Normandie Class Battleship

Normandie Class Battleship

The Normandie class of dreadnought battleships was a group of five ships ordered for the French Navy in 1912–1913. The class comprised Normandie, the lead ship, Flandre, Gascogne, Languedoc, and Béarn. The design incorporated a radical arrangement for the twelve 340 mm main battery guns: three quadruple gun turrets, as opposed to the twin turrets used by most other navies. The first four ships were also equipped with an unusual hybrid propulsion system that used both steam turbine and triple expansion engines to increase fuel efficiency.

The ships, named after provinces of France, were never completed due to shifting production requirements after the outbreak of war in 1914. The first four ships were sufficiently advanced in construction to permit their launching to clear the shipyards for other, more important work. Many of the guns built for the ships were instead converted for use by the Army. After the war, the French Navy considered several proposals to complete the ships, either as originally designed or modernized to account for lessons from the war. The weak French post-war economy, however, necessitated that the first four ships be broken up for scrap. The last ship, which was not significantly advanced at the time work halted, was converted into an aircraft carrier in the 1920s. She remained in service in various capacities until the 1960s. The ship was ultimately scrapped in 1967.