THE FRENCH NAVY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2296, 2 November 1914, Page 7

THE FRENCH NAVY

NEW BATTLESHIPS, The great Frenph battleehip Flandre, which has just been launched at Brest, will, with her three sisters, Languedoc, Normandie, and Gascogne', constitute a new class, differing completely in plan,from their predecessors. They will be the heaviest 6hips in the French Navy, their displacement being 24,800 tons, and they will carry twelve 13.4 in. guns in three quadruple turrets on the middle line, 24 5.5 in. gunu in redoubts, and four 3-pbunders, while there will be six submerged . torpedo tubes. All thesei ships have longitudinal , bulkheade. of a new type, being hollow steel walls 6in thick, the object being protection against damage from mines. The vessels" »re designed for a speed of 21 knots, and each will carry 1100 men. The placing of the big guns, four in a turret, is a- new idea,, and it was severely criticised in France, tho deoision to adopt it being arrived' at by the Superior Council of the Navy by-only a narrow majority. The possibility was raised of a single shell damaging the whole four guns in a turret,'and thus putting out of action, a third of the ship's armament, weighed heavily with some officere; but the majority .thought that the advantages of simplioijy of plan and economy of weight transcended any considerations of risk. There is still some doubt as to the effect uponthe ship of firing the full broadside_ of twelve guns, and the possibility of firing the whole four guns in e single turret simultaneously seems to be in question; so that of the new idea will be looked forward to with some interest. The Flandre and her sisters, all of whom are about to be launched, will not, of course, be commissioned for well over a,year yet; ' '■■..'