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Thursday 24 November 2011

French battleship Lorraine 1912-1954


Laid down at the yard of Ateliers&Chantiers de la Loire, St. Nazaire, France on 1 August 1912, launched on 30 September 1913, commissioned on 27 July 1916, modernized 1921-1922, 1926-1927 and 1934-1936, after 1945 serving as a training hulk, decommissioned on 17 February 1953 and finally broken up a year later. Of the Bretagne-class with as sister ships the Bretagne and the Provence.

With a displacement of 23,230 tons standard and 26,180 tons full load were her dimensions 166 x 26,9 x 9,8 metres. The 4 Parsons and a varying number of boilers (between 18 and 24) supplied 29,000 shop allowing a maximum speed of 20 knots while with a speed of 10 knots she had a range of 4,700 nautical miles. The oil bunker capacity was 300 tons and the coal bunker capacity was 2,680 tons. Her crew numbered 1,133 men. The original armament consisted of 5x2-34cm guns, 22x1-13,86cm guns, 4x1-4,7cm guns and 4-45cm torpedo tubes. Since the last modernisation armed with 8-34cm guns, 14x1-13,86cm guns and 8-7,5cm guns. The armour consisted of a 27cmmm belt, 3 decks each with a thickness of 4cm while the gun turrets were protected by 34cm, the conning tower by 3,1,4cm and the casemates by 17cm.