French cruiser Lamotte-Picquet
Lamotte-Picquet was a French Duguay-Trouin-class light cruiser, launched in 1924, and named in honour of the 18th century admiral count Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte.
 Lamotte-Picquet at Shanghai in 1939 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 France | |
| Name | Lamotte-Picquet |
| Namesake | Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte |
| Builder | Arsenal de Lorient |
| Laid down | 17 January 1923 |
| Launched | 21 March 1924 |
| Commissioned | 5 March 1927 |
| Out of service | November 1941 |
| Fate | Sunk during the South China Sea raid, 12 January 1945 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Duguay-Trouin-class cruiser |
| Displacement |
|
| Length | 181.30 m (594 ft 10 in) overall |
| Beam | 17.50 m (57 ft 5 in) |
| Draught | 6.14 m (20 ft 2 in), 6.30 m (20 ft 8 in) full load |
| Propulsion | 4-shaft Parsons single-reduction geared turbines; 8 Guyot boilers; 102,000 shp (76,000 kW) |
| Speed | 33 knots (61 km/h) |
| Range | 3,000 nautical miles (6,000 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h) |
| Complement | 27 officers, 551 sailors |
| Armament |
|
| Armour |
|
| Aircraft carried |
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Design and description
The design of the Duguay-Trouin class was based on an improved version of a 1915 design, but was reworked with more speed and a more powerful armament to match the British E-class and the American Omaha-class light cruisers. The ships had an overall length of 175.3 meters (575 ft 2 in), a beam of 17.2 meters (56 ft 5 in), and a draft of 5.3 meters (17 ft 5 in). They displaced 8,128 metric tons (8,000 long tons) at standard load and 9,655 t (9,503 long tons) at deep load. Their crew consisted of 591 men when serving as flagships.[1]
Service history
Completed in 1927, Lamotte-Picquet was based at Brest until 1933, serving with the 3rd Light Division, of which she was flagship. In 1935, she was sent to the Far East, where at the outbreak of war in 1939, she patrolled around French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies.
After the French surrender in Europe, tension developed along the border with Siam (now Thailand). These flared into hostilities between Siam and Vichy France in December 1940. In January 1941, Lamotte-Picquet became the flagship of a small squadron, the Groupe Occasionnel. It was formed on 9 December at Cam Ranh Bay, near Saigon, under the command of Capitaine de Vaisseau Bérenger. The squadron also consisted of the colonial sloops Dumont d'Urville and Amiral Charner, and the older sloops Tahure and Marne. The Groupe Occasionnel with Lamotte-Picquet at its head, met a Thai squadron of two torpedo boats and the coastal defence ship HTMS Thonburi in the Battle of Koh Chang on 14 January 1941. The Thai squadron was defeated, with both torpedo boats sunk and the coastal defence ship run aground. The victory was for naught, however, as the Japanese forced a settlement in the Franco-Thai War in favour of the Thais. Apart from a visit to Osaka, Japan in September 1941, Lamotte-Picquet was thereafter restricted in her activities.
From the next month, Lamotte-Picquet was used as a training hulk. She was sunk in Đồng Nai River, on 12 January 1945, by U.S carrier based aircraft from Task Force 38 during the South China Sea raid. The remains of the hull were scrapped after the war.[2]
Notes
- Jordan & Moulin, p. 30
- "La Motte-Picquet Cruiser(Light) 1927-1945". Wrecksite.eu. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
Bibliography
- Guiglini, Jean & Moreau, Albert (2001). "French Light Cruisers: The First Light Cruisers of the 1922 Naval Program, Part 1". Warship International. XXXVIII (3): 269–299. ISSN 0043-0374.
- Guiglini, Jean & Moreau, Albert (2001). "French Light Cruisers: The First Light Cruisers of the 1922 Naval Program, Part 2". Warship International. XXXVIII (4): 355–390. ISSN 0043-0374.
- Jordan, John & Moulin, Jean (2013). French Cruisers 1922–1956. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-133-5.
External links
- (in French) L'histoire du croiseur La Motte-Picquet, netmarine
