.jpg) Requin in Britain in 1892
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators |  French Navy |
| Preceded by | Vauban class |
| Succeeded by | Amiral Baudin class |
| Built | 1877–1888 |
| Completed | 4 |
| Scrapped | 4 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Barbette ship |
| 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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The Terrible class was a group of four ironclad barbette ships built for the French Navy in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The class consisted of Terrible, Indomptable, Caïman, and Requin, and is sometimes referred to as the Indomptable class. They were built as part of a fleet plan started in 1872 after the Franco-Prussian War and were designed in response to the German Sachsen class of barbette ships. The Terribles were scaled down versions of the Amiral Baudin class, with one less main gun, though they were of significantly larger caliber. Because the ships were intended for operations against the German fleet in the shallow Baltic Sea, they had a low draft and freeboard, which greatly hampered their seakeeping and thus reduced their ability to be usefully employed after entering service. Armament consisted of a pair of 420 mm (16.5 in) guns in individual barbettes, which were the largest guns ever mounted on a French capital ship.
Because of their poor seakeeping, the ships had limited careers, seeing active service for only a few years in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Thereafter, they spent much of their time in reserve, being activated only for fleet maneuvers. Requin made one voyage abroad to visit Russia and Great Britain in 1891. The ships were modernized in the late 1890s, receiving new guns, and in the case of Requin, new engines and boilers and some upgrades to her armor. Terrible was sunk as a target ship in 1909, and only Requin was still in service by the start of World War I in 1914. She was stationed as a guard ship in the Suez Canal, and she helped to repel an Ottoman attack in February 1915. She was scrapped in 1920 and the other two vessels were discarded in 1927–1928.