FAN Voltaire (SD) & Danton (BB) - 1909 + mods

Back to French Navy page


29/11/2023 - I get quite harsh with the French Navy over these ships. I can look at it from the other side that they needed to complete some battleships as soon as possible because they were falling behind both the German and Royal Navies. But building second class ships was not going to help their cause. (new drawings available too.) Read on!


The Danton class never made any sense to me. One ship maybe, too far advanced to cancel, but six?? absolutely ludicrous. I could understand it better if the ships had been started being built before Dreadnought was laid down and built. But Dreadnought was built and completed by 10/1906. The first of the Danton's had been laid down about the same time the second over 6 months later, after that there is absolutely no reason for the remainder to have any chance of being completed under their original plans. The first two laid down are actually Condorcet and Voltaire, with Voltaire being the earliest. Diderot was next after that, then the other three. To me that will make the early semi-dreadnoughts the Voltaire class and the later four Dreadnoughts, the Danton class.

As a semi-dreadnought, armed with four 12" and twelve 9.4", they were as good as any other in the world. But from the moment the Dreadnought is completed the Danton's are no longer looking so good. A simple rearrangement of the main guns, the deletion of the 9.4", would have made a large difference in the ships capabilities. I complete the first two to the original semi-Dreadnought design. After that I have two streams in mind. Go to a wing turret design with six twin turrets, with one forward and aft and the other four on the wings of the ship. This would give a broadside of eight guns. Equivalent to the Dreadnought and Nassau classes.



The dimensions did not need to change just the layout of the main guns. The Danton sub-class would have had the same broadside as the Dreadnought and other first battleship classes and would have paved the way for the larger Provence class 12" battleships that followed. One of the good things about the class was the turbine machinery that was fitted to all members. It is much easier to maintain a higher speed with turbines than is possible with the previous triple-expansion machinery. I have always seen the early dreadnoughts as conservative efforts. All of the worlds navies had the South Carolina as a template to plan from. What was so good about the design? It only required four turrets to provide the same broadside as the echelon/wing turret designs. A two turret saving is actually huge in terms of production. If the French use the wing design for these ships, then they need twenty four twin 12" turrets. That same twenty four turrets could provide the main armament for six ships. Using the inline version, it is easy to see the next Courbet class as a step up. Did I say I hate those horrible turrets?



The ships had a busy WW1 with the six battleships being used to help patrol the Adriatic Sea against the Austro-Hungarian Fleet, and also later the ships were active at Gallipoli while two were stationed at the mouth of the Dardanelles to guard against a breakout by the Goeben. The Danton spent its time on convoy escort and was torpedoed by a U-boat in 03/1917 off Sardinia. The Mirabeau ran aground near the Crimea during the White Revolution in which the British and French tried to help restore the Russian Monarchy back into power. The ship was badly damaged and while the ship was salvaged and returned to France the hull had been warped and the ship was decommissioned and used as an accommodation hulk at Toulon. Which leaves four left to turn into miscellaneous vessels. Two Semi-dreadnoughts and two battleships.

The restrictions of The Washington Treaty meant that remaining four ships were excess to requirements once the French Navy had received its share of the ex-German Fleet. The ex-German ships were far superior to the remaining vessels and there was no contest as to which ships would have to be decommissioned into ancillary duties. With the completion of the Guynemer and Languedoc in 1928 the Voltaire and Condorcet were taken in hand for rebuilding to lesser duties.



The Voltaire became the French Navies catapult trials ship and ended up as what the British eventually termed an Area Defence Vessel, a large hangar and catapult replacing the rear guns and machinery of the ship. Maximum speed with half the boilers removed fell to 14 knots. There were a lot of harbours along the French African coast line and even Madagascar and Tahiti where an Area Defence Vessel would be invaluable.



Condorcet was the trials ship for the new 5.1" gun systems and a quadruple turret and two twins replaced the twin 12" and the pair of twin 9.4" at the rear of the ship. The new 100mm twin and single mounts were also mounted aft. Plenty of light AA weapons made a very useful mobile AA platform. Maximum speed with half the boilers removed fell to 14 knots. On the outbreak of war, the main French Naval base is Brest and that is where the Condorcet is stationed as extra AA support. On the 1st of July 1940, with surrender imminent, the Condorcet is ordered to Mers-el-Kebir as the major AA ship for the base.



The Vergniaud and Diderot became training ships. They were to have been demilitarised but the failure of the 1930 London Naval Treaty reprieved these two ships. The major class of vessel that France could do with many more of is the Trade Protection Cruiser. What was needed was to increase the range, which was accomplished by removing the 5.5" guns and magazines, and replacing the magazines with extra fuel tanks. Where the guns had been was plated in and converted to extra accommodation. The old coal fired boilers were removed and replaced with oil fired ones. The coal stowage being converted to oil bunkers. The five funnels could then be replaced with two. What the French got was two ships that could act as convoy escorts through those areas where Germanic States raiders might prey on them. Then as patrol ships on the long trade routes trying to run down the merchant raiders that were a thorn in the Allied sides.

1940 and the ships escaped from Brest to UK ports. With other French ships, these two were boarded by Commonwealth troops and made 'safe'. The crews aboard the ships were given the option of joining the "Free" French and manning their ships against the Germans. Most joined, those that did not, were interned. Both these ships were operated out of Liverpool as convoy 'heavy' escorts. Both ships survived the war and were used for two years repatriating troops and equipment back to France. Both were struck from the Navy list in 1947 and sold for scrapping.

France had all the twin 12" turrets removed from these ships, which were to old fashioned to be used for building more modern ships but these turrets were ideal for use in fortified positions (about half ended up in the Maginot Line) and as shore batteries protecting French Naval bases.

Danton as completed in 1909 with the medium 9.4" guns on the broadside.

These old drawings held a lot of merit and showed what could be done with the old ships. A lot of French ships went well past their use by dates because they had no 'intermediate' ships to draw on from those that had been completed during the war, which a lot of other countries did have. These drawings are also well past their use by date.















 

Back to French Navy page