The ''Gloire''-class ironclads were a group of three wooden- hulled armored frigates built for the French Navy in the late 1850s and early 1860s. , the lead ship of the class, was the first ocean-going ironclad warship to be built by any country. The ships of the ''Gloire''

class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...

were classified as

armoured frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

s because they only had a single gun deck and their traditional disposition of guns arrayed along the length of the hull also meant that they were broadside ironclads. Invincible 1860

Design and description

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Henri Dupuy de Lôme, the ships of the

were intended to fight in the

line of battle The line of battle is a tactic in naval warfare in which a fleet of ships forms a line end to end. The first example of its use as a tactic is disputed—it has been variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652. Line-of-battle tacti ...

, unlike the first British ironclads. The ships were long,Gille, p. 23 with a

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of . They had a maximum draft of ,Campbell, p. 286 a

depth of hold Depth(s) may refer to: Science and mathematics * Three-dimensional space * Depth (ring theory), an important invariant of rings and modules in commutative and homological algebra * Depth in a well, the measurement between two points in an oil w ...

of and displaced . The ships of the class had a high metacentric height of and consequently rolled badly. With their gun ports only above the waterline, they proved to be very wet. They had a crew of 570 officers and enlisted men. The ships of the ''Gloire'' class had a single horizontal return connecting-rod compound steam engine that drove a six-bladed, propeller. The engine was powered by eight Indret oval boilers and was designed for a capacity of . On sea trials, the ships exceeded . They carried a maximum of of coal which allowed them to steam for at a speed of .de Balincourt & Vincent-Bréchignac, Part I, p. 14 The ''Gloire''-class ships were initially fitted with a light barquentine rig with three masts that had a sail area around . This was later changed to a full

ship rig A full-rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel's sail plan with three or more masts, all of them square-rigged. A full-rigged ship is said to have a ship rig or be ship-rigged. Such vessels also have each mast stepped in three seg ...

of , but later had to be reduced because of excessive rolling. The ships were initially armed with 36 Modèle 1858 rifled muzzle-loading guns, 34（14 each sides and 2 pivot mounts fore and 4 pivot mounts aft as chase guns）of which were positioned on the single gun deck in the

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. The remaining two guns were placed on the upper deck as

chase gun A chase gun (or chaser), usually distinguished as bow chaser and stern chaser, was a cannon mounted in the bow (aiming forward) or stern (aiming backward) of a sailing ship. They were used to attempt to slow down an enemy ship either chasing ( ...

s. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of only and proved to be ineffective against armour. They were replaced by rifled breech-loading Modèle 1864 guns in 1868. Four of six 194 and eight guns were mounted in the middle of the gun deck and a pair of remaining guns replaced the original chase guns. The wooden hull was completely armoured with wrought iron plates thick. Backed by the sides of the hull, the armour extended above the waterline and below. The ''Gloire''-class ships had an open-topped

conning tower A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer in charge can conn the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for the ship's engine, rudder, lines, and gro ...

with armour thick and of armour underneath the wooden upper deck.

Ships

Service

All three ships of the class had very uneventful careers, spending the bulk of their time with the

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aside from a few excursions to foreign waters.Gille, pp. 22–23 ''Normandie'' supported the French intervention in Mexico in 1862, the first ironclad to cross the Atlantic. They were active during the Franco-Prussian War, but saw no action. ''Gloire'', the only ship built with seasoned timber lasted the longest, not being condemned and broken up until 1879. Her sister ships only lasted a decade in service before they were too rotten for any further use and were condemned in 1871–1872 and subsequently broken up.

Footnotes

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * {{French ironclads Ironclad classes Ships built in France Ironclad warships of the French Navy Ship classes of the French Navy