The Ships of Battlegroup: France Richelieu (BB)

Displacement	38,500 tons	Belt Armor	13.6 inches
Overall Length	813 feet	Deck Armor	8.7 inches
Beam	108 feet	Main Turret Armor	16.9 inches
Speed	30 knots	Main Guns	8 × 15″

Laid down on October 22, 1935, launched on January 17, 1939 and commissioned in July 1940, the ship carried a main armament of eight 15 inch main guns mounted in two centerline superfiring quad turrets forward. Richelieu was the only ship of her class that achieved full operational status. Nearly complete (only the forward turret had guns) sister ship Jean Bart escaped from St. Nazaire to Casablanca in June 1940 and remained there for the rest of the war.

In November 1942, while resisting the Allied invasion of North Africa, she took eight 16 inch hits from the U. S. S. Massachusetts. The ship was later completed after the war. The third sister, Clemenceau, was never launched and “half-sister” Gascogne was never started. Using the same internal and inclined belt placement introduced by the Dunkerque class, Richelieu had one of the best protection schemes devised, for her size. As with the Dunkerques , her two turrets were a considerable distance apart to make it difficult for a single hit to destroy both turrets. She was named after the Cardinal and Duke Armand Jean du Plessis Richelieu (1585–1642) who proved to be the true power behind the throne in Louis XIII’s court, the mastermind behind France’s successes in the Thirty Year’s War and the thorn in the side of Alexandre Dumas’ famed Three Musketeers.

In the early days of the Second World War, she was sent to Dakar in French Senegal to complete her fitting out. She was immobilized by a British squadron in an attack on July 8, 1940 (she hit British battleship Barham and was torpedoed by aircraft from the Hermes) but was able to participate in the defense of the colony against an unsuccessful combined British-Free French attack in September. After the invasion of North Africa, Richelieu became a unit in the Free French Navy. Patched together, she sailed to the United States where she received a complete overhaul with her damaged guns replaced by ones taken from the Jean Bart and modern radar and modern antiaircraft weapons added. She spent the rest of the war in the Far East escorting the British fast aircraft carriers in the Pacific. Later in 1945, she operated off what was then French Indo-China (modern Vietnam) and then returned to France.

Placed in reserve in 1956, Richelieu was broken up in 1964.

For contemporary foreign battleships with quadruple turrets, see: King George V .

Where did we get all these fascinating historical tidbits and factoids? See the Bibliography for the culprits.