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''Richelieu'' was a French battleship and the lead ship of her class. She was a scaled-up version of the previous . Ordered in 1935, and designed to counter the Italian s, ''Richelieu'' was the first French 35,000-ton battleship. She was also the first modern battleship built after the 1922 Treaty of Washington. She featured a main armament of eight 380 mm guns in two quadruple turrets in forward superfiring positions. Her armour and underwater protection were equal to most contemporary craft; only the Japanese s were superior. She was, however, limited by a weak anti-aircraft artillery suite and optical-only fire control. In trial runs, her speed was a little higher than her European contemporaries, and only surpassed by the U.S. Navy's modern, fast battleships. In June 1940 she was nearing completion in a shipyard in Brest in northwest France. To avoid capture she left the yard for Dakar in French West Africa (modern-day Senegal). She served during World War II, first on the Vichy Regime side, notably fending off a 1940 Allied attack on Dakar. In 1943 she switched to the Allied side. After refitting in New York Navy Yard, she operated with Royal Navy forces in the Indian Ocean in 1944 and 1945. She took part in the return of French forces to Indochina in 1945, and continued to serve into the 1960s. == Background and genesis == The first post-World War I battleship of the French Navy, , was ordered in 1932. She was designed to outclass the German "pocket battleship" , which had been laid down in 1929. The German Reichsmarine had ordered two units similar to ''Deutschland'', namely and , which outgunned all existing heavy cruisers. Only , and the two s could catch ''Deutschland'' and her sister ships. ''Dunkerque'' had a displacement of 26,500 tons and was armed with eight 330 mm guns. She had a speed of and protection able to resist ''Deutschland''s 280 mm shells. The French stayed well within the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty limits of 35,000 tons and 406 mm. Their intention was to avoid jeopardizing efforts to get more drastic naval armament limitations. The United Kingdom led these efforts in negotiations, conducted by the League of Nations, from 1926 to 1932. The result was ''Dunkerque'', smaller and more lightly armed than battleships built circa 1920. Germany then ordered two units in February 1934, first announced as part of the . These were laid down in May–June 1935, just after Adolf Hitler announced German rearmament in violation of the Versailles Treaty, and just before the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. and emerged as fast battleships, heavier (31,800 tons) than ''Dunkerque'' and much better armoured, with nine improved guns, still of 280 mm caliber. Italy believed the ''Dunkerque'' class changed the balance between the battleship fleets in the Western Mediterranean, and in May 1934 announced the building of two 35,000-ton battleships, armed with nine 381 mm guns. The French reaction was, on 16 July 1934, to order a second ''Dunkerque''-class ship, , and to plan the first French 35,000-ton battleship. Eight days later, on 24 July 1934, the ''Conseil Superieur de la Marine'', the French equivalent of the Board of Admiralty, released the specification of the new French battleships: * displacement: 35,000 tons standard * main armament: eight to nine guns of 380/406 mm calibre * secondary armament: to be capable of firing against surface targets and long-range anti-aircraft fire * speed: 29.5–30 knots * protection: belt 360 mm, upper armored deck 160 mm, lower armored deck 40 mm, and underwater protection as for ''Dunkerque'' Thirteen months later, the ''Service Technique des Constructions Navales, (S.T.C.N.)'' (The French equivalent of the Royal Navy's Department of the Director of Naval Construction) established a definitive project. It was submitted to the Minister on 14 August, accepted on 31 August, and laid down 22 October 1935, to become ''Richelieu''. France, in turn, abrogated naval limitation treaties, in that 88,000 tons of new battleships had been ordered between 1922 and 31 December 1936, against a limit of 70,000 tons allowed by the 1922 Treaty of Washington and the 1930 Treaty of London. However, on 18 June 1935, the United Kingdom unilaterally signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement with the Third Reich. This cancelled ''de facto'' the limitations of the Treaty of Versailles with respect to displacement of various types of warships and granted Germany a total tonnage for the Kriegsmarine equal to 35% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy. France proved unable to counter both German and Italian navies, as the Versailles and Washington treaties allowed, but she believed the was the answer to the , and the ''Richelieu''-class battleships the answer to the Italian battleships and . 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 Richelieu」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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