French battleship Gaulois
Gaulois was one of three Charlemagne-class pre-dreadnought battleships built for the French Navy in the mid-1890s. Completed in 1899, she spent most of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron. The ship accidentally rammed two other French warships early in her career, although neither was seriously damaged, nor was Gaulois. She was ordered to the Dardanelles in November 1914 to guard against a sortie into the Mediterranean by the ex-German battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim. In 1915, Gaulois joined British ships in bombarding Ottoman fortifications and had to beach herself to avoid sinking. In 1916, she was torpedoed and sunk on 27 December by a German
About French battleship Gaulois in brief
Gaulois was one of three Charlemagne-class pre-dreadnought battleships built for the French Navy in the mid-1890s. Completed in 1899, she spent most of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron. The ship accidentally rammed two other French warships early in her career, although neither was seriously damaged, nor was Gaulois. She was ordered to the Dardanelles in November 1914 to guard against a sortie into the Mediterranean by the ex-German battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim. In 1915, Gaulois joined British ships in bombarding Ottoman fortifications and had to beach herself to avoid sinking. In 1916, she was torpedoed and sunk on 27 December by a German submarine; four crewmen were lost. Gaulois, named after the tribes that inhabited France during Roman times, was ordered on 22 January 1895 from the Arsenal de Brest. Her construction was delayed until January 1899, when her sister ship was being built in the slipway intended for Gaulois so the latter ship’s was launched. The ships were powered by three vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, using steam generated by 20 Belleville boilers. They were 117. 7 metres long overall and had a beam of 20. 26 metres. At deep load, the ships had a draught of 7. 4 metres forward and 8.4 metres aft.
They displaced 11,260 tonnes normally, and 11,415 tonnes at deep load. Their secondary armament consisted of ten Canon de 138. 6 mm Modèle 1893 guns, eight of which were mounted in individual casemates and the remaining pair in shielded mounts on the forecastle deck amidships. They carried enough coal to give them a range of 3,776 nautical miles at a speed of 10 knots. As was common with ships of their generation, they were built with a plough-shaped ram. The gun turrets were protected by 320 mm of Harvey armour and their barbettes had 270-millimetre plates of the same type of armour. When serving as flagships, their crew numbered 750 men, but had 32 officers and 660 ratings as private ships. They had a complete waterline belt of nickel-steel armour that ranged in thickness from 300 to 400 mm and was thickest amidhips. The following month, while exercising in the harbour at Hyères Gaulois rammed the destroyer Hallee, gouging a hole in the 5-metre-by-5-metres Hbarde 5-by 5-barde Hbardon where she reached Toulon on 18 January 1900. She then assigned to 1st Battleship Division and remained based in Brest until they departed for Toul on 18 February 1900. In January 1900, together with her sisters, they departed with the 1st Division for the Mediterranean.
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