- Yes! The original fully equipped fit of 1930! Have Plane, Will Gun!
- Yes! After the original slate of major and AA refits by 1936!
- Yes! Ready for World War II in 1939! Flying boats and some extra MGs!
- Yes! Refit for the next, next World War, as of November 1945! Pure Gun Cruiser!
- Yes! Multiple versions for the multiple respawns needed!
- Non!
- Standard Tech Tree Researchable!
- Premium!
- Squadron Researchable!
- Battlepass Reward!
- Event Rare!
- Non!
Duquesne-Class Heavy Cruiser Duquesne, 1943, on Indian Ocean en route to Dakar, French West Africa,
Duquesne-Class Cruiser Tourville, 1929
-_SLV_H91.325-30.jpg/1920px-Tourville_(cruiser)-_SLV_H91.325-30.jpg)
original layout of Duquesne
Layout of Tourville (mostly the same for Duquesne) after post-liberation refits
DESIGN:
It is 1924. And France has a problem. It’s building a new ship class, of a new ship type, of a new ship era. And someone had to slap a tonnage limit on it. Again.
You see, few nations had yet to consistently build cruisers to 10,000 long tons (10,160 metric tonnes); the new maximum tonnage limit for cruisers imposed by the 1924 Washington Naval Treaty; with Light Cruisers generally being just over or under half the new limit, and Armored Cruisers whose fundamental design had plateaued by about 1906 were now swelling to the point where they were just outright evolving into Pre-Dreadnought Battleships with 1/3rd the armor thickness, and only SOMETIMES lacked capital-grade (9-inch+) armament- for France, their last CA; the Edgar Quinet-class; capped out at just under 14,000 long tons… more than most 1st generation pre-dreadnought BATTLESHIPS… and packed a full broadside of nine 194mm guns.
With these new limits in place, a paradigm shift had to occur in naval design- so almost immediately the obsolete and immensely bloated classical Armored Cruiser just simply… died. that’s it. party’s over. closing time.
And then everyone just started side eyeing everyone else, figured that they would rush to a design building right up to that treaty maximum tonnage, and then promptly rushed to build cruisers right up to that treaty maximum tonnage before the other suckers could.
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And here is where we get to the French design: the Duquesne-class… Light Cruisers? Sacré bleu!
And thus, to build big; but not too big; you start small:
The design of the Duquesne-class as it would be named was fundamentally derived from an enlarged version of the 7300-ton Duguay-Trouin-class light cruiser; which itself is based off the design of the US Navy’s Omaha-class; now armed with new 203mm (8-inch) cannons and displacing the newly agreed treaty maximum of 10,000 long tons, in accordance with what would become the 1924 Washington Naval Treaty.
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As a result, the major naval powers (UK, US, Japan, France, Italy, descending in that order) began to build a new class of ships with these maximum allowable parameters, initially nicknamed “Washington Cruisers”, then more popularly “Treaty Cruisers” and then ultimately with the 1930 London Naval Treaty, Heavy Cruisers, the hull type that would soon deprecate Armored Cruisers entirely- this is why hull ID type codes like CL means light cruiser but CA means Heavy Cruiser, as it literally just supplanted “Armored, Cruiser” in its position.
Because initially the brand new concept of what would come to be the Heavy Cruiser was just taking shape, the first generation of ships of this class (along with the short-lived use of unarmored Scout Cruisers) across most nations were generally very compromised (usually in armor) due to the need to fit in the imposed displacement limit that sneaks up WAY faster than you expect when designing your primary cruiser design.
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The first French treaty/heavy cruisers were the two Duquesne-class cruisers, Duquesne and Tourville, ordered on July 1, 1924 as part of the financial program of 1924. Initially they were officially classified in France as Croiseurs Legers - light cruisers, until the official division of cruiser classes by the follow up London Naval Treaty of 1930. this partly explains why they have effectively no armor despite retrospectively being heavy cruisers in design.
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and here we get to the defining issue of the times. this wasn’t a case of the French designers getting the Duguay-Trouin plans and then smashing the AI auto-complete button.
you see, prior to WWI, the great French steelworking firm of Schneider-Creusot; based out of the town of Le Creusot; was a world leader in quality steel manufacturing as well as munitions. Then WWI happened and all experimentation came to a screeching halt as suddenly the whole area was now dangerously close to the front lines OF A WORLD WAR.
Fast forward through 4 years of this, and now Schneider-Creusot was now actually a bit behind the times, along with the nation itself being flat broke and rebuilding its devastated northeast areas- all at a moment when the French military-industrial complex really needed to be on the ball. as a result, French steel was just a little heavier than the very best quality of American or British steel, which absolutely added up when you have margins as tight as 10,160 metric tonnes turned out to be.
now before all the criticism it does need to be said-
aside from the armor, the Duquesne-class WAS a good ship design:
it had a really beefy powerplant that hit almost 34 knots in the late 1920s.
it had the new armament standard of 4 twin mount superfiring 8-inch gun turrets.
it had really good seaworthiness from a high freeboard…
and then the designers realized… oh… merde. we just got to the armor section and are already at the tonnage limit… uhhh okay, scale it back. just have an armor box around the ammo magazine + basic armor for the turrets then.
we literally know the total weight of the armor: 368 tons on the hull and 91 tons for the gun turrets for 459 tons or 4.59% of total ship displacement for armor steels. it’s that small.
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understandably, for all their good aspects, the Duquesne-class are particularly notable in their jaw dropping lack of anything beyond tertiary-level protection, being practically devoid of hull armor and possessing only barely armored ammunition magazines and main cannons, which made them sensitive to destroyers or even gunboats if any could ever get in close. Even after the London Naval Treaty codified what a Heavy Cruiser was, that kind of made it look even worse when a brand new heavy cruiser wanted to be the first Unprotected Cruiser since SMS Gefion from the turn of the century.
Now to be fair, these features were consistent with the anticipated use of French heavy cruisers to conduct long-range reconnaissance, support lighter ships and protect maritime communications, especially based in far-flung French colonies like Indochina and the South Pacific.
Thus the emphasis was on good maritime properties and the design of the Duquesne-class was basically just an upscaled Duguay-Trouin with bigger armament and double the range.
In addition to the weak armor, a negative feature was also the poor degree of passive protection against underwater explosions, with only a thin longitudinal bulkhead (double bottom), making it easy for a torpedo to gut the ship if it hit in an area where the internal subdividing was at. These weaknesses though are there largely because it was assumed that these cruisers would mainly operate in colonies like Sub-Saharan Africa and Indochina where they would not have strong opponents, and other much more well rounded cruisers like the eventual and absolutely superb Algerie would cruise on European waters like the Mediterranean.
So take my advice: use your speed and maneuverability to be annoying as hell and evade fire instead of broadsiding from match start to match end… and don’t get shot.
HISTORY:
during 1928 to 1930 both Duquesne and Tourville did not have all the equipment installed, such as a catapult for floatplanes and rangefinders.
the majority of both ships service from 1928-1939 was largely run of the mill and of little note- cruises, training, side eyeing Germany, school ships, squadron reshuffles, side eyeing Germany, chilling with Suffren, multiple MORE squadron reshuffles, stints as squadron flagships and oh hey that funny mustache man we’ve been mean mugging since '31 just declared war on Poland!
oh, and Both Duquesne and Tourville were refitted and modernized in 1934.
Duquesne between January and April 1940 was stationed in Dakar, participating in the search for German shipping and/or raiders in the Atlantic, while on a funny and totally not foreshadowing note, sister ship Tourville was running the French national gold bullion reserves from Toulon to the much less accessible Beirut… you know, just in case France surrendered at any point… and maybe if any marauding Germans ever showed up in the south of France at any point.
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just before the June 1940 Armistice, in May 1940 Duquesne and Tourville became part of the fleet of Force X; which was the aging Bretagne-class Superdreadnought battleship Lorraine, the three modern heavy cruisers Duquesne, Tourville and Suffren, the light cruiser Duguay-Trouin, the three destroyers Basque, Forbin, Le Fortuné, and the Redoutable-class Cruiser Submarine Protée; all based out of the British colonial port of Alexandria, under the command of Amiral René-Émile Godfroy aboard the flagship Duquesne.
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After the infamously quick capitulation of France, the British took actions to cripple the strength of the now neutral French fleet in the infamous Operation Catapult, in order to deny the Nazis any chance to seize the French fleet that they promised they wouldn’t try to take… you know, after half a decade of the Nazis breaking literally every diplomatic promise they made.
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lucky for Admiral Godfroy and Force X, his friend and i think in-law to some degree British Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham was involved in Operation Catapult. they were able to negotiate a demilitarization of Force X; with all fuel and firing mechanisms removed from the squadron, and the ships manned only by skeleton crews; thus avoiding the fate of the battleships at Dakar, or worse, the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir… it also probably helped that Force X had only one elderly battleship, as that’s what the British feared the most that the Germans would commandeer from the French fleet.
funnily enough, on July 4, during those demilitarization negotiations, Tourville and its crew showed that they weren’t exactly neutral by choice and participated in the repelling of Italian air raids.
From the Armistice until May 1943, Force X sat semi-mothballed, and even as the war in Africa decisively turned in the Allies favor, the Free French and Charles de Gaulle and even after Case Anton and the sort of collapse of Vichy France, admiral Godfroy still refused to support the allies… probably juuuuuuuuust a little bitter about Mers-el-Kébir. just a little though. maybe even a smidgen.
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And so It was only on May 17th, 1943, only after the Allies had cleared the entirety of Africa of Axis forces, invaded Sicily, and defeated any post-Case Anton Vichy holdouts, that the British finally, FINALLY, received a letter from Godfroy, expressing the desire “to join the French Navy in North Africa”.
Reactivation of Force X, the very last neutral or Vichy French holdout, was quickly done at Alexandria with Force X then going underway to Algiers…
…where Charles De Gaulle immediately dismissed Godfroy and forced him to retire on the spot.
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now officially; and likely mostly the case; it’s because admiral Godfroy was suspected of being a supporter of disgraced ex-co-president of the Provisional Free French government Henri Giraud, however… when looking at this as part of the bigger picture, I can’t help but think that an admiral who just kind of sat on his *** for even a year AFTER the Free French had made the big comeback and clearly reestablished itself as a legitimate governing power of the French people, wouldn’t be viewed as a bit of a coward or just an unreliable ***hole by notable super patriot Charles ****ing de Gaulle.
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After all that was said and done, both Duquesne and Tourville were included in the Allied Free French forces and returned to the fold. On July 3, 1943, sailing around Africa and arriving in Dakar in the first days of September, forming alongside their BFF Suffren, the 1st Cruiser Squadron. They operated from there in the Atlantic searching for German ships, but were not intensively used because of the moderate range.
In May 1944, Duquesne was sent to Great Britain for repairs. and was in the Operation Neptune Reserves.
In December 1944, Duquesne became part of the French Naval Task Force, attacking German facilities on the coast of the Bay of Biscay. Hey it finally did something!
In April 1945, Duquesne and fellow Force X cellmate Lorraine and some destroyers fought some of the few remaining active German units in France by then at the mouth of the Gironde. Duquesne was then modernized from June to November 1945 in Brest as the war finally ended.
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During the modernization of both ships, among others the aft masts and torpedo tubes were dismantled, the light anti-aircraft armament was replaced with 8 single 40mm Bofors guns and 20 single 20mm Oerlikon cannons, American SF1 and SA2 radars and a fire control station were mounted on the tripod mast, with an 8-meter stereoscopic rangefinder added as well.
After modernization, Duquesne and Tourville returned to active duty in the new post-war environment. during 1945 Duquesne and Tourville cruised to Indochina, where France attempted to regain its colonial position in the immediate post-war chaos as the Viet Minh attempted to gain independence. this would become the 1946 occupation of Tonkin, before both ships would leave for France again… which was soon followed by a brief 1947 return to Indochina.
In August 1947, Duquesne would be recalled to Algiers, and placed in reserve, serving as a base ship for French landing forces as the situation in Algeria was steadily deteriorating.
On July 2, 1955, Duquesne was decommissioned, then towed to Mers el-Kebir and sold for scrap on July 27, 1956.
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28 years of service, almost never used in any aggressive role, and a service life effectively summed up with the phrase “Do not attack me, I WILL cry”.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS:
Displacement:
10,160 metric tonnes (10,000 long tons) - at standard load it allegedly had with likely some slightly creative accounting or some components missing.
11,404 metric tonnes (11,224 long tons) at actual real normal loading
12,435 metric tonnes (12,239 long tons) - fully loaded and stocked
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Length:
191 meters overall
185 meters at the waterline
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Beam:
19.1 meters (62 ft 4 in)
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Draft:
6.32 meters (normal load)
6.49 meters (fully loaded)
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Powerplant:
8 Guyot du Temple steam boilers, feeding into 4 Rateau-Bretagne geared steam turbines, producing a massive 120,000 indicated horsepower, propelling four 4.2 meter diameter screws, for a projected top speed of 33.75 knots (62.51 km/h; 38.84 mph).
on trials (so the ships could just be massively underweight) the ships produced well in excess of this:
Duquesne managed to top out at an insane 36.15 knots (67 km/h; 41.6 mph). to put into perspective, the fastest French DDs managed to make it to around 43 knots, but effectively couldn’t shoot straight past 37 knots
sister ship Tourville wasn’t as much of an overachiever, but at 35.3 knots (65.4 km/h; 40.6 mph) even she was well over par.
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Fuel:
1820 tons of fuel oil when fully loaded
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Range:
4,500 nmi (8,300 km; 5,200 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
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Crew:
605 normal, 637 as flagship
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the bow superstructure with a combat platform was quite low and not very extensive, but a massive tripod mast with a fire control post rose above it. A low superstructure stretched across the entire amidship from the bow, on which the tower No.3 stood at the stern. The compact silhouette of the ships was complemented by two inclined chimneys amidships with a crane between them, and a second mast in front of Tower No. 3 (the chimneys and mast were inclined at a 5° angle)
The hull was divided transversely into 17 main watertight compartments built in a longitudinal intake system, and had a thin double bottom (not serious armor) along its entire length.
The engine room - 4 boiler rooms and 2 engine rooms, was built in an alternating system, increasing resistance to damage (from the bow: two boiler rooms, engine room, two boiler rooms, engine room).
The class had two rudders, the main one and the auxiliary, a rare sight among cruisers.
LOL “ARMOR” :
Hull armor was limited only to the box of armor around the ammunition chambers under the main gun turrets, (30 mm on the sides, 20 mm at the front, rear and top). Of the weight of the armor, 368 tons were for the hull and 91 tons for gun turrets.
The towers and their armored barbettes were two separate layers of plates of a total thickness of 30mm. being as these were separate plates not bonded to each other, this reduces their already low resistance to about an inch (25.4mm) in effective protection
The steering gear room had a thin armor of 17mm.
upper deck was made of 22-24mm thick structural steel.
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and that is it.
with an armor profile so cartoonishly poor and limited it may as well have been scrounged from the local junkyard, this HEAVY CRUISER was effectively completely unarmored.
ARMAMENT:
original:
4×2 203mm/50 Modèle 1924 guns - same as on the Suffren’s ingame, Colbert and Dupleix
150 shells of ammo
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8×1 75 mm Modèle 1924 AA guns in 1922 HA mounts - what most French CLs, Paris, and Lorraine ingame, Gaijin just hasn’t separated the weapon and mount designations
500 shells of ammo
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originally 8x1, 37mm Mle 1925 guns as seen ingame later the 4×2 37 mm Mle 1933 anti-aircraft guns also seen ingame - you can see both versions installed on Aigle and Milan ingame
regardless of single or paired, they were placed on the superstructure.
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2 triple 550mm Mle 1923D torpedoes in Mle 1925T triple mountings - as seen on ships like Mogador ingame, carried 3 full reloads each.
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1 aircraft catapult and crane for launching or lowering 2 onboard Seaplanes, and later Flying Boats, carried-
Gourdou-Leseurre GL-812 HY, (as of 1930) - even has a fixed synchronized gun for pilots!
Gourdou-Leseurre GL-832 HY, (by 1935)
Loire 130 Flying Boat (beginning of WWII in 1939)
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15x1 “35KG” anti-submarine depth charges - total mass 52kg, explosive mass of 35kg. a rare sight on heavy cruisers, though the Duquesne-class were classed as Light Cruisers for a couple years in active service.
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WAMFR_ASW.php
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TL;DR initial armament loadout once fully equipped by 1930:
4×2 203mm/50 Mle 1924
8×1 75mm/50 Mle 1922
8x1, 37mm/50 Mle 1925
2x3 550mm Mle 1923D torpedoes, Mle 1925T mounts
2 Gourdou-Leseurre GL-812 HY seaplanes, launched by catapult or craned into the sea
15x1 35KG model depth charges
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culmination of 1930s refits:
the Duquesne and Tourville both had many minor refits applied throughout the 1930s, but for the purpose of WT, the only ones that really mean anything are:
in 1934 the single 37mm Mle 1925 were replaced and consolidated with dual mount Mle 1933 guns
in 1936, both ships had 4 pairs of 13.2mm 1929 Hotchkiss HMGs added for AA.
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TL;DR 1st major refit cycle loadout by 1936:
4×2 203mm/50 Mle 1924
8×1 75mm/50 Mle 1922
4x2, 37mm/50 Mle 1933
4x2 13.2mm 1929 Hotchkiss HMGs
2x3 550mm Mle 1923D torpedoes, Mle 1925T mounts
2 seaplanes of either/or Gourdou-Leseurre GL-812 HY or GL-832 HY, launched by catapult or craned into the sea
15x1 35KG model depth charges
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at some point in the late 1930s, both ships again had another 2 pairs more 13.2mm Hotchkiss HMGs added for AA, for a total of 12 in 6 pairs.
also around this time, the Gourdou-Leseurre seaplanes would be supplemented or replaced with the Loire 130 Flying Boat
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TL;DR armament loadout by the beginning of WWII in 1939:
4×2 203mm/50 Mle 1924
8×1 75mm/50 Mle 1922
4x2, 37mm/50 Mle 1933
6x2 13.2mm 1929 Hotchkiss HMGs
2x3 550mm Mle 1923D torpedoes, Mle 1925T mounts
2 Loire 130 Flying Boats, launched by catapult or craned into the sea
15x1 35KG model depth charges
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post-liberation major refit:
after the liberation of France, from December 1944 to November 1945 the Duquesne (in Toulon) and Tourville (in Brest) were heavily modified, completely ditching any and all remaining seaplane equipment, torpedoes, and light AA in favor of bofors, oerlikons, and US radar equipment.
as of December 1st, 1945: Duquesne and Tourville both had: all eight 37mm cannons removed, all 12 Hotchkiss HMGs removed, both triple 550mm torpedo launcher turrets removed, and the catapult and seaplane equipment, making them pure all-gun cruisers.
Duquesne’s armament was refitted with: 8 40mm/60 Bofors guns; 20 20mm Oerlikon cannons ; American SA-2 and SF-1 radars and fire control were mounted on the mast along with a 8-meter stereoscopic rangefinder.
TL;DR armament loadout by November 1945, at the end of WWII:
4×2 203mm/50 Mle 1924
8×1 75mm/50 Mle 1922
8x1 40mm/60 Bofors guns in the vacated 37mm superstructure positions
20x1 20mm Oerlikon cannons all over
SOURCES:
online:
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krążowniki_ciężkie_typu_Duquesne - honestly whoever does these articles on the polish side of many ship wiki pages sure as hell knows their stuff. this page alone is worth all the other online sources combined
http://www.navypedia.org/ships/france/fr_cr_duquesne.htm
literary:
French Cruisers: 1922-1956, By John Jordan, Jean Moulin https://books.google.com/books?id=frXgAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=french+1925T+torpedo&source=bl&ots=hlNY3UDPBT&sig=ACfU3U1w-V2v_OY8FLFtH8DWEkDFhxpQig&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj83ODH98jpAhXCsZ4KHbsEBV0Q6AEwDnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=french 1925T torpedo&f=false
- John Jordan , “Duquesne” and “Tourville”: The first French treaty cruisers , coll. “Warship 2005”, 2005 ( ISBN 1-84486-003-5 )
- (en) MJ Whitley , Cruisers of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia , London, Arms & Armor, 1995 ( ISBN 1-85409-225-1 ) , p. 29-31
- Gardiner, Robert: Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1922–1946. London, England: Conway Maritime Press, 1987. ( ISBN 0-85177-146-7 ) . - PDF/DjVu page 271
Siergiej Patjanin (Сергей Патянин): Francuskije kriejsiera Wtoroj Mirowoj wojny. Czast 2: Tjażołyje kriejsiera tipa «Duquesne» w: „Morskaja Kampanija”, nr 2/2007. - from polish wiki on Duquesne-class