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Masséna
was a pre-dreadnought battleship of
the French Navy, launched in July 1895 at Ch. de la Loire.
She was an advanced version
of the Charles Martel, progenitor of a class of four
roughly similar ships (Jauréguiberry and Bouvet
were the other members of the pseudo-class), but she was not considered
very successful as she was 900 tons overweight.
The Charles Martel
group of battleships all shared the same layout for their main and
secondary armament - a design that minimized the cramped upper decks
produced by the pronounced tumblehome favored by French designers, and
capitalized on the bulging sides of the vessels. The bow and stern
turrets had only a single gun and were placed uncomfortably close to the
extremities of the ship in Masséna because she was
4 meters (13 ft) to 7 meters (23 ft) shorter than the other ships in the
group. The single turrets of the secondary armament were mounted on the
ship's beam, while the 138-millimetre (5.4 in) guns were mounted in four
twin turrets sited symmetrically behind and outboard of the main gun
turrets.
She was hulked at Toulon in 1915, later being towed to Turkey where on
10 November 1915 she was scuttled at Sedd-el-Bahr, at the end of the
Gallipoli Peninsula, to create a breakwater for the French landing force
there. - Wikipedia |
