French battleship Richelieu

Richelieu

Richelieu in September 1943 after her refit
History
France
Name	Richelieu
Namesake	Cardinal de Richelieu
Builder	Arsenal de Brest
Laid down	22 October 1935
Launched	17 January 1939
Commissioned	1 April 1940
Decommissioned	1967
Stricken	1968
Fate	Broken up, 1968
General characteristics Original configuration
Class and type	Richelieu-class battleship
Displacement	Standard: 37,250 long tons (37,850 t) Full load: 43,992 long tons (44,698 t)
Length	247.85 m (813 ft 2 in)
Beam	33.08 m (108 ft 6 in)
Draft	Full load: 9.9 m (32 ft 6 in)
Installed power	6 × Indret Sural boilers 155,000 shp (116,000 kW)
Propulsion	4 × Parsons geared turbines 4 × screws
Speed	32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Range	9,500 nautical miles (17,600 km; 10,900 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement	1,569
Armament	8 × 380 mm (15-inch)/45 Modèle 1935 guns 9 × 152 mm (6 in)/50 guns 12 × 100 mm (3.9-inch) anti-aircraft guns 8 × 37 mm (1.5 in) AA guns 20 × 13.2 mm (0.52 in) Hotchkiss machine guns
Armor	Belt: 330 mm (13 in) Main deck: 170 mm (6.7 in) Turrets: 430 mm (17 in) Conning tower: 340 mm (13 in)
Aircraft carried	4 × Loire 130 seaplanes
Aviation facilities	2 × catapults
General characteristics 1943 refit
Displacement	Standard: 43,957 t (43,263 long tons) Full load: 47,728 t (46,974 long tons)
Draft	Full load: 10.68 m (35 ft)
Complement	1,930
Sensors and processing systems	SF surface search radar SA-2 air search radar
Armament	8 × 380 mm/45 guns 9 × 152 mm/50 guns 12 × 100 mm anti-aircraft guns 56 × 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors AA guns 48 × 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon AA cannons

Richelieu was a French fast battleship, the lead ship of the Richelieu class. Built as a response to the Italian Littorio class, Richelieu and its sister ship Jean Bart were based on their immediate predecessors of the Dunkerque class: they used the same unconventional arrangement that grouped their main battery forward in two quadruple gun turrets. They were scaled up to accommodate a much more powerful main battery of eight 380 mm (15 in) guns (compared to the 330 mm (13 in) guns of the Dunkerques), with increased armor to protect them from guns of the same caliber.

Richelieu was laid down in 1935 and was launched in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II in Europe. As war with Germany became increasingly likely, work on the ship was rushed to prepare her for commissioning in April 1940. Completed just days before the Germans won the Battle of France in June, Richelieu fled to Dakar in French West Africa to keep her under French control. There, she came under repeated British attacks that had been intended to either compel the battleship to join the Free French Naval Forces or sink her; these included during Operation Catapult in July 1940 and the Battle of Dakar in September.

Damaged in both attacks, the ship was slowly repaired before eventually being turned over to Free French control after the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942. After being sent to the United States for repairs and an extensive modernization, the ship served with the British Home Fleet in early 1944 before being deployed to the Eastern Fleet for operations against the Japanese in the Indian Ocean. These included several bombardment operations and in May 1945 she was present during the Battle of the Malacca Strait, though she was too far away to engage the Japanese force.

Richelieu was part of the force that liberated Singapore after the Japanese surrender in September, and she later operated in French Indochina as part of the initial effort to restore French colonial rule. Recalled to France in December 1945, she was repaired and modernized slightly in 1946. The ship saw relatively limited training in the immediate postwar years and, in 1952, she was removed from active service for use as a gunnery training ship. In 1956, she was placed in reserve and was thereafter used as a stationary training vessel and barracks ship until 1967, when the French Navy decided to discard her. She was sold for scrap in 1968, and broken up in Italy from 1968 to 1969.