Wednesday's weird warship, the french navy's Dupuy-de-Lôme
Dupuy-de-Lôme class armored cruiser
Displacement. 6676 t.
Lenght. 360.89'
Beam. 50.8'
Draft. 24'
Speed. 19.7 k.
Complement. 526
Armament. 2 7.6"; 6 6.4"; 4 9pdr; 8 3pdr, 6 1pdr
Laid down in July 1888, launched in November 1890, and commissioned in 1895, the vessel was the first to have a 110-mm protective belt from bow to stem. She had a 55-mm armoured deck and as a new feature a splinter deck above boiler and engine rooms. Like all French warships of the period she showed a very martial silhouette with the significant heavy tubular fighting masts. In appearance the Dupuy-de-Lôme was remarkable with a very marked snout or plough bow and a sloping stern. She suffered from lack of speed, the envisaged 21 kts were not achieved. Tests unveiled that the third screw was more or less unefficient because of the design of the sloping stern.
She received broad international interest, her design was widely discussed. Nevertheless she quickly turned out to be an unbalanced design notregarding her impact on future warship design. Her name was programmatic, as she was christened after the French naval architect who had designed the first french armour clad Gloire.
In 1905 she was reconstructed to some extent, having 20 Normann boilers with three funnels installed and the military mast removed. She was sold to Peru in 1912 as Commandant Elias Aguirre but was never delivered; she was resold to Belgium in 1920 and converted into a cargo ship under the name Peruvier.
An ugly ship manned by cheese eating surrender monkeys.
