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''Charlemagne'' was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy in the mid-1890s, name ship of her class. She spent most of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron (''escadre de la Méditerranée''). Twice she participated in the occupation of the port of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, then owned by the Ottoman Empire, once as part of a French expedition and another as part of an international squadron. When World War I began in August 1914, she escorted Allied troop convoys for the first two months. ''Charlemagne'' was ordered to the Dardanelles in November 1914 to guard against a sortie into the Mediterranean by the German battlecruiser . In 1915, she joined British ships in bombarding Turkish fortifications under the command of Rear Admiral (''contre-amiral'') Emile Guépratte. The ship was transferred later that year to the squadron assigned to prevent any interference by the Greeks with Allied operations on the Salonica front. ''Charlemagne'' was placed in reserve and then disarmed in late 1917. She was condemned in 1920 and later sold for scrap in 1923. ==Design and description== ''Charlemagne'' was long overall and had a beam of . At deep load, she had a draught of forward and aft. She displaced at deep load.〔Gille, p. 98〕 Her crew consisted of 727 officers and enlisted men.〔 The ship used three 4-cylinder vertical triple expansion steam engines, one engine per shaft. Rated at , they produced during the ship's sea trials using steam generated by 20 Belleville water-tube boilers. ''Charlemagne'' reached a top speed of on her trials. She carried a maximum of of coal which allowed her to steam for at a speed of .〔 ''Charlemagne'' carried her main armament of four 40-calibre Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1893 guns in two twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft. The ship's secondary armament consisted of ten 45-calibre Canon de 138 mm Modèle 1893 guns, eight of which were mounted in individual casemates and the remaining pair in shielded mounts on the forecastle deck amidships. She also carried eight 45-calibre Canon de 100 mm Modèle 1893 guns in shielded mounts on the superstructure. The ship's anti-torpedo boat defences consisted of twenty 40-calibre Canon de 47 mm Modèle 1885 Hotchkiss guns, fitted in platforms on both masts, on the superstructure, and in casemates in the hull. ''Charlemagne'' mounted four torpedo tubes, two on each broadside. Two of these were submerged, angled 20° from the ship's axis, and the other two were above the waterline. They were provided with twelve Modèle 1892 torpedoes. As was common with ships of her generation, she was built with a plough-shaped ram.〔Caresse, pp. 114, 116–17〕 The ships carried a total of 〔Caresse, p. 117〕 of Harvey armour.〔Chesneau and Kolesnik, p. 117〕 They had a complete waterline armour belt that was high. The armour belt tapered from its maximum thickness of to a thickness of at its lower edge. The armoured deck was thick on the flat and was reinforced with an additional plate where it angled downwards to meet the armoured belt. The main turrets were protected by of armour and their roofs were thick. Their barbettes were thick. The outer walls of the casemates for the guns were 55 mm thick and they were protected by transverse bulkheads thick. The conning tower walls were thick and its roof consisted of 50 mm armour plates. Its communications tube was protected by armour plates thick.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「French battleship Charlemagne」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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