Dunkerque Class (France)

The Dunkerque-class battleship was a type of warship constructed for the French Navy in the 1930s.

The Dunkerques were designed to counter the German Deutschland-class pocket battleships. Their main armament was two quadruple 330 mm turrets forward, with a 225 mm (8.9 in) thick armored belt. They were smaller, with a 26,500- to 27,300-ton standard displacement and a smaller main artillery caliber, than the battleships authorized by the Washington Naval Treaty, but their speed was 7 knots higher than any of the battleships built from 1920 to 1937. When they were commissioned, only the last existing battlecruisers of the British Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy were their equals.[citation needed]

Given their characteristics, they were alternatively classified as fast battleships, small battleships,[1] battlecruisers,[2] and even as "ships of the line" (Fr. navires de ligne).[1]

Two ships, Dunkerque and Strasbourg, were completed. Together they formed the 1ère Division de Ligne ("1st Division of the Line"), and saw service during the early years of the Second World War. While they never encountered the German pocket battleships they were designed to counter, they suffered the British attack of Mers-el-Kebir, and stayed under the Vichy authorities control until they were scuttled at Toulon in November 1942.