Performance included speeds of 32 knots and an endurance out to 7,670 nautical miles.
Propulsion machinery included six Indret Sural boilers feeding 4 x Parsons turbines and developing 150,000 horsepower while driving 2 x shafts. This organization also brought the two main masts closer together. With the two primary turrets well-spaced ahead on the forecastle, the bridge superstructure was set some distance aft and found closer to amidships than normal. The smoke funnel had a distinctive rearward-canted shapeand located aft of midships. The new class was authorized by the French government in 1935 as 35,000-ton vessels and Jean Bart saw her keel laid down in December of 1936.īeyond their unique main armament fit, the two new vessels were dimensionally larger, heavier and better-armed than their predecessors. Like these earlier ships, the Richelieu-class carried a unique main battery of 8 x 330mm guns fitted as four guns to two turrets - these turrets were all fitted forward as opposed to a balanced approach seeing the guns fore and aft. This led to the investment of the Richelieu-class which were more or less evolved from the existing two-strong Dunkerque-class appearing during the early part of the 1930s. The birth of the Jean Bart was in a French Navy response to new Italian warships that threatened French power on Mediterranean. She was not commissioned until after the war in 1949 and managed an active service life that ran until 1970.įS Jean Bart was named after the French naval officer and privateer Jean Bart (1650-1702), a veteran of the Nine Years' War as well as the Battle of Dogger Bank (1696).
Jean Bart was laid down during the lead-up to World War 2 and launched during the early phase of hostilities, remaining incomplete during the pivotal Battle for France in 1940. The group was accordingly led by Richelieu herself who became a veteran of the fighting of World War 2 (1939-1945). FS Jean Bart made up the second of the two-strong class of battleships known as the Richelieu-class.
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