Some French Cold War ships

Garlicdesign

Post subject: Re: Some French Cold War ships

Posted: November 25th, 2022, 5:36 pm

Posts: 1071
Joined: December 26th, 2012, 9:36 am
Location: Germany

Hi all!

E50/E52-class escorts

Soon after the war, the French ordered eighteen new destroyers and eighteen escorts to rebuild their ravaged fleet and replace the extant mix of 1920s and 1930s veterans, handed down allied ships, and axis prizes. The frigates resembled the contemporary US Dealey class in size, layout and performance, but were an all-French design employing only domestic equipment (although some built under Swedish and Swiss license) – six 57mm guns, four triple 550mm ASW TTs (plus one additional torpedo per tube in quick reload magazines), a sextuple 375mm ASW rocket launcher, two Oerlikons and two DC throwers. Radars and sensors were also French built. These escorts exceeded their design speed by a wide margin, but the first group of four (E50 type) featured a somewhat awkward weapons arrangement, resulting in poor arcs and unnecessarily high topweight: the ASW rocket launcher was placed aft in front of the director platform and could fire neither dead ahead nor dead aft, and the torpedo tubes were located high up on the shelter deck forward, with the forward gun placed even higher. The class ship was commissioned without the ASW rocket launcher.
[ img ]

The others had the ASW rocket launcher upon completion.
[ img ]

Le Corse, Le Brestois and Le Boulonnais (all new escorts were named for inhabitants of French regions) were identical except for some minor differences in their rigging and masting. The fourth unit, Le Bordelais, had a streamlined funnel.
[ img ]

The radar fit apparently was already obsolescent as completed; by the mid-sixties, all were retrofitted with more modern air search radars. The depth charges also were removed.
[ img ]

All were replaced by A69-type avisos in the mid-1970s after a relatively short service life.

A second, larger batch of fourteen (E52 type) remedied some of the unforced design errors of the first four by swapping positions of the ASW rocket launcher (now placed in front of the forward gun with a bigger arc) and the torpedoes (now on upper deck level amidships, much lower than previously). They no longer carried depth charges. The first seven (Le Normand, Le Picard, Le Gascon, Le Lorrain, Le Bouguignon and Le Champenais) were identical in layout.
[ img ]

An additional antenna, whose purpose I did not quite grasp, was fitted to later units, and quickly retrofitted to the early ones.
[ img ]

Some units had a different radar fit with a more modern air search radar (the same that was retrofitted to the Le Corse-Group). The others were retrofitted with this electronics gear relatively soon after completion.
[ img ]

After fitting the new radars, there were few modifications throughout their service period. Some were fitted with new navigation radars instead their old surface search sets.
[ img ]

Units seven and eight (Le Basque and Le Breton) received a new, bigger bridge section and differed in sundry small details. Only Breton had extended bridge wings, which however were later removed.
[ img ]

After that, they could still be told apart by the position of the surface search radar on the mast.
[ img ]

They served only briefly as escorts; in the mid-1960s, they were converted to trials vessels supporting France’s SLBM development programme.

The next two (L’Agenais and Le Béarnais) received a different, more spacious bridge with superior command and control facilities. They were dubbed E52a.
[ img ]

They were indistinguishable from each other. Like the E52a subgroup, they had their optical backup fire control gear placed higher during their service life.
[ img ]

The final group of three (L’Alsacien, Le Provencal and Le Vendéen) had a similar enlarged bridge, plus streamlined funnels like the one trialled on Le Bordelais and a different armament, mounting a four barrel 305mm ASW mortar aft and only two 57mm twins; they also eschewed torpedo reloads. They were dubbed E52b. L’Alsacien ran trials without fire control radars and without the ASW mortar.
[ img ]

The other two were completed with it.
[ img ]

Like the older ships, the E52b version received few modifications.
[ img ]

All were out of service by 1982, L’Alsacien being the last one to be decommissioned. Special Thanks to Colombamike for a truckload of reference pics showing the often very minute differences between the individual ships.

Cheers
GD

Top

Shipbucket

Who is online