Lewin of Greenwich Naval History & Forum

One of the four 13.4 inch/18 calibre main armament guns carried by French Ironclad Battleship Devastation in 1895.

A rare overhead view of French central battery and barbette Ironclad Battleship Redoutable,caught on a laundry day,clearly showing her unusual Gallic typical tumblehome hull, c1889.

A lower 1882 view of her. The HIGH view was very nice, and unusual given the age of the photo!! DFO

An unidentified Ironclad Battleship pictured at Arsenal de Brest c1900.

French Mediterranean Squadron pictured at Chios,Greece in the Aegean Sea in April 1893.

Part of the French Mediterranean Fleet pictured at Villefranche c1899.

The first warship in the world to use steel as the principal building material...Compared to iron, steel allowed for greater structural strength for a lower weight. France was the first country to manufacture steel in large quantities using the Siemens process...Central Battery & Barbette Ironclad Battleship Redoutable pictured in several stages of construction, launch and fitting out at Arsenal de Lorient 1874-1878.

More of Redoutable under construction.

Surely the French would have to win first prize for design and construction of the ugliest warships to grace La Mer...take this monstrosity, a Naval Draughtsman's nightmare!.....Pre-Dreadnought Ironclad Battleship Charles Martel pictured c 1899.

France's floating Grand Hotel.....Ironclad Battleship Hoche pictured c1899.
The Hoche is now as then, the supreme ugly ducking in the nest, a testimony of how hard naval engineers of the time tried to push their luck with designs that had to square circles in terms of iron construction, heavy weaponry, stability as a gun platform, seaworthiness, and optimal protection, both active and passive.
The Hoche also incarnates vivid insane aberrations of the Young School naval think tank of young officers and engineers that imposed its views to the ministers of the 1880-1910 decades. They were firm believers in the most modern technologies as a way to compensate for the French Navy inferiority (towards the Royal Navy) through many innovations, almost rejecting the concept of capital ships battle lines. But the experimental nature of it all plagued the French Navy in many ways, generating extreme heterogeneity, odd solutions not repeated elsewhere, and excessive construction delays caused by too many revisions due to political instability.