NEW FRENCH WARSHIP.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 27, 29 December 1932, Page 7

NEW FRENCH WARSHIP.

OVERWHELMING REPLY TO

GERMANY

LONDON, Dec. 28. The Daily Telegraph’s naval correspondent says that the French battle-cruiser Dunquerque, the construction of which has been undertaken, compliments the British Navy by copying the sailent features of H.M.S. Nelson. She will in effect be a battle-cruiser version of the Nelson and the Hood, with all her heavy guns in the bows, and her boilers and machinery in the stern. The Dunquerque is an overwhelming reply to the German pocket battleship'. the correspondent continues. Sire is two and a-lialf times larger, four knots an hour faster, and fires a broadside twice as heavy as the battlecruiser. The Dunquerque will be able to engage any warship afloat without any undue risk. In order to neutralise the new German Navy and ensure predominance in the Channel, she will be based at Brest with two or three proposed sister ships.

It was announced last month that tho French Government had ended the battleship “holiday" by giving orders to lay down tho keel of tho battle-cruiser Dunquerque, the first capital ship built for the French Navy for nearly twenty years. Her displacement is 26,500 tons, and sho carries eight 13-inch guns. Her guns hava a range of 23 miles.