 Neptune on Penfeld river, c. 1892, by Edmond Chagot
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| History | |
|---|---|
 France | |
| Name | Neptune |
| Namesake | Neptune |
| Ordered | 7 October 1880 |
| Builder | Arsenal de Brest |
| Laid down | 17 April 1882 |
| Launched | 7 May 1887 |
| Commissioned | 15 May 1891 |
| In service | 1 December 1892 |
| Stricken | 4 February 1908 |
| Fate | Broken up, 1913 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Marceau-class ironclad |
| Displacement | 10,810 long tons (10,980 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 |
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| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) |
| Complement | 643–651 |
| Armament |
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| Armor |
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Neptune was an ironclad barbette ship of the French Navy built in the 1880s and early 1890s. She was the second member of the Marceau class, which included two other vessels. 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. They introduced the lozenge arrangement for their main battery that became common for many French capital ships built in the 1890s. Neptune and her sister ships suffered from a number of problems, including poor stability, insufficient armor protection, and excessive displacement.
Neptune, completed in 1892, 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. Neptune 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 saw no further active service, was struck from the naval register in 1908, and she was used as a target ship from then until 1912. Sunk in weapons tests in 1912, she was raised in 1913 and sold to ship breakers and dismantled.