Gueydon class, Gueydon

Mathll · June 20, 2026, 3:08am

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Hello everyone and welcome to this new suggestion.

Today I’m presenting a new class of French armored cruiser from the First World War: the Gueydon class. And to begin, here is the first ship of the class, the Gueydon.

The Gueydon class was directly inspired by previous armored cruiser classes, notably the Jeanne d’Arc. Designed by Emile Bertin (a French naval engineer), the class aimed to improve upon its predecessors in terms of top speed and range, following the doctrine of the “young school,” very popular at the time within the Admiralty. Laid down in 1898 at the Lorient arsenal and entering active service in 1903, the Gueydon was immediately assigned to naval units tasked with patrolling French overseas territories. Initially, it served in Indochina, where it spent several years, then in the West Indies and along the coasts of South America after a short period of maintenance in France. At the outbreak of the First World War, the ship was still deployed in the area and tasked with protecting convoys of goods traveling from mainland France to the Pacific islands, thus carrying out numerous missions between the Antilles and Brest. During these missions, the Gueydon never saw combat, as German ships and submarines remained primarily in the Mediterranean Sea and the waters off Northern Europe.

Following the war, the ship returned to France, initially decommissioned before being converted into a training vessel for future naval officers in Brest. Stationed in the port as a pontoon and accommodation for the future officers, the ship was no longer intended for active service.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Gueydon was still anchored in Brest. The day before the arrival of German troops, the crew on board decided to scuttle the ship so that it could not be used by the Germans. The ship, anchored in shallow water, sank and settled on the seabed, its superstructure still visible. It was in this state that the Germans discovered it. Initially seeing no use for it, the ship was subsequently refloated and camouflaged to resemble the Prinz Eugen in order to deceive Allied reconnaissance aircraft. Finally, at the end of the war, as the Allies prepared to recapture the city, the Germans blew up the ship to prevent any further use.

The ship is named in honor of Louis Henri de Gueydon, a French naval officer and politician who served as Governor of Algeria during the Third Republic.

Characteristics

Length : 137.97 m

Width : 19.38 m

Draught : 7.67 m

Mass : 9367 tons

The ship is powered by three triple-expansion engines fed by 28 coal-fired boilers (1,600 tons in the bunker), giving it a total power output of 22,000 hp. Its maximum speed is 21.40 knots, and its range is 8,500 nautical miles at 10 knots, or 35 days of navigation.

The crew consists of 566 sailors.

Armor

The ship is relatively well armored, with 160mm of armor on the front of its main and secondary turrets, 161mm of armor on the superstructure, and 150mm of armor plating distributed to protect the engine rooms, boiler rooms, and ammunition stores.

Weapons

The ship has armament similar to other French ships of the time, with a main 194mm gun mounted in turrets forward and aft, and 164.7mm guns in casemates along the hull.

2 x 194 mm/40 Mle 1893 guns
8 x 164,7 mm/45 Mle 1893
4 x 100 mm/45 Mle 1891

In addition, the ship has 2 torpedo tubes for 450mm Mle 1892 torpedoes.

Pictures

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