French cruiser Casabianca
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Casabianca was the third and final member of the D'Iberville class of torpedo cruisers built for the French Navy in the 1890s. The class is also sometimes classified as torpedo gunboats or torpedo avisos. The D'Iberville-class ships were a development of earlier torpedo cruisers, with the chief improvement being a significantly higher speed. Casabianca was armed with three 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes and a single 100 mm (3.9 in) gun as her primary offensive armament.
Casabianca, early in her career, c. 1896 | |
History | |
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France | |
Name | Casabianca |
Builder | Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde, Lormont |
Laid down | January 1894 |
Launched | 21 September 1895 |
Commissioned | 1896 |
Fate | Mined and sunk, 3 June 1915 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | D'Iberville-class torpedo cruiser |
Displacement | 970 long tons (990 t) |
Length | 80 m (262 ft 6 in) pp |
Beam | 8.08 to 8.2 m (26 ft 6 in to 26 ft 11 in) |
Draft | 3.45 m (11 ft 4 in) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion | |
Range | 6,000 nmi (11,000 km; 6,900 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
Complement | 140–143 |
Armament |
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Armor |
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The ship served with the Mediterranean Squadron for the majority of her peacetime career, following her completion in 1896. During this time, her chief activities consisted of annual fleet maneuvers conducted every summer. She had been stationed as a guard ship in Tunis, French Tunisia in 1901, before returning to the Mediterranean Squadron by 1903. She was later converted into a minelayer in 1913, and served in this capacity during World War I. Casabianca accidentally struck one of her own mines during an operation off Smyrna on 3 June 1915, sinking with the loss of half of her crew. Sixty-six survivors were rescued by a nearby British destroyer.