French seaplane carrier Commandant Teste

Commandant Teste
History
France
Name	Commandant Teste
Namesake	Paul Teste
Builder	Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde, Bordeaux
Laid down	6 September 1927
Launched	12 April 1929
In service	18 April 1932
Reclassified	As gunnery training ship June 1941
Fate	Scuttled on 27 November 1942, raised February 1945, sold for scrap 15 May 1950
General characteristics
Type	Seaplane tender
Displacement	10,000 long tons (10,160 t) (standard) 12,134 tonnes (11,942 long tons) (full load)
Length	167 m (547 ft 11 in)
Beam	27 m (88 ft 7 in)
Draft	6.7 m (22 ft 0 in)
Installed power	4 water-tube boilers 23,230 shp (17,320 kW)
Propulsion	2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbines
Speed	21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Range	2,000 nmi (3,700 km; 2,300 mi) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Complement	644
Armament	12 × single 100 mm (3.9 in) guns 8 × single 37 mm (1.5 in) AA guns 6 × twin 13.2 mm (0.5 in) machine guns
Armor	Belt: 3–5 cm (1.2–2.0 in) Deck: 2.4–3.6 cm (0.9–1.4 in) Conning tower: 8 cm (3.1 in)
Aircraft carried	26 seaplanes
Aviation facilities	4 × catapults 5 × recovery cranes[1]

Commandant Teste was a large seaplane tender of the French Navy (French: Marine Nationale) built before World War II. She was designed to be as large as possible without counting against the Washington Treaty limits. During the Spanish Civil War, she protected neutral merchant shipping and played a limited role during World War II as she spent the early part of the war in North African waters or acting as an aviation transport between France and North Africa. She was slightly damaged during the British bombardment of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir in July 1940. Commandant Teste was scuttled at Toulon when the Germans invaded Vichy France in November 1942, but was refloated after the war and considered for conversion to an escort or training carrier. Neither proposal was accepted and she was sold for scrap in 1950.