French armoured cruiser Dupuy de Lôme (1887)

For other ships of the same name, see French ship Dupuy de Lôme.

File:Armoured cruiser Dupuy de Lôme.jpg Armoured cruiser Dupuy de Lôme, launched in 1890.
Career (France)
Name:	Dupuy de Lôme
Namesake:	Henri Dupuy de Lôme
Builder:	Brest shipyard
Laid down:	1888
Launched:	1890
Completed:	1895
Decommissioned:	1911
Recommissioned:	1914
Decommissioned:	1920
Renamed:	Commandant Elias Aguirre, 1912 Dupuy de Lôme, 1914 Péruvier, 1920
Fate:	Sold to by Peru, 1912, as Commandant Elias Aguirre. Never delivered. Sold to Belgium, 1920, as cargo ship Péruvier. Broken up, 1923
General characteristics
Type:	Armoured cruiser
Displacement:	6,700 tonnes (6,594 long tons)
Length:	111 m (364 ft 2 in)
Beam:	16 m (52 ft 6 in)
Draught:	7.5 m (24 ft 7 in)
Propulsion:	12 coal-fired Normand boilers 3 vertical triple expansion engines 14,005 hp (10.4 MW)
Speed:	19.7 knots (36.5 km/h; 22.7 mph)
Complement:	526
Armament:	• 2 × 194 mm (7.6 in)/40 calibre guns • 6 × 164 mm (6.4 in) Modèle 1893 guns • 4 × 9-pounder guns • 8 × 3-pounder guns • 2 × 450 mm (18 in) torpedo tubes
Armour:	Belt: 100 mm (4 in) Deck: 20 mm (0.79 in) Bridge: 125 mm (5 in) Turrets: 100 mm (4 in)

Dupuy de Lôme was the first armoured cruiser in the French Navy, launched in Brest in 1890, and completed in 1895. She is considered by some to be the world's first armoured cruiser. She was named after the naval architect Dupuy de Lôme.

Design

The hull design shows an extremely marked tumblehome which had the advantage of increasing arcs of fire for the ship's gun batteries and like sloped armor on tanks, was intended to increase effectiveness of armor against direct enemy fire. It also may have made the hull more hydrodynamic^{[citation needed]} and assisted in the vessels relatively high speed for the time. Her top-hamper was also reduced in comparison with other vessels of the period - which enabled better sighting and ranging of targets and subsequent gun laying.

She was capable of 23 knots, and designed to raid on enemy commerce ships during extended forays afloat, following the "Jeune École" doctrine.

Service history

In 1911, after many years service in the Marine Nationale, the Dupuy was stricken from the navy list and sold to Peru as Commandant Elias Aguirre. Delivery was never completed however, and the ship was recommissioned in 1914 to take part in World War I under her original name. Obsolete by then, her guns were removed to be used by the Army.

At the war's end, she was sold to the Belgian firm of LRB and converted to a coastal freighter under the name Péruvier. Evidently she was not a success in commerce, for she went to the breakers in 1923.

• Dupuis de Lome-Bougault.jpg

  Dupuy de Lôme under way

See also

• Media related to French armoured cruiser Dupuy de Lôme (1887) at Wikimedia Commons

References

• Chesneau, Roger and Eugene M. Kolesnik. Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London:Conway Maritime Press, 1979 (reprint 1997). ISBN 0 85177 133 5.