French battleship Richelieu (1939)

Type

Battleship

Period

20th Century

Nation

France

Overview: Richelieu was a French fast battleship and lead ship of the Richelieu class, ranked among the most powerful and successful battleship designs of World War II. She is best known to modelers for her striking silhouette, with both quadruple main-battery turrets grouped forward of the superstructure. Specifications: As built she displaced 37,250 long tons standard and up to roughly 44,000 long tons full load, with a length of 247.85 m and beam of 33.08 m, capable of 32 knots. Her main armament of eight 380 mm guns in two forward quadruple turrets was a scaled-up version of the arrangement pioneered on the preceding Dunkerque class, and is the single most distinctive recognition feature for scale modelers building this ship. Service History: Launched 17 January 1939 at Arsenal de Brest and rushed into commission by April 1940, she escaped to Dakar in French West Africa ahead of the French surrender, where she was damaged by a British carrier torpedo-bomber attack in July 1940 and again during the Battle of Dakar that September. After Free French forces took control of French Africa in 1942 she sailed to the United States for a full refit, then joined the British Home Fleet on Arctic convoy duty before moving to the Eastern Fleet in 1944–45 for operations against Japanese forces in the Indian Ocean, being present at the Japanese surrender of Singapore. She subsequently supported French operations in Indochina, returned to France in 1946, and after service as a training and accommodation vessel was placed in reserve in 1958 before being struck and sold for scrap in 1968. Notable Facts: Because the Brest building slipway was too short for her full design length, her bow and stern were fabricated separately and joined to the main hull after launch — a construction quirk worth noting for anyone detailing her hull lines. One of her 380 mm guns survives on public display in Brest harbor, offering modelers a real-world reference for turret and barrel detailing.