Richelieu

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Richelieu was a French battleship and the lead ship of her class. She was a scaled-up version of the previous Dunkerque class.

Ordered in 1935, and designed to counter the Italian Littorio-class battleships, Richelieu was the first French 35,000-ton battleship. She was also the first modern battleship built after the 1922 Treaty of Washington. She featured a main armament of eight 15 inch guns in two quadruple turrets in forward superfiring positions. Her armor and underwater protection were equal to most contemporary craft. In trial runs, her speed was a little higher than her European contemporaries, and only surpassed by the U.S. Navy's modern, fast battleships.

In June 1940, she was nearing completion in a shipyard in Brest in northwest France. To avoid capture she left the yard for Dakar in French West Africa. She served during World War II, first on the Vichy Regime side, notably fending off an Allied attack on Dakar. In 1943, she switched to the Allied side. After refitting in New York Navy Yard, she operated with Royal Navy forces in the Indian Ocean in 1944 and 1945. She took part in the return of French forces to Indochina in 1945, and continued to serve into the 1960s.