Following the Treaty of Washington , and the Treaty of London , France took advantage of the tonnage allocated to her in terms of battleships and cruisers, making a compromise to allow more vessels to be built in the allocated tonnage. The global tonnage question was also a matter of pride, and to be relegated to the same level as Italy was considered by the naval staff as insufficient to say the least. But the truth was France made it out of the great war impoverished and near bankrupt.
Despite the anger upon this apparent downgrading of the French Navy, the exhausted country was in not way able to fulfill the alternative plan wanted by the admiralty. More so, the spectre of pre young school era mistakes was still looming over it and French politicians of the IIIrd republic looked with suspicion the naval staff initiatives. The Dunkerque class was like a symbol of it, but its development took years and the treaty ban for a start.
US Navy Recognition plates of the Dunkerque. First off, the Washington ten years ban prevented the signatories, including the French and Italians to built any battleship before But given the fact both accepted a reduction in size especially the French , a derogatory measure was approved and France and Italy were allowed to replace two old battleships after This allowed considering many designs from then on.
The new battleships would emerge as a compromise between both types, as the Scharnhorst will. Both France and Italy concentrated on modernizing their old battleships and keeping their allocated replacement tonnage of 70,long-ton to design brand new ships. In fact all these cases were carefully examined by the admiralty in turn, but they had in common the trademark French quadruple turrets. Dunkerque as built, photo colorized by Irootoko Jr. He proposed right away quadruple mm turrets, a world first, ahead of the triple turret innovated by Italy and soon copied by Russia and Austria-Hungary, and the US later for the Nevada4 class.
Lyon class blueprint, they would have been completed in if the war has not broke up. It was a practical reasoning: Since size of the available construction holds was limited, also also limited size and tonnage, using quadruple turrets would it possible to have two more guns in the same space, one same dimensions as the Bretagne class and for a lower weight.
