 Cassard
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 France | |
| Name | Cassard |
| Namesake | Jacques Cassard |
| Builder | Arsenal de Cherbourg |
| Laid down | 22 October 1894 |
| Launched | 27 May 1896 |
| Commissioned | 21 June 1897 |
| Stricken | 27 July 1924 |
| Fate | Broken up, 1925 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | D'Assas-class cruiser |
| Displacement | 3,957.1 t (3,894.6 long tons; 4,362.0 short tons) |
| Length | 99.65 m (326 ft 11 in) loa |
| Beam | 13.68 m (44 ft 11 in) |
| Draft | 5.8 m (19 ft 0 in) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) |
| Complement | 370–392 |
| Armament |
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| Armor |
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Cassard was a D'Assas-class protected cruiser built for the French Navy in the 1890s. The D'Assas-class cruisers were ordered as part of a construction program directed at strengthening the fleet's cruiser force at a time the country was concerned with the growing naval threat of the Italian and German fleets. The new cruisers were intended to serve with the main fleet and overseas in the French colonial empire. Cassard was armed with a main battery of six 164 mm (6.5 in) guns, was protected by an armor deck that was 70 to 80 mm (2.8 to 3.1 in) thick, and was capable of steaming at a top speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph).
Cassard entered service in 1898, joining the Mediterranean Squadron, where she served for the following several years. During this period, she was occupied primarily with routine training exercises. She had been reduced to the reserve fleet by 1905, though she was reactivated in 1908 for a deployment to French Morocco. At the start of World War I in 1914, she initially operated out of Morocco, patrolling for German U-boats. In September, she bombarded local villages in Morocco to suppress challenges to French colonial rule. The ship was later transferred to the western Mediterranean and Red Seas, along with a deployment to the Indian Ocean in 1917. After the war, Cassard was partially disarmed and converted into a gunnery training ship, though she was struck from the naval register in 1924, grounded for use as a target ship, and then sold for scrap in 1925.