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French battleship Jean Bart (1940)
Scrapped (1970)
Jean Bart was a French fast battleship, the second and final member of the Richelieu class, built in response to the Italian Littorio-class battleships and sharing the distinctive forward-concentrated main battery arrangement of the preceding Dunkerque class. She became famous for her dramatic unfinished escape from Saint-Nazaire in 1940 and for her gun duel with the US battleship Massachusetts during Operation Torch in 1942.
Kits of this ship
+ Add a kit| French Battleship Jean Bart 1955 | Trumpeter | 1:700 | Injection-Molded Plastic | Available | |
| French Navy Battleship Jean Bart | Heller | 1:400 | Injection-Molded Plastic | Discontinued |
Plans
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Build logs
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Resources
+ Submit a resourceHistory & specifications
- Naval Encyclopedia: FS Jean Bart (1940)Article
Detailed article covering Jean Bart's wartime escape, post-war reconstruction design changes, armament, and armor layout, useful for scale-accuracy details.
- Wikipedia: French battleship Jean Bart (1940)Website
Primary overview article with full specifications, design history, and service history, including her 1940 escape and 1942 battle damage.
- Wikipedia: Richelieu-class battleshipWebsite
Class-level article covering the design rationale, construction, and comparative service histories of Richelieu and Jean Bart, useful for understanding shared features for modeling.
History
Specifications
As completed post-war, Jean Bart had a standard displacement of roughly 37,250 long tons (full load about 43,992 long tons), an overall length of 247.85 m (813 ft 2 in), a beam of 33.08 m (108 ft 6 in), and a maximum draft of about 9.9 m. She was armed with eight 380 mm/45 Modèle 1935 guns in two quadruple forward turrets, nine 152 mm secondary guns in three triple turrets aft, and twelve 100 mm anti-aircraft guns in six twin mounts, with a top speed of 32 knots on four Parsons turbines.
Service history
Launched on 6 March 1940 while still incomplete, Jean Bart was rushed out of Saint-Nazaire ahead of the German advance with only one main turret installed and sailed to Casablanca, where she spent the war years. In November 1942 during Operation Torch she exchanged fire with American forces, was hit by shells from USS Massachusetts and bombed by carrier aircraft, settling by the stern in the harbor though her guns remained serviceable. After the war she was completed as a full battleship, finally commissioning in 1949-1955, and later took part in the November 1956 Suez Crisis intervention, bombarding Port Said, before being placed in reserve in 1957 and scrapped in 1970.
Notable facts
Jean Bart has the distinction of being the last battleship ever completed in the world. During her improvised defense at Casablanca the French covered her incomplete aft turret barbettes with concrete, and her main turret proved to function even after being struck by 16-inch shells because damaged armor plate was cut away to free the mechanism. Her post-war superstructure, with a simplified single two-story bridge and modernized director arrangement, is visually distinct from her sister ship Richelieu, a useful reference point for modelers choosing between wartime and post-war configurations.