I've read in a few places that there were a couple of proposals (one from the US and another by the French after the war's end) to turn the unfinished French battleship Jean Bart into an aircraft carrier (which were obviously refused). Tzoli seems to have made a mockup of how it might've looked, but has anybody got actual data on the designs? Length, width, displacement, armour, airplane capacity, weaponry, etc. Any help or sources would be very useful!
Jean Bart Unbuilt Projects
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The english Wikipedia explains all too well why JB was not turned into a carrier OTL. Drat.
We did exactly that for France fights on. NOTA BENE: FFO is fictional
(alternate history: after the death of his shrew mistress in a very opportunistic car accident early June 1940, Paul Reynaud grow a spine. And on June 17, 1940 Pétain is told to go fuck himself, blow an aneurysm, and good riddance.
Reynaud, De Gaulle, Mandel and a whole bunch of goodwill people decides France must keep fighting, from Algiers. So for the next two months, everything but the kitchen sink is moved to Algeria).
Since the Jean Bart already made its daring escape, after Bearn is lost by the LW defending Corsica against Operation Merkur (not Crete), Jean Bart will replace it.
We did exactly that for France fights on. NOTA BENE: FFO is fictional
(alternate history: after the death of his shrew mistress in a very opportunistic car accident early June 1940, Paul Reynaud grow a spine. And on June 17, 1940 Pétain is told to go fuck himself, blow an aneurysm, and good riddance.
Reynaud, De Gaulle, Mandel and a whole bunch of goodwill people decides France must keep fighting, from Algiers. So for the next two months, everything but the kitchen sink is moved to Algeria).
Since the Jean Bart already made its daring escape, after Bearn is lost by the LW defending Corsica against Operation Merkur (not Crete), Jean Bart will replace it.
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I have the book French Battleships, 1922-1956 by Robert Dumas, I will check if it mentions the carrier and BBCV conversions (It did mentions and describes briefly the BBG and BBAA conversion proposals.
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Sadly the book mentions the carrier conversions, a little bit of more data on the post war French variant but basically nothing on the 1943 US version.
The 1943:
The Post war:
My drawing shows the 1943/44 American version though at that time I only know about the late war idea for conversion:
www.deviantart.com
The 1943:
The Post war:
My drawing shows the 1943/44 American version though at that time I only know about the late war idea for conversion:
Jean Bart Battleship Variants Coloured by Tzoli on DeviantArt
www.deviantart.com
I found a bit more about the Jean Bart conversion here: http://www.institut-strategie.fr/pub_mo3_Querel.html
But there doesn't seem to be any detailed data for it anywhere I can find
They offer some measurements and details in the first few comments of this thread: http://1940lafrancecontinue.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=65474&sid=4651fd6ba34fd9f6ec57df379d800068 but I'm not sure if that's official or if they've made them up
But there doesn't seem to be any detailed data for it anywhere I can find
I see mentions of OTL and FTL there, mind clarifying what those mean?
They offer some measurements and details in the first few comments of this thread: http://1940lafrancecontinue.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=65474&sid=4651fd6ba34fd9f6ec57df379d800068 but I'm not sure if that's official or if they've made them up
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OTL = Our Time Line, in other words real history.
FTL = Fictional Time Line.
FTL = Fictional Time Line.
Julio Garay Terrazas
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So there was a 1940 (pre-Fall of France) proposal as well? And an additional USN proposal from 1945, this one for conversion to a full fleet carrier.
And those last 2 are the ones I'm looking for details on. For the 1945/46 proposal, I read that it had 8x2 130mm guns on DP mounts of a modified pattern from the Dunkerque class, a 90mm armoured flight deck and a capacity of 54 planes (40 +14 hanging from the hangar ceiling), but that's not much information.
I'm happy to read any information on the hybrid BBCV one as well, but it's not my main focus.
Nope, before France collapse the Jean Bart was to be a Richelieu clone. 100% battleship. It then escaped from Nantes, briefly vacillated between going to Scotland or to Casablanca, and decided for the later. Only to shoot at Operation Torch, being heavily damaged in the fight.
After what the Free French asked Uncle Sam to turn it into a carrier. Too long, too complicated, a proposal was made to put instead, Bretagne 340 mm spare guns on it. nothing happened during WWII, then France alone vacillated between carrier or battleship,and despite Richelieu, went for second plan, getting two perfectly unuseful giant white elephants in the process. After a Vanguard-like career, they were retired in the early 60's to make room for the Clemenceaus, and the Force de Frappe submarines...
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The French speaking persons here should ask around on this French forum for any info (Or if anybody knows the email address of Robert Dumas and John Jordan )
forummarine.forumactif.com
HISTOIRE
HISTOIRE - HISTOIRE MODERNE (de 1860 à nos jours) - LES NAVIRES 1860-1921 - LES NAVIRES 1922-1950 - LA MARINE A VOILE
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To be fair, they could have proven very useful in French Indochina during the early '50s (Richelieu actually served there in the immediate post-WWII period), but were held back, initially as part of France's commitment to the newly formed NATO. The original intention was I believe to ultimately equip them with atomic shells and enhanced AA suites among other upgrades. In 1952 however, apparently due to political manoeuvring by the pro-carrier faction along with other anti-battleship plotters within the French Navy, Richelieu was downgraded to a gunnery training vessel rather than undergo a planned major repair & retrofit. After further downgrades in status, she was ultimately sold for scrap around 1968. The same politicking also played a role in Jean Bart's not being able return to service until 1955, where upon she served mostly as a flagship, though she did perform some useful fire support work during the Suez Crisis. I think there was then a plan to upgrade her in her role as a command battleship with more advanced electronics, but instead the anti-battleship factions were able to get her reduced to reserve in 1957; she served for a time as a barracks ship and then was more or less mothballed until 1970 when she was controversially sold for scrap (bribes may possibly have been involved). All this happened despite the political damage that the French naval air arm and other anti-battleship advocates had suffered with the fall of French Indochina (said advocates having airily assured all and sundry that among other things there would be no need for the battleships there thanks to modern airpower). Even after this humiliating defeat for France, they still retained enough political juice (especially those associated with the SSBN program) to frustrate various reactivation and modernisation schemes for both Jean Bart and Richelieu.
I can only read French, can't write it. Is anybody else capable of posting there? Getting to contact John Jordan and Robert Dumas would be amazing, but don't think it's likely to happen.The French speaking persons here should ask around on this French forum for any info (Or if anybody knows the email address of Robert Dumas and John Jordan )
HISTOIRE
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By late 1949, unlike earlier on in the First Indochina War, French naval forces on station off French Indochina had been significantly reduced for a number of reasons, including arguably some very false economies. It was thought that airpower and local colonial forces along with army riverine units would be able to more than make up the difference. This quickly proved to be optimistic (though the Dinassaut units did see their fair share of successes, especially in the south). The local forces though they fought valiantly suffered from much of the new equipment and manpower that they had been promised never materialising. Airpower couldn't really make up the shortfall, especially during the period in 1949 / 1950 when the French Navy had no carriers to spare for deployment to the theatre, having to rely on land based aircraft and seaplanes to maintain some coverage. This allowed the communist insurgents, at times with direct assistance from PRC naval units (it is unclear if there was any direct involvement of the Soviet Navy in the conflict apart from some disguised freighters and the like used to ship supplies), to grab large chunks of coastal areas including a number of ports and harbours, especially in the north of the country. This in turn allowed them to cut off some French sea supply lines while allowing them to operate a number of their own relatively unmolested. The Việt Minh advances into coastal areas was only (temporarily) halted at the Battle of the Day River. So basically it was a case of much of the coastal regions inadvertently ending up being a 'refused flank', rather than there being any lack of trade for naval forces, including battleships had they been available.
I think we can agree that politicians have no problem losing a war regards of the actual situation on the battlefield.
I suggested the possibility because during that period there were concerns about ships being sold off for less than even their scrap value. In some cases the sales had apparently been agreed before they were even removed from the naval register. No formal investigation into this was ever launched though, AFAIK. The Jean Bart herself was sold for a bargain price I believe. Of course it was the then Ministry of Defence that had the say over such sales rather than the navy, apologies for not being clear on that point.
Of course, France was not the only country by far to suffer from problems of this sort at the time, the 1970s were a hotbed of corruption so far as Western countries was concerned (with much of the roots being planted during the '60s), one of the reasons the Soviet Union and its allies were by and large winning the Cold War by the latter part of that decade. Though they had corruption problems of their own and when they got out of control in the 1980s during the Gorbachev era they would ultimately help spell the end of the Eastern Bloc and subsequently the Soviet Union herself.
Amiral Nomy himself may have wanted to keep the battleships in some form, but that doesn't change the fact that there were powerful interests who wanted them out of the way.
On a separate note, with regards as to Amiral Henri Nomy, was there a proposal for a nuclear powered missile cruiser class bearing his name during the 1980s, do you know?
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I like this Admiral Nomy, even though this is the first time I have read about him. Could someone start a new thread with:
-his plans for Jean Bart and Richelieu ( echoes of RN ideas for the KGVs)
-his Aeronavale plans. Getting Foch and Clemenceau built compares pretty well with UK and I am sure he wanted bigger ones with more sexy Dassault planes
-a nuclear Air Defence cruiser named after him. With a Colbert and Richelieu too..
This is the sort of stuff what if is about. Maybe someone in France could do one of their great graphic novels about him.
-his plans for Jean Bart and Richelieu ( echoes of RN ideas for the KGVs)
-his Aeronavale plans. Getting Foch and Clemenceau built compares pretty well with UK and I am sure he wanted bigger ones with more sexy Dassault planes
-a nuclear Air Defence cruiser named after him. With a Colbert and Richelieu too..
This is the sort of stuff what if is about. Maybe someone in France could do one of their great graphic novels about him.
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Henri Nomy — Wikipédia
"Amiral Nomy" entries on a remarquable naval blog: "le fauteuil de Colbert".
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Lacks
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Is displacement of the complete conversion (not hybrid one) still unknown?
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If the conversion proposal was only a proposal and only some limited calcuations done say removal of a turret provides how much weight for airctaft etc then Displacement was not calculated, that requires more detailed work to be done.
Lacks
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Ok, thank you... I am working on a World of Warships forum and I was looking for displacement data...
I'm Fr05ty in the WoWS forums. What exactly are you doing a proposal of?? I've got the French Aircraft Carriers tech-tree done, just waiting on some information from Philippe Querel as he should have all the data for aircraft carriers from 1940 to 1955 (he wrote one of the sources we used here now).
Dilandu
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I hope it includes "Commandante Teste" on Tier IV?
It does not. Commandant Teste is a seaplane carrier and its proposed reconstruction into an aircraft carrier after the war is too modern for T4. Bearn is the T4 aircraft carrier.
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Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Oh please! Commandante Teste was at least as capable as other Tier IV carriers, such as Langley and Hosho. And she is perfectly historical ship. And I must point out, that Bearn is quite a bit overpowered for the Tier IV.
My personal suggestion for French carrier tech tree was:
Tier IV - Commandante Teste (real ships)
Tier VI - Bearn (real ship)
Tier VIII - Joffre (laid up, uncompleted)
Tier X - PA28, pre-project of Clemenceau (existing project)
I understand you want as many built ships as possible, but you seem to have done so without any regard for balance.
While I personally like the Commandant Teste a lot (more than Bearn for sure), it is automatically discarded by virtue of being a seaplane carrier and lacking a proper flight deck (I hoped to get seaplane carriers in as T3 CVs once upon a time).
Bearn works at T4 (I had it as a T5 prior to the rework, but it is more of a T4 than a T6). It is a large aircraft carrier, but a poor one. It is slow, has weak AA protection, not that large a plane capacity and the planes it carried were for the most part rather old.
Joffre is a T6 carrier. It doesn't have the displacement, weapons or plane capacity to be at T8 and is a decent T6.
PA-28 is a T8 carrier, it's a light carrier, not a fleet carrier and all T10s are essentially fleet carriers.
For T10, my choice is one of the fleet carrier projects from 1945 onwards.
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Yup! As I said, I asked Philippe Querel about the Jean Bart conversion data as well as the designs for aircraft carrier designs from 1940-1950 and he told me that he'd look them up, but that it'd take some time as he isn't very interested in them. When I get a reply, I'll be sure to post it here.
Dilandu
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Oh. Sorry, Tzoli, it's my fault.
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Please take the computer game mechanics discussion elsewhere. Not appropriate for this forum.
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View: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/lmztk1/french_battleship_richelieu_in_new_york_harbor/
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/lo6r68/one_of_the_few_photos_of_the_richelieu_class_as/
Note: The bottom photograph was likely taken on the 30th of January, 1956.
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/lo6r68/one_of_the_few_photos_of_the_richelieu_class_as/
Note: The bottom photograph was likely taken on the 30th of January, 1956.
I heard of that picture. It was taken off Toulon harbor and indeed it is pretty rare, to see the two battleships side by side. For the simple reason they were manpower hogs and the french Navy just didn't had enough sailors.
This was before the carrier renewal (Clemenceau was under construction, Foch was still paper bound) and long before nuclear subs.
it was both the climax and swang song of the French battleship line as imagined 20 years before... in 1936 !
Later in the year Jean Bart went fighting during the Suez crisis but even then, it remained under-manned. It fired perhaps a dozen of 380 mm rounds at Egyptian targets (not only the Iowas fired in anger post WWII !)
This was before the carrier renewal (Clemenceau was under construction, Foch was still paper bound) and long before nuclear subs.
it was both the climax and swang song of the French battleship line as imagined 20 years before... in 1936 !
Later in the year Jean Bart went fighting during the Suez crisis but even then, it remained under-manned. It fired perhaps a dozen of 380 mm rounds at Egyptian targets (not only the Iowas fired in anger post WWII !)
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Can someone tell which is Richelieu and which is Jean-Bart on this photo?The above thread first picture of the twins, in higher quality...
reynard 36
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I have a scratch build wooden model of the Jean Bart converted to an aircraft carrier made by a first-class modeller it has a handwritten plaque that says "The French unfinished Battleship Jean Bart as envisaged by the Royal Navy as a Battleship carrier" the model is 35cm long and 7cm wide. I know nothing about how this model was created or if there were any plans used in its creation?