French ironclad Amiral Baudin

Amiral Baudin after her reconstruction in the late 1890s
History
France
Name	Amiral Baudin
Namesake	Nicolas Baudin
Builder	Brest
Laid down	1 January 1879
Launched	5 June 1883
Commissioned	21 January 1889
Decommissioned	15 May 1908
Stricken	6 May 1909
Fate	Broken up, 1911
General characteristics
Class and type	Amiral Baudin-class ironclad
Displacement	11,720 long tons (11,910 t)
Length	101.4 m (332 ft 8 in) lwl
Beam	21.34 m (70 ft)
Draft	8.46 m (27 ft 9 in)
Installed power	12 × fire-tube boilers 8,400 indicated horsepower (6,300 kW)
Propulsion	2 × compound steam engines 2 × screw propellers
Speed	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement	625
Armament	3 × 370 mm (14.6 in) Modèle 1875 guns 4 × 163 mm (6.4 in) Modèle 1884 guns 8 × 138 mm (5.4 in) Modèle 1881 guns 4 × 47 mm (1.9 in) guns 1 × 47 mm Hotchkiss revolver cannon 14 × 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon 6 × 381 mm (15 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Belt: 356 to 559 mm (14 to 22 in) Conning tower: 79 to 119 mm (3.1 to 4.7 in) Barbettes: 406 mm (16 in)
General characteristics 1896–1898 refit
Armament	2 × 370 mm Modèle 1875 guns 4 × 163 mm Modèle 1887 guns 8 × 138 mm Modèle 1893 guns 2 x 65 mm (2.6 in) guns 20 x 47 mm guns 6 x 37 mm guns 6 × 37 mm Hotchkiss revolver cannon 4 × 381 mm torpedo tubes

Amiral Baudin was an ironclad barbette ship of the French Navy built in the late 1870s and 1880s. She was the lead ship of the Amiral Baudin class, which included one other vessel, Formidable. The Amiral Baudin class was designed in response to Italian naval expansion, and carried a main battery of three 370 mm (14.6 in) guns all mounted in open barbettes on the centerline. The armament was chosen after public pressure to compete with the very large guns mounted on the latest Italian ironclads. Amiral Baudin was laid down in 1879 and was completed in 1888.

Amiral Baudin spent most of her career in the Mediterranean Fleet, where she conducted fleet training exercises each year. Her career passed fairly uneventfully, though she was involved in a grounding in 1895. She was modernized between 1896 and 1898, which included removing her center main battery gun and barbette and installing a battery of light quick-firing guns in its place. After returning to service, she was transferred to the Northern Squadron, based in the English Channel, where the routine of peacetime training maneuvers continued. Withdrawn from active duty in 1903, she saw no further service and was stricken from the naval register in 1909. Converted into a barracks ship that year, she served in that capacity just through 1910 before being sold to ship breakers in early 1911.