deck at the rear end of the compartment.