French ironclad Magenta (1890)

Magenta early in her career
History
France
Name	Magenta
Builder	Toulon
Laid down	18 January 1883
Launched	19 April 1890
Commissioned	1 July 1892
Decommissioned	28 October 1907
In service	29 October 1893
Stricken	6 May 1909
Fate	Sold, 1911
General characteristics
Class and type	Marceau-class ironclad
Displacement	10,680 long tons (10,850 t)
Length	98.6 m (323 ft 6 in) lpp
Beam	20.06 to 20.19 m (66 to 66 ft)
Draft	8.23 to 8.43 m (27 ft 0 in to 27 ft 8 in)
Installed power	8 × fire tube boilers 11,000 ihp (8,200 kW)
Propulsion	4 × compound steam engines 2 × screw propellers
Speed	16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Complement	643–651
Armament	4 × 340mm/28 Modèle 1881 guns 16 × 138mm/30 Modèle 1884 guns 3–7 × 65 mm (2.6 in) Mle 1891 guns 9–18 × 1 - 47/40 guns 3–6 × 380 mm (15 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Belt: 229 to 457 mm (9 to 18 in) Deck: 80 mm (3.1 in) Conning tower: 120 to 150 mm (4.7 to 6 in) Barbettes: 406 mm (16 in) Gun shields: 64 mm (2.5 in)

Magenta was an ironclad barbette ship of the French Navy built in the 1880s and early 1890s. She was the third and final member of the Marceau class. The Marceau class was based on the earlier Amiral Baudin class of barbette ships, but with smaller guns: four 340 mm (13.4 in) weapons compared to the three 420 mm (16.5 in) guns of the earlier vessels. The ships introduced the lozenge arrangement for their main battery that became common for many French capital ships built in the 1890s. Magenta and her sister ships suffered from a number of problems, including poor stability, insufficient armor protection, and excessive displacement.

Magenta, completed in 1893, had a relatively short and uneventful career, which she spent in the Mediterranean Squadron conducting training exercises. New pre-dreadnought battleships began to enter service in the mid-1890s, which displaced the Marceaus to the Reserve Division, where they were used as training ships. Magenta and her sisters were scheduled to be modernized with new water-tube boilers in the early 1900s, but by the time the new boilers were delivered, ironclads like the Marceaus were obsolete, and so no work was carried out. She thereafter returned to training duties before being struck from the naval register in 1909. She was sold to ship breakers in 1911.