French ironclad Couronne
 Postcard of Couronne at anchor
| |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators |  French Navy |
| Preceded by | Gloire class |
| Succeeded by | Magenta class |
| Built | 1859–1862 |
| In service | 1862–1931 |
| In commission | 1862–1908 |
| Completed | 1 |
| Scrapped | 1 |
| History | |
| Name | Couronne |
| Namesake | Crown of Napoleon III |
| Ordered | 4 March 1858 |
| Builder | Arsenal de Lorient |
| Cost | 6,018,885 francs |
| Laid down | 14 February 1859 |
| Launched | 28 March 1861 |
| Commissioned | 2 February 1862 |
| Out of service | Hulked , 1 September 1909 |
| Reclassified | As gunnery training ship, 1885 |
| Fate | Scrapped, 1934 |
| General characteristics (as completed) | |
| Type | Armoured frigate |
| Displacement | 6,428 t (6,326 long tons) |
| Length | 80.85 m (265 ft 3 in) |
| Beam | 16.7 m (54 ft 9 in) |
| Draught | 7.8 m (25 ft 7 in) |
| Depth of hold | 9.7 m (31 ft 10 in) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 1 × shaft; 1 × HRCR-steam engine |
| Sail plan | Barquentine rigged |
| Speed | 12.5 knots (23.2 km/h; 14.4 mph) |
| Range | 2,410 nautical miles (4,460 km; 2,770 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement | 570 |
| Armament | 30 × 164.7 mm (6.5 in) rifled breech-loading guns |
| Armour |
|
The French ironclad Couronne ("Crown") was the first iron-
in 1934, over 70 years after she was completed.Design and description
Designed by the French
gun ports were slightly higher above the waterline than those of her predecessors, 2 metres (6 ft 7 in), and Couronne took aboard less water as well.[5] She had a crew of 570 officers and enlisted men.[4]
The ship had a single
metric horsepower (1,910 kW) during her sea trials. She carried a maximum of 675 tonnes (664 long tons) of coal[4] which allowed her to steam for 2,410 nautical miles (4,460 km; 2,770 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).[6] The details of Couronne's sailing rig are not precisely known, although a photograph of her in her original single-decker ironclad guise quite clearly shows her with full ship rig (square rig on three masts), but presumably she was fitted with a light barquentine rig with three masts like that of the Gloire-class ships. It is also unknown if she had the same multiple changes of rigging as those ships.[7]
Couronne was armed with 36 Modèle 1860 164.7-millimetre (6.5 in)
Hotchkiss revolving cannon were mounted on the upper deck.[3]
Couronne's wrought iron hull was completely protected by armour plates 120 millimetres thick. The armour backing consisted of two layers of teak, totaling 380 millimetres (15 in) in thickness, an iron lattice work 33 millimetres (1.3 in) thick, and the 20-millimetre (0.79 in) side of the hull. The ship had a conning tower with armour 100 millimetres (3.9 in) thick and 12.7 millimetres (0.5 in) of armour underneath the wooden upper deck.[3]
Construction and service
Ordered on 4 March 1858,Mediterranean Fleet, the ship made a port visit in August 1865 to Brest where the fleet hosted the British Channel Fleet. A few days later the French fleet made a reciprocal visit to Portsmouth where it was hosted by the Channel Fleet.[10] On 1 March 1867, Couronne was driven ashore in the Îles d'Hyères, Var in a storm. Several people died.[11]
During the Franco-Prussian War the ship was assigned to
Vice Admiral Léon Martin Fourichon's squadron that blockaded German ports in the Heligoland Bight in August and September 1870.[12] The four German ironclads at Wilhelmshaven sortied in search of the French squadron in early August before the French arrived and in mid-September[13] after the French were forced to abandon the blockade for lack of coal.[14]
Couronne returned to Toulon on 10 December. In 1876, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron. From 1881 to 1885, Couronne was reconstructed to serve as a gunnery training ship, replacing
spar deck and poop decks were fitted which gave her the appearance of a steam ship of the line of the Napoléon type. The ship was rearmed with an assortment of guns of various calibres for training purposes, replacing Souverain in this role.[16] Her crew and trainees numbered 1200 officers and enlisted men. Couronne was replaced as a gunnery training ship on 1 December 1908 and disarmed on 1 September 1909.[5] She was subsequently converted to a floating barracks at Toulon until she was scrapped in 1934.[6]
Footnotes
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Couronne (ship, 1861).
- ^ Biography Camille Audenet
- ^ Gardiner, p. 54
- ^ a b c d e Campbell, p. 286
- ^ a b c d e f g Gille, p. 23
- ^ a b c d de Balincourt & Vincent-Bréchignac, Part II, p. 24
- ^ a b c Silverstone, p. 61
- ^ de Balincourt & Vincent-Bréchignac, Part I, p. 14
- ^ Gardiner, p. 159
- ^ Luraghi, p. 319
- ^ Jones, pp. 35, 37
- ^ "Multum in Parvo". Newcastle Courant. No. 10028. Newcastle upon Tyne. 8 March 1867.
- ^ Wilson, vol. 1, pp. 275–276
- ^ Sondhaus, p. 102
- ^ Wilson, vol. 1, p. 276
- ^ Le Souverain (1819 – 1885), Nicolas Mioque
- ^ Mioque, Nicolas (2014-05-16). "Le Souverain (1819-1885)". Trois-Ponts! (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-25.
Bibliography
- de Balincourt, Captain; Vincent-Bréchignac, Captain (1974). "The French Navy of Yesterday: Ironclad Frigates, Part I". F.P.D.S. Newsletter. II (2): 12–15, 18. OCLC 41554533.
- de Balincourt, Captain; Vincent-Bréchignac, Captain (1974). "The French Navy of Yesterday: Ironclad Frigates, Pt. II". II (3): 23–25. )
- Campbell, N. J. M. (1979). "France". In Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 283–333. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
- Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1992). Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905. Conway's History of the Ship. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 1-55750-774-0.
- Gille, Eric (1999). Cent ans de cuirassés français [A Century of French Battleships] (in French). Nantes: Marines. ISBN 2-909-675-50-5.
- Jones, Colin (1996). "Entente Cordiale, 1865". In McLean, David & ISBN 0-85177-685-X.
- Luraghi, Raimondo (1996). A History of the Confederate Navy. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-527-6.
- Roberts, Stephen S. (2021). French Warships in the Age of Steam 1859–1914: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5267-4533-0.
- Silverstone, Paul H. (1984). Directory of the World's Capital Ships. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-88254-979-0.
- Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-21478-0.
- Wilson, H. W. (1896). Ironclads in Action: A Sketch of Naval Warfare From 1855 to 1895. Vol. 1 and 2. Boston: Little, Brown.