The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: France Battleship Bretagne

Laid down on July 1, 1912, launched on April 21, 1913 and commissioned in September 1915, Bretagne carried a main armament of ten of the new 13.4 inch main guns mounted two per turret; two centerline superfiring forward, two centerline superfiring aft and one amidships centerline turret that could fire to both sides. Bretagne was part of the three-ship Provence “super-dreadnought” battleship class that was powered by coal-fired turbine engines with supplementary oil burners. The name is the French for “Brittany” and is pronounced almost identically. The ship saw no action during the First World War and was converted to oil-fired boilers and modernized during refits in 1921, 1925 and 1932–1934. Stationed in the Mediterranean on the outbreak of the Second World War, she sailed to Mers el Kebir after the French surrender. The British were worried that the powerful French Navy might fall into nazi hands and were resolved to prevent that from happening. On July 3, 1940, Bretagne was shelled following an ultimatum by British warships (Hood, Barham and Resolution) and capsized after blowing up with over 900 killed. Her sister ship Provence was beached in the same battle, later re-floated, sent to Toulon and scuttled there on November 27, 1942 to prevent capture by the Germans. Bretagne was salvaged and scrapped in 1952.

See other French battleships: Courbet, Jean Bart, Lorraine