French ironclad Gloire

The French ironclad Gloire (French pronunciation: [ɡlwaʁ], "Glory") was the first ocean-going ironclad, launched in 1859. She was developed after the Crimean War, in response to new developments of naval gun technology, especially the Paixhans guns and rifled guns, which used explosive shells with increased destructive power against wooden ships. Her design was also influenced by the Anglo-French development of ironclad floating batteries to bombard Russian forts during the same war.

Design and construction

Gloire was designed by the French naval architect Henri Dupuy de Lôme as a 5,630-ton broadside ironclad with a wooden hull. He had intended for her class, the Gloire-class ironclads, to be fully iron hulled, and with this in mind Dupuy had cancelled all French Navy wooden hulled construction projects. Issues with obtaining enough iron meant that Dupuy compromised; Gloire and her first two sisters were built with wooden hulls lined with wrought iron plates. Gloire was ordered on 4 March 1858 and laid down in the same month. Her 12 cm-thick (4.7 in) armour plates, backed with 43 cm (17 in) of timber, resisted hits by the experimental shooting of the strongest guns of the time (the French 50-pounder and the British 68-pounder) at full charge, at a distance of 20 metres (65 ft).

Gloire's maximum speed was 13.1 knots but other reports suggested no more than 11.75 knots had been attained and that 11 knots was the practical maximum. French planning envisaged her being able to chase the British Channel Fleet out of the English Channel with her speed.