 Indomptable, c. the late 1880s
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| History | |
|---|---|
 France | |
| Name | Indomptable |
| Laid down | 5 December 1877 |
| Launched | 18 September 1883 |
| Commissioned | 10 November 1885 |
| Stricken | 3 August 1910 |
| Fate | Broken up, 1927 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Terrible-class ironclad |
| Displacement | 7,767.2 t (7,644.5 long tons; 8,561.9 short tons) |
| Length | 88.25 m (289 ft 6 in) loa |
| Beam | 17.78 m (58 ft 4 in) |
| Draft | 7.74 m (25 ft 5 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 14.5 to 15 kn (26.9 to 27.8 km/h; 16.7 to 17.3 mph) |
| Range | 1,678 nmi (3,108 km; 1,931 mi) at 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) |
| Complement | 373 |
| Armament |
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| Armor |
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| General characteristics (as modernized) | |
| Installed power | 12 × fire-tube boilers |
| Complement | 332 |
| Armament |
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Indomptable was an ironclad barbette ship built for the French Navy in the late 1870s and early 1880s. She was second member of the Terrible class, which included three other vessels. They were built as part of a fleet plan started in 1872, which by the late 1870s had been directed against a strengthening Italian fleet. The ships were intended for coastal operations, and as such had a shallow draft and a low freeboard, which greatly hampered their seakeeping and thus reduced their ability to be usefully employed after entering service. The main armament consisted of two 420 mm (16.5 in) guns, one fore and one aft, mounted in barbettes—the largest gun ever mounted on a French capital ship. Indomptable was laid down in 1878 and was completed in 1887.
Due to their handling problems, Indomptable and her sister ships saw little active service with the French fleet, instead spending most of their careers in the Reserve Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet. During this period, the ship spent most of the year out of service with reduced crews, only being reactivated for the fleet maneuvers each year. She was modernized in 1898 with new guns, but by the early 1900s, numerous, more effective pre-dreadnought battleships had been built. These ships displaced Indomptable and her sisters in the Reserve Squadron, and she was reduced to a guard ship in Toulon in 1902. She was used as a hulk at the Arsenal de Rochefort until 1927, when she was broken up.