Richelieu

History

Design

The announcement by the Italian Press that two new 35,000 ton battleships would be ordered shattered the fragile balance of the naval arms race in Europe. The construction of Dunkerque, although intended to counter the German Panzerschiffe, the new French capital ship outgunned and outclassed all of the older Italian capital ships. The Italians retaliated with the Littorio-class, and the French needed a response. Less than two weeks after the characteristics of the new Italian battleships were announced and only eight days after the order for Strasbourg, Dunkerque’s half-sister-ship, the defined characteristics were laid out for the new French battleships. They would displace 35,000 tons standard, have a main armament of eight or nine guns of the 380mm or 406mm caliber, be capable of a speed of 29.5-30 knots and be armored enough to resist 15” shells. It was envisaged that these new French battleships would be constructed in the same all-forward style as Dunkerque, to speed up the planning and design of these new battleships and create homogenous combat groups. Early calculations quickly established that 406mm guns simply wouldn’t fit the design – 380mm was judged the maximum that could be successfully accommodated in a quadruple turret, and alternative three-turret designs using 406mm guns all came out at well over 35,000 tons. Six preliminary designs were submitted for consideration, and Project 1 was accepted, as it was, simply, an up-scale of Dunkerque.

An early concern with Project 1 was that her secondary armament of 20 130mm guns in five quadruple turrets were insufficient on a battleship of such a size; even the older Courbet and Bretagne classes had 138.6mm secondary batteries. A following request was made for studies of 152mm guns to investigate the number which could be accommodated and their proposed locations. Originally, the 152mm turrets would be complemented by six separate high-angle single 75mm guns for heavy AA purposes similar to the undertakings of the German and Italian navies, but such a plan would take Project 1, which was already 350 tons overweight, would only increase her tonnage. The 75mm guns were dropped, and instead the new 152mm turrets would have a dual-purpose function. To try and reduce weight to an acceptable 35,000 tons, new Sural boilers were accommodated into the design, which were substantially less wide than the boilers used in [[Dunkerque[[ and Strasbourg, and the wider 33m beam of Project 1 meant that three boilers could be accommodated side-by-side, reducing the necessary boiler rooms from three to two, shortening the armored citadel by 4.85m and substantially saving weight. Weight was further reduced by cutting down armor on several areas of the ship, notably the belt; which was reduced to 330mm, but the angle of inclination was increased by 4 degrees to compensate.

With the secondary armament and weight issues resolved, the last major project was the anti-aircraft suite. The positioning of the five 152mm turrets made it difficult to arrange the 37mm AA guns, as both the existing Mle 1925 and projected Mle 1933 guns were in open mountings. This prompted the development for a new dual-mount 37mm weapon in a fully enclosed and automated mounting. While this 37mm/70 ACAD Mle 1935 gun turned out to be a very successful weapon, the complexity of the design meant that they would not be production-ready until 1940, so the inferior 37mm/50 Mle 1933 was used as a stop-gap. These six dual 37mm mountings were complimented by a set of eight quad 132mm/76 Mle 1929 AA guns. Finally, there was enough space on the stern quarterdeck for two aviation catapults, one positioned to starboard and the other to port, and the design could easily accommodate two aircraft in the hanger, one on each catapult, and a fifth atop the hanger.

The design was finalized, and two ships based on the Project 1 design were ordered and were subsequently named Richelieu and Jean Bart. Richelieu and her sister were essentially an enlarged Dunkerque and Strasbourg. Their hulls were virtually identical, with the 330mm quadruple turrets upgunned to 380mm in the same layout, and the 130mm dual-purpose quad/twin secondary turrets were replaced with 152mm DP guns all in triple turrets. The key difference was beneath the hood; Richelieu made use of the new and revolutionary Sural boilers, with six on-board separated into two boiler rooms with three boilers each. This allowed Richelieu to attain a greater speed of 32 knots than Dunkerque’s 30 knots, despite the fact that Richelieu displaced 8,500 tons more, her boilers managed to attain 179,000 shaft horsepower on trials.

Richelieu was laid down at the Brest Navy Yard under the Arsenal de Brest shipyard at Brest, France, on the 22nd of October 1935. She was launched on the 17th of January 1939, and was commissioned into the Marine Nationale on the 15th of June 1940, a mere seven days before the signing of the French Armistice in World War Two.

Service

Historical Inaccuracies

• Hull (A) depicts Richelieu as it was supposed to be built by the original design, equipped with five triple 152mm turrets, six semi-automatic coaxial 37mm ACAD guns, and eight quadruple mounts of 13mm machine guns. However, none of the AA refits Richelieu actually received from 1940 to 1942, when the ship was under Vichy control, appear in the game.
• The 37mm/70 ACAD Mle 1936 had numerous development problems, resulting in delays which led to its cancellation in 1940. Only one was mounted on the patrol sloop Amiens. As a result, Richelieu was equipped with the 37 mm/50 Mle 1933 gun instead. In total there were eight twin mounts, of which none appear on either hull modules.
• Richelieu's August 1945 refit is also not represented. Nine 20mm Oerlikons were replaced by 11 single 40mm Bofors.

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  U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence line drawing of Richelieu.

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  Richelieu at Dakar, in 1941. There were three fire control directors atop the fore tower, and neutrality tricolor bands on Turret B.

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  HMS Hermes, whose aircraft torpedoed Richelieu at Dakar on 7 July 1940, and in the background, HMS Dorsetshire.

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  Richelieu arrives in New York with her damaged turret. The uppermost fire control director on the fore tower had to be dismantled for her to pass under the Brooklyn Bridge to the New York Navy Yard.

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  Richelieu in September 1943, after refit. Aircraft equipment has been removed from the aft deck and replaced with anti-aircraft artillery.

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  Richelieu in the Indian Ocean on 18 May 1944. Photo taken from aboard USS Saratoga, which was leaving the Eastern Fleet to return to the Pacific Ocean.

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  One of the two remaining 380 mm guns of Richelieu, by the Penfeld river in Brest.

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