FRENCH BATTLESHIP LORRAINE

The French battleship 'Lorraine'
Career	French Navy Ensign
Built by:	Ateliers & Chantiers de la Loire
Laid down:	1 August 1912
Launched:	30 September 1913
Commissioned:	27 July 1916
Decommissioned:	17 February 1953
Fate:	Broken up
Struck:
General characteristics
Displacement:	23,230 tons standard, 25,000 tons full load
Length:	Length: 166 m
Beam:	26.9 m
Draught:	9.8 m
Propulsion:	4 shaft Parsons turbines, 18-24 boilers, 29,000 hp
Speed:	20 knots
Range:	4700 nm at 10 knots, 2680 tons coal and 300 tons oil
Complement:	1133
Armament:	★ 10 - 340 mm (13.4 inch) guns (5 × 2) ★ 22 - 138.6 mm guns (22 × 1) ★ 4 - 47 mm guns ★ 4 - 450 mm torpedo tubes
Armour	★ Belt 270 mm ★ three decks 40 mm each ★ Casemates 170 mm ★ 340 mm turrets ★ 314 mm conning tower

The '''Lorraine''' was a French Navy battleship of the ''Bretagne'' class named in honor of the region of Lorraine in France.

Contents

Construction

Service

External Links

References

Construction

The '''Lorraine''' was built by Ateliers & Chantiers de la Loire at St. Nazaire, and her keel was laid down on 1 August 1912. Launched on 30 September 1913, she was completed and commissioned on 27 July 1916.
Like her sister ships, the battleships ''Bretagne'' and ''Provence'', the '''Lorraine''' was armed with a main armament of ten of the new 13.4-inch main guns from the cancelled ''Normandie''-class battleships. The main guns were mounted two per turret; two centerline superfiring forward, two centerline superfiring aft and one amidships centerline turret that could fire to both sides.
In refits from 1921 to 1922, 1926 to 1927, and from 1934 to 1936 the '''Lorraine''' was modernized between the wars, with an aircraft catapult put in place of her midships gun-turret and modern anti-aircraft armament, as well being converted to new oil-firing boilers. Despite putting out 43,000 horsepower, the new boilers only pushed her speed up to 21 knots and here again her lack of speed as well as her relatively thin 7.25-inch armor made her a liability in battle.

Service

She served with her two sister ships in the Mediterrenean during both World Wars. Save for sailing around in potentially hostile waters, the ship saw no action during the First World War.
During the outbreak of Second World War the '''Lorraine''' carried France's gold reserves to the United States in November 1939. She was then ordered to the Eastern Mediterranean, where she participated in the bombardment of Bardia.
When France capitulated in 1940, the British Admiral Andrew Cunningham who commanded the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, and French Admiral René-Emile Godfroy struck a deal which led to the peaceful disarmament and interment of the '''Lorraine''' and the other ships of its squadron by the British in Alexandria on 22 June 1940.
After rearming, the '''Lorraine''' joined the Allies on 31 May 1943 and was involved in shore bombardments of Southern France, including the cities of Toulon and Marseilles, during the Allies' Operation Dragoon. Her big guns supported the landings in southern France in August and September 1944 and she bombarded a number of hold-out German fortresses in both the Mediterranean and Atlantic for the rest of the war.
Following V-E Day, the '''Lorraine''' was converted into a training hulk.
Decomissioned on 17 February 1953, she was finally scrapped in 1954.

External Links

★ Blueprints of the battleship Lorraine (HTML)

References

★ Anthony Preston, An Illustrated History of the Navies of World War II (Bison Books Ltd., London, 1976) ISBN 0-600-36569-7

★ French battleship Lorraine: Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel (HTML) Accessed 11 August 2007.