Edgar Quinet-class cruiser

Edgar Quinet-class cruiser
Edgar Quinet in 1911
Class overview
Name:	Edgar Quinet class
Operators:	French Navy
Completed:	2
Lost:	0
Retired:	2
General characteristics
Class & type:	Edgar Quinet class
Type:	armoured cruiser
Displacement:	13 650 tonnes
Length:	158.2 metres
Beam:	21.5 metres
Draught:	8.3 metres
Installed power:	37,000 shp (27,590 kW)
Speed:	23 knots (42.6 km/h; 26.5 mph)
Armament:	14×194 mm guns 20×65 mm
Armour:	Belt: 90 - 170 mm Upper deck: 20-34 mm Lower deck: 45-65 mm Turrets: 150 mm

The Edgar Quinet class was the last type of armoured cruiser in service in the French Navy. The two ships of this class operated together throughout the First World War in the Mediterranean Sea. Both ships survived the disarmament provisions of the Washington Naval Treaty and received slight modernisations, including conversion to oil firing. In 1930 whilst acting as a training ship the Edgar Quinet ran aground off the coast of Algeria and broke up after four days. Her sister ship the Waldeck-Rousseau went on to be used as a training ship and eventually as a hulk after being moved to French Indochina in 1936. She was scuttled in 1942 before the Japanese could claim her, salvaged to act as a decoy for the brand new Japanese battleship Musashi before being sunk during a US air attack in 1943. The Edgar Quinet class stemmed from improvements over the design of the Ernest Renan.

Ships

• Edgar Quinet (1907) - struck 1930
• Waldeck-Rousseau (1908) - scrapped 1941-44

Sources and references

• Late French Armored Cruisers, 1902-1911 - La Classe Edgar Quinet
• Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours, Tome II, 1870-2006, LV Jean-Michel Roche, Imp. Rezotel-Maury Millau, 2005