La Galissonnière-class ironclad

The La Galissonnière class ironclads were a group of wooden-hulled, armored corvettes built for the French Navy during the 1870s, meant as a heavier armed and faster version of the Alma-class ironclad. While all three ships were begun before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the construction of the last two ships was delayed for years. The navy took advantage of the extended construction time of the latter ships to upgrade their armament. FRENCH IRONCLAD La Galissonnière bombarded Sfax in 1881 as part of the French occupation of Tunisia. She and her half-sister FRENCH IRONCLAD Triomphante participated in a number of battles during the Sino-French War of 1884–85. Their sister FRENCH IRONCLAD Victorieuse had a much quieter career. All three ships were decommissioned in the 1890s.

Design and description
The La Galissonnière-class ironclads were designed as faster, more heavily armed versions of the Alma-class ironclads by Henri Dupuy de Lôme. They used the same central battery layout as their predecessors, although the battery was lengthened 4 m to provide enough room to work the larger 240 mm guns. A two-propeller layout was adopted in an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the ship's draft. The two later ships were designed by Sabattier who reduced the number of screws from two to one to improve their sailing qualities, added an 194 mm bow chaser under the forecastle and increased the caliber of the secondary armament.

La Galissonnière measured 76.62 m between perpendiculars, with a beam of 14.84 m. She had a mean draft of 6.55 m and displaced 4654 t. The ship had a metacentric height of .926 m. Victorieuse and Triomphante were 76.85 m between perpendiculars and had a beam of 14.88 m. The two ships had a mean draft of 6.3 m and displaced 4150 t. The crew of all three ships numbered between 352 and 382 officers and men.

Propulsion
La Galissonnière had two Wolf vertical compound steam engines, each driving a single 3.8 m propeller. Her engines were powered by four oval boilers. On sea trials the engines produced a total of 2370 ihp and the ship reached 13.08 kn. La Galissonnière carried 500 MT of coal which allowed the ship to steam for 3240 nmi at a speed of 10 kn. She was ship-rigged with three masts and had a sail area around 1707 sqm.

Victorieuse and Triomphante had a single vertical compound steam engine driving a single propeller and the same boilers as La Galissonnière. During trials their engines produced 2214 ihp and the ships reached 12.75 kn. They only carried 330 MT of coal which allowed the ships to steam for 2740 nmi at a speed of 10 kn. They were also ship-rigged with three masts, but had a sail area of 1730 sqm.

Armament
All three ships mounted four of their six 240-millimeter Modèle 1870 guns in the central battery on the battery deck. The other two 240-millimeter guns were mounted in barbettes on the upper deck, sponsoned out over the sides of the ship. In La Galissonnière the sponsons were positioned abaft the funnel, but the two later ships had theirs just forward of the funnel. La Galissonnière's secondary armament of four 120 mm guns was also mounted on the upper deck. They were replaced by six 100 mm guns in 1880.

The armor-piercing shell of the 19-caliber 240-millmeter gun weighed 317.5 lb while the gun itself weighed 15.41 LT. It had a muzzle velocity of 1624 ft/s and was credited with the ability to penetrate a nominal 14.4 in of wrought iron armour at the muzzle. The guns could fire both solid shot and explosive shells.

The ship received four 37 mm Hotchkiss 5-barrel revolving guns in 1878. They fired a shell weighing about 500 g at a muzzle velocity of about 610 m/s to a range of about 3200 m. They had a rate of fire of about 30 rounds per minute. La Galissonnière also received several towed Harvey torpedoes.

While Victorieuse and Triomphant were on the stocks, their armament was reinforced by an additional 194-millimeter chase gun and the secondary armament was increased to six 138 mm guns. They also received the Hotchkiss guns and Harvey torpedoes as per La Galissonnière before completion. The 20-caliber 194-millimeter gun fired an armor-piercing, 165.3 lb shell while the gun itself weighed 7.83 LT. The gun fired its shell at a muzzle velocity of 1739 ft/s and was credited with the ability to penetrate a nominal 12.5 in of wrought iron armour at the muzzle. The 138-millimeter gun was 21 calibers long and weighed 2.63 LT. It fired a 61.7 lb explosive shell that had a muzzle velocity of 1529 ft/s.

Armor
The La Galissonnière-class ships had a complete 150 mm wrought iron waterline belt, approximately 2.4 m high laid over 650 mm of wood. The sides of the battery itself were armored with 120 mm of wrought iron backed by 520 mm of wood and the ends of the battery were closed by bulkheads of the same thickness. The barbette armor was 120 mm thick. The unarmored portions of their sides were protected by thin iron plates.

Service
La Galissonnière's initial commissions were in the Pacific and in the Caribbean, but she was assigned to the Levant Squadron (Division Navale du Levant) when she bombarded the Tunisian port of Sfax in July 1881 as part of the French occupation of Tunisia. In early 1882 La Galissonnière was the flagship of the Levant Squadron under Rear Admiral Alfred Conrad. Both La Galissonnière and Triomphante were assigned to the Far East Squadron in 1884, under the command of Vice Admiral Amédée Courbet, and participated in several actions during the Sino-French War of 1884–85. Both ships fought in the Battle of Fuzhou, destroying a small Chinese fleet and coastal defenses defending the Min River. They supplied landing parties during the Battle of Tamsui in October 1884, but they were forced to retreat by Chinese troops, although suffering few casualties (11 killed and 4 wounded between the two ships). Nothing is known of any further participation by La Galissonnière in the war, but Triomphante helped to capture the Pescadore Islands in March 1885 during the Pescadores Campaign.

Victorieuse was placed into reserve after she finished her sea trials in 1876. She had two commissions as flagship of the Pacific and China Squadrons and was relieved as the flagship of the latter by La Galissonnière in April 1884. She became flagship of the Levant Squadron after she arrived in France, but was in bad shape and soon placed in reserve at Cherbourg. Victorieuse was on summer maneuvers off the Iberian coast in July 1893. The ship was initially condemned in May 1897, but this was reversed so she could convoy torpedo boats to Bizerte. That plan was later cancelled and Victorieuse was paid off in 1899, becoming guardship of the outer harbor at Brest until finally condemned the following year.