The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: France Battleship Lorraine

Laid down on August 1, 1912, launched on September 30, 1913 and commissioned in July 1916, Lorraine carried a main armament of ten of the powerful 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. Lorraine was part of the three-ship Provence "super-dreadnought" battleship class that was powered by coal-fired turbine engines with supplementary oil burners. The French 13.4 inch gun proved to be an excellent piece of ordnance but the ship’s overall protection was found wanting. "Lorraine" is a portion of France near the German border that has long been a bone of contention between those two countries; a portion of Lorraine was part of Germany in 1914 as a result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Save for sailing around in potentially hostile waters, the ship saw no action during the First World War and was converted to oil-fired boilers and modernized, including the removal of her amidships turret, during refits in 1921–1922, 1926–1927 and 1934–1936. After the outbreak of World War Two, Lorraine carried the French gold reserves to the United States in November 1939 and then was ordered to the Eastern Mediterranean. On June 21, 1940, she participated in a bombardment of Bardia. When France capitulated, she was interned by the British in Alexandria, Egypt until transferred to the Free French on May 31, 1943. Her heavy guns supported the landings in southern France in August and September 1944 and she bombarded a number of hold-out German fortresses in both the Mediterranean and Atlantic for the rest of the war. Following VE-Day, the Lorraine was converted into a training hulk. Deleted in 1953, she was towed to the breakers the following year.

See other battleships: Bretagne, Courbet, Introduction