French cruiser Dupuy de Lôme
Dupuy de Lôme
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History | |
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France | |
Name | Dupuy de Lôme |
Namesake | Henri Dupuy de Lôme |
Builder | Brest shipyard |
Laid down | 4 July 1888 |
Launched | 27 October 1890 |
Commissioned | 15 May 1895 |
Decommissioned | 20 March 1910 |
Renamed |
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Fate |
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General characteristics (as completed) | |
Type | Armoured cruiser |
Displacement | 6,301 tonnes (6,201 long tons) |
Length | 114 m (374 ft 0.2 in) (pp) |
Beam | 15.7 m (51 ft 6.1 in) |
Draught | 7.07 m (23 ft 2.3 in) (mean) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed | 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) (designed) |
Range | 4,000 nmi (7,400 km; 4,600 mi) at 12.5 knots (23.2 km/h; 14.4 mph) |
Complement | 521 |
Armament |
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Armour |
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Dupuy de Lôme was an
The ship was sold to the Peruvian Navy in 1912, but they never paid the last two installments and the ship remained inactive at Brest during World War I. The French agreed to take the ship back in 1917, keeping the money already paid, and they sold her in 1918 to a Belgian shipping company that converted her into a freighter. Renamed Péruvier, the ship's engines broke down during her maiden voyage as a merchant vessel in 1920 and she had to be towed to her destination, whereupon part of her cargo of coal was discovered to be on fire. Deemed uneconomical to repair, Péruvier was towed to Antwerp and later scrapped in 1923.
Design and description
Dupuy de Lôme was designed to fill the commerce-raiding strategy of the Jeune École naval theory. Considered by some the first true armoured cruiser (as the type is understood in its sailless turn-of-the-century form, compared with earlier steam-and-sail cruising ships with armour), she was superior to existing British and Italian protected cruisers, especially in her relatively thick and very extensive steel armour. She could exert significant control over the engagement range with her high speed and her heavy armament of quick-firing guns, all of which were of very modern high-velocity type and were mounted in gun turrets,[2] in marked contrast to her intended opponents who mounted their guns in lightly protected casemates or pivot mounts.[3]
The ship measured 114 metres (374 ft 0 in)
She had three
Dupuy de Lôme's main armament consisted of two 45-calibre Canon de 194 mm Modèle 1887 guns that were mounted in single gun turrets, one on each broadside amidships. Her secondary armament comprised six 45-calibre Canon de 164 mm Modèle 1887 guns, three each in single gun turrets at the bow and stern. The three turrets at the stern were all on the upper deck and could interfere with each other. For anti-torpedo boat defence, she carried ten 47-millimetre (1.9 in) and four 37-millimetre (1.5 in) Hotchkiss guns. She was also armed with four 450-millimetre (17.7 in) pivoting torpedo tubes; two mounted on each broadside above water.[4]
The whole side of the ship was protected by 100 millimetres (3.9 in) of steel armour, from the bottom edge of the protective deck 1.38 metres (4 ft 6 in) below the waterline to the edge of the weather deck. The curved protective deck had a total thickness of 30 millimetres (1.2 in) and did not rise above the ship's waterline. Protecting the boiler rooms, engine rooms, and magazines below it was a splinter deck 8 millimetres (0.31 in) thick. The space between the protective and splinter decks could be filled with coal to increase the effective thickness of the ship's armour. It was very cramped there and the coal was very difficult to access. A watertight[9] internal cofferdam, filled with cellulose,[10] ran the length of Dupuy de Lôme from the protective deck to a height of 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) above the waterline. Below the protective deck the ship was divided by 13 watertight transverse bulkheads with three more above the protective deck. The ship's conning tower was protected by 125 mm (4.9 in) and her turrets by 100 mm of armour.[11]
Service
Dupuy de Lôme was laid down at the Brest shipyard on 4 July 1888 and launched on 27 October 1890. A number of her forged steel armour plates proved to be defective during tests as the metallurgical techniques to harden it were still under development, but most plates were accepted anyway. The ship was commissioned for preliminary sea trials on 1 April 1892 and one boiler tube burst on 20 June, burning 16 men. The necessary modifications to fix the problem delayed the ship's completion by almost a year. Further testing in October 1893, showed that Dupuy de Lôme's engines could only attain 10,180 metric horsepower (7,490 kW) during a 24-hour trial and that the boilers were structurally unsound. The manufacturer agreed to replace them, but the necessary work delayed the ship's completion by another year. She was commissioned again for a new set of sea trials on 15 November 1894 and proved reasonably satisfactory.[12]
Dupuy de Lôme was finally commissioned on 15 May 1895 and was assigned to the Northern Squadron, based on the Atlantic coast. She represented France, together with the
The ship began an extensive reconstruction in 1902 at Brest, with the installation of 20 new
Prompted by the rumoured purchase of the small Italian protected cruiser Umbria by Ecuador in 1910, Peru offered to buy a French armoured cruiser. A price of three million francs was agreed upon, to be paid in three instalments, and Peru agreed to reimburse France for the costs of repairing Dupuy de Lôme. These repairs were completed by 6 March 1912 and the ship was formally transferred to the Peruvian Navy and renamed Commandante Aguirre after the first instalment was paid. After Umbria was bought by Haiti instead of Ecuador, the Peruvians lost interest in completing the purchase and the ship was left in the care of the French in October 1914. Proposals to use her during World War I were rejected as she was thought to be too obsolete to be worth refitting. On 17 January 1917 the ship was officially returned to France and the money already paid was put against the cost to repair Commandante Aguirre. Any money in excess of the estimated 400,000 francs that her scrapping would bring would be turned over to Peru.[15]
In October 1918, she was sold to the Belgian firm of Lloyd Royal Belge (LRB) and converted to a freighter under the name Péruvier by Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde. A conventional bow was built up over her pseudo-ram and the space was used to accommodate her crew. The two outboard engines, their associated boilers and propeller shafts were removed as were the two forward funnels. The ship's side and deck armour was removed wherever it did not compromise structural strength. Péruvier was delivered in December 1919 and she began her first voyage carrying 5,000 tonnes (4,900 long tons) of coal from
Notes
- ^ Silverstone, p. 96
- ^ Roksund, p. 116
- ^ Chesneau and Kolesnik, pp. 74–76, 348–49
- ^ a b Feron, p. 38
- ^ Feron, p. 37
- ^ a b Silverstone, p. 75
- ^ Feron, p. 35
- ^ Feron, pp. 35–38
- ^ Feron, p. 33
- ^ Chesneau and Kolesnik, p. 303
- ^ Feron, pp. 33, 35, 38
- ^ Feron, pp. 35–37
- ^ Feron, pp. 37–39, 41
- ^ Feron, pp. 41–42, 44
- ^ Feron, pp. 45–47
- ^ Feron, p. 47
References
- Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M., eds. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
- Feron, Luc (2011). "The Cruiser Dupuy-de-Lôme". In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2011. London: Conway. ISBN 978-1-84486-133-0.
- Jordan, John & Caresse, Philippe (2019). French Armoured Cruisers 1887–1932. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5267-4118-9.
- Roksund, Arne (2007). The Jeune École: The Strategy of the Weak. History of Warfare. Vol. 43. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-15723-1.
- Silverstone, Paul H. (1984). Directory of the World's Capital Ships. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-88254-979-0.