readx; So on June 25, 1934, the French painted a cat and a tiger according to the Richere, enlarging the original Richerean design. So on October 22, 1935, it was not the Richelieu-class ship Richelieu that laid its first keel in Brest, but the Napoleon-class catamaran superbattleship that laid its first keel there.www.biquge.info

The French hope that the super battleship named after the bourgeois emperor Napoleon, which pushed France to the pinnacle of the whole of Europe, and even surpasses the Richelieu-class ship named after the cardinal, which has not yet been built and canceled in the future, and that it can write a magnificent stroke in the history of France as a powerful warship in the history of France and the French fleet it represents.

However, the Second World War still broke out four years later, and the same as history is that the contradictions and struggles of France on political issues pushed the world's fourth most powerful fleet into the abyss of tragedy, however, the Napoleon-class ship Napoleon, with its powerful combat power and the French arrogant, tenacious, contradictory and romantic spirit, survived several devastating war catastrophes, and with its more legendary color in the Allied fleet.

Despite its victory in World War I, the Fourth Republic's national power was no longer able to develop a strong navy. After the war, as one of the five powers, although it had a quota of 175,000 tons of capital ships in the Washington Naval Treaty, it did not have the strength to start a shipbuilding race with Britain, the United States and other powers. In the "Navy Holiday", the capital ships of the French Navy never reached the 175,000-ton quota.

As a result, France's naval strength gradually weakened, and because of the colonies, the main activities of the French navy gradually shifted from the entire Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern part of the Atlantic Ocean near the mainland, essentially becoming a regional navy, whose main task was to protect the lines of communication between the mainland and the colonies, and at the same time seek hegemony in the Mediterranean. However, since the rapid expansion of Nazi Germany and the noodle-minded navy in the 30s, France has been very uneasy. Under these circumstances, France hastily built two Dunkirk-class battlecruisers to maintain the French Navy's maritime superiority in the Mediterranean and the Eastern Atlantic, and to protect France's maritime trade from the threat of German pocket battleships.

By the mid-30s, whether stimulated by the Red Chinese Navy, John Bull went crazy to build the King Arthur-class catamaran superbattleship that startled the Gallic chickens, and the same Italy began to build a new battleship catamaran superbattleship (originally the Veneto class, later the designers changed the blueprints and made a series of major changes to the Caesar the Great-class), while neighboring and feuding Germany also began to build its own new battleship catamaran superbattleship Hindenburg-class (the H-45 ultimate magic battleship of the Mustachioed Führer). Despite the fact that all of them claimed that their battleships met the requirements of no more than 100,000 tons, in fact their new battleships more or less exceeded this tonnage, and Germany even more successfully deceived the world by making the standard displacement of the Hindenburg class several times more than this tonnage. Under this serious threat, France, feeling that the situation was not good, had to join the shipbuilding race, and from the 30s, it designed and built its own new battleship - our protagonist Napoleon class, the lead ship Napoleon officially began on October 22, 1935.

France's shipbuilding program was so large that it was probably only matched by Raeder's equally large Plan Z in World War II's naval development program. Among the capital ships are: the already built battle cruiser Dunkirk and its improved version of Strasbourg, the original 3 Richelieu-class battleships, Richelieu, Jean Bar and Clemenceau (the drawings are sealed, the plan is canceled, and even the keel is not laid in the shipyard), and the later 3 Richelieu-class modifications (that is, the Alsace class, which has been approved by Congress, was not built due to war reasons, the first four are Alsace, Normandy, Flanders, Burgundy, the last two are unnamed, and the Gallic chicken has great ambitions). But the appearance of the catamaran super-battleship Napoleon-class will break the deadlock in the development program of the French fifty or sixty-thousand-ton battleship and bring the French Navy to another unknown naval route. According to the plan, the Napoleon-class was divided into: the lead ship Napoleon, the No. 2 ship Richelieu, the No. 3 ship Jean Bar, the No. 4 ship Clemenceau, and the Napoleon-class Type 2 was divided into: Alsace, Normandy, Flanders, and Burgundy, a total of 8 super combat ships.

If the war had not completed the plan, then by the mid-40s, the French navy would have 8 capital ships of very terrifying combat power and relatively new to compete with the German and Italian navies, and it would have returned to the ranks of the top naval powers.

For these reasons, the Napoleon-class catamaran was designed with a clear goal: to be able to compete with the German and Italian navies or the British Mediterranean Fleet in the Mediterranean, while also being able to take on the tasks of escorting, breaking up diplomatic relations, raiding and fire support on the opposite shore. Due to the ship's speed of up to 32 knots, it was given the mission of independent combat in later experience, and as for the task of escorting aircraft carriers, let the battle patrol do it.

Based on this, the Napoleon class has the following characteristics in design: high speed, but the endurance has been strengthened by higher requirements; with a main gun sufficient to deal with the new Italian catamaran battleship, while installing secondary guns for attacking small targets; The key areas should be able to withstand the blow of the main guns of the new catamaran battleships, and at the same time have the ability to defend against air-dropped bombs (this has long been emphasized in the design of the Dunkirk-class, and from the later development of naval combat methods, it is indeed far-sighted, but the Napoleon-class protection on this will be more deformed), and the ability to protect against air should be enhanced.

Construction of the Napoleon began in 1935, and when it was 95% complete in June 1940, the cunning German forces bypassed the Maginot Line, which it had built along the border, eventually leading to the fall of France. In order to avoid falling into the hands of the enemy, Napoleon moved to Dakar, where a series of battles were fought. Subsequently, the Napoleon was nominally purchased by the United States, where it underwent a series of more modern modifications to make it even more powerful.

Regarding the Napoleon, the biggest controversy is probably the 5-packed, 4-seat, front-mounted 18-inch gun. Since we are talking about the main gun, we will also talk about the reasons, advantages and disadvantages of this turret design.

Why did the French Navy adopt this seemingly strange design on its own new capital ships? This is presumably related to the influence of the Narxun-class battleships of the British Navy. Although the three-gun front design of the Narxun class was ridiculed as "the world's largest shallow water heavy gunboat" at the time, the advantages were outstanding: the length of the main armor belt could be greatly reduced, and the water saved could be used in other areas where protection was needed. At the same time, the multi-mounted turret itself can also save displacement. But at the same time, the disadvantages are clear: the firing range is not conducive to the development of firepower, especially with 4 turrets; If one turret is hit, it may spread to other turrets, resulting in a loss of firepower.

In the end, the French considered and chose the safe mainstream scheme of 2 main guns in front and 2 main guns in the rear among various schemes, rather than the stupid plan of choosing the 2-seat main gun in front of the pit Daddy. The main reason is the 100,000-ton problem and its design purpose: it is necessary to have good armor protection and more powerful firepower to carry out the attack mission, while trying to comply with the treaty. In this case, the four-seat main gun front scheme is undoubtedly the most appropriate.

In order to solve the problems that may be caused by the layout design of the main gun, especially the problem of damage, the designers have carried out a series of improvement measures. These include: the use of a 3x2 design in a 6-pack turret, which is actually composed of 2 triple turrets, with some parts in common; Fortified turret defenses. On the Napoleon class, the turret frontal protection reached 1400mm, which was the highest among the new battleships in Europe, and the turret armor also reached 1200mm. Due to the presence of such thick protection, the designers even included the lower part of the turret as part of the ammunition depot. In addition, the distance between the two turrets was greatly widened. In this way, the protection of the turret is greatly strengthened, and the damage and chain reaction of the turret after it is hit are greatly reduced.

During the Battle of Oran, the Dunkirk turret was hit directly by the Hood's 15-inch shells, and the Richelieu main gun in the Battle of Dakar was bore as evidence of the fact that the French turret was not vulnerable.

Although theoretically there is still the possibility of destroying 2 turrets with one shot, in practice this possibility has been curtailed to a minimality by the well-intentioned design of the designers.

For the firing range, the method of optimizing the bridge design is adopted, so that the firing range of the four main guns A, B, C, and D reaches 300 degrees, which makes up for the influence of this turret design on the development of firepower to a certain extent. At the same time, the installation of 6 triple 152mm secondary guns in a zigzag shape at the position where the main gun was not installed on the rear deck can also be regarded as making up for it.

Of course, there are also shortcomings of this kind of design that is not mainstream in the world. First, there is still the issue of the firing boundary. Even if it reaches 300 degrees, there is no main artillery fire in the 60-degree area behind it, which is not conducive to the retreat of the battleship in battle, nor is it conducive to the confrontation when the enemy is flanked and rear. Combined with the poor design of the French ships in rudders, this flaw is more serious. Second, such a design causes the ship's center of gravity to move forward, causing the waterline in the front half of the battleship to be too hypertrophied, which increases the navigation resistance, thereby affecting the endurance and speed. This is one of the reasons why the Richelieu class has a low endurance. Thirdly, the design of widening the turret and strengthening the turret armor has lengthened the armor belt to a certain extent, increasing the displacement, and offsetting some of the advantages of this design.