Ships of the French Navy

[Brian James]

Part of the French Mediterranean Fleet,including Bretagne Class Dreadnought Battleships FS Bretagne and FS Provence with Suffren Class Heavy Cruiser FS Colbert and escorts,pictured at Casablanca in 1939.

[Brian James]

Guided Missile Trials Ship FS Ile d'Oleron pictured at Toulon in March 1972....Launched at Wesermunde,Bremerhaven as an Auxilliary Transport Ship in 1939 and ceded to France in 1945 as war reparations,converted to a Guided Missile Trials Ship in 1959,decommisioned in June 2002 and sunk as a target in the Mediterranean.

[designeraccd]

Some fairly rare pics of the LE HARDI class, caught in the war before class was ready........... Had the class been completed and escaped to FFN perhaps they could have contributed to Allied cause??

From WIKI:

"The LE HARDI class consisted of twelve destroyers (French: torpilleurs d'escadre, lit. 'squadron destroyers') built for the Marine Nationale (French Navy) during the late 1930s. Only seven ships were ultimately completed while construction of the remaining five ships was interrupted by the French defeat in the Battle of France in May–June 1940 and were never finished. The seven ships that were seaworthy sailed for French North Africa to prevent their capture by the advancing Germans. Several ships later sailed for French West Africa where Le Hardi played a minor role in the Battle of Dakar in September. They captured two ships that were still under construction and attempted to finish them both before abandoning the effort in 1943.

All of the ships were salvaged for scrap or broken up on the slipway after the war except for L'Opiniâtre which was launched after the war and used for testing before she was scrapped in 1971. Lansquenet was refloated and towed back to Toulon in 1946 and was still incomplete when she was scrapped in 1958.

Type: Destroyer
Displacement: 1,800 t (1,772 long tons) (standard )
2,577 t (2,536 long tons) (deep load)

Length: 117.2 m (384 ft 6 in) (o/a)
Beam: 11.1 m (36 ft 5 in)
Draught: 3.8 m (12 ft 6 in)
Installed power: 4 forced-circulation boilers
58,000 PS (43,000 kW; 57,000 shp)

Propulsion: 2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbines
Speed: 37 knots (69 km/h; 43 mph)
Range: 3,100 nmi (5,700 km; 3,600 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 187 officers and enlisted men
Armament: 3 × twin 130 mm (5.1 in) guns
1 × twin 37 mm (1.5 in) AA guns
2 × twin 13.2 mm (0.52 in) anti-aircraft machineguns
1 × triple + 2 × twin 550 mm (21.7 in) torpedo tubes
8 or 12 depth charges; 1 or 2 × chutes

Armour: Gun turrets: 20 mm (0.8 in)"
DFO

[designeraccd]

ALGERIE b4 and after............. DFO

[designeraccd]

ALGERIE undergoing tests......... Also, a pre war view. DFO

[Brian James]

FREMM ASW Frigate Normandie pictured with her NH Industries NH90 Caiman ASW helo embarked,off Brest in October 2020.

[designeraccd]

A nice info graphic for the French "HORIZON" type........ DFO