&sq=&lang=&file=File:Courbet_Q_22265_(cropped).jpg) Courbet before 1922
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| History | |
|---|---|
  France | |
| Name | Courbet |
| Namesake | Admiral Amédée Courbet |
| Operator | |
| Ordered | 11 August 1910 |
| Builder | Arsenal de Lorient |
| Cost | F57,700,000 |
| Laid down | 1 September 1910 |
| Launched | 23 September 1911 |
| Completed | 8 October 1913 |
| Commissioned | 19 November 1913 |
| Fate | Scuttled, 9 June 1944, during Operation Neptune |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Class and type | Courbet-class battleship |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 166 m (544 ft 7 in) (o/a) |
| Beam | 27 m (88 ft 7 in) |
| Draught | 9.04 m (29 ft 8 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion | 4 × shafts; 2 × steam turbine sets |
| Speed | 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph) |
| Endurance | 4,200 nmi (7,800 km; 4,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement | 1,115 (1,187 as flagship) |
| Armament |
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| Armour |
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Courbet was the lead ship of her class of four dreadnought battleships, the first ones built for the French Navy. She was completed shortly before the start of World War I in August 1914. She spent the war in the Mediterranean, where she helped to sink an Austro-Hungarian cruiser, covered the Otranto Barrage that blockaded the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea, and often served as a flagship. Although upgraded several times before World War II, she was not considered to be a first-line battleship by the 1930s and spent much of that decade as a gunnery training ship.
A few weeks after the German invasion of France on 10 May 1940, Courbet was hastily reactivated. She supported Allied troops in the defence of Cherbourg in mid-June, taking refuge in England shortly afterwards. As part of Operation Catapult, the ship was seized in Portsmouth by British forces on 3 July and was turned over to the Free French a week later. She was used as a stationary anti-aircraft battery and as an accommodation ship there. Courbet was disarmed in early 1941 and was used as a target ship during 1943. Her engines and boilers were removed in 1944 to prepare her for use as a breakwater during the Normandy landings (Operation Neptune) in June 1944. She was scrapped in situ after the war.