Here is a new thread which Colombamike and I are openning.
I hope you have as much fun with it as I am.
In 1926 and 1927 the Mediterranean saw the arrival of the Italian heavy cruisers Trento and Trieste. 35 knot, 646 foot, thirteen thousand ton ships, with eight eight inch guns. These warships posed indisputable threat to France’s shipping lanes to her colonies in northern Africa. France’s first response was a 17,500 to design for four heavy cruisers whose combined weight would fulfill the French building limit imposed by the Washington Treaty; however, this design was rejected since these ships could not match the older Italian WWI vintage battleships. In 1927-28 two designs were produced for a 33 knot, 37,000 ton 833 foot enlarged Suffren-class ship, a battlecruiser armed with twelve 12 inch guns in three quad turrets, two forward and one aft. The main battery was augmented by eight 90mm Model 1926 HA guns and twelve 37mm Model 1925 AA-guns in single mountings with two triple torpedo launchers just aft of the B-turret. Dumas and Jordan describe these designs as a missing link between French battleship designs of 1909-1914 and Dunkerque. Neither of these designs was accepted due to the lack of a facility large enough to build a hull of this size. The cost of building a large enough dry dock added further to their already too costly price tag.
Here is the proposed A-2 design of the French battlecruiser study 1928-1929.
P.S.
This is obviously a shameless kitbashing of Garlicdesign and Bezobrazov’s mavelous work on the Suffren-class.
Edit:
I added an armor belt. The belt isn't an internal as with the Dunkerques and Richelieus.