"La Redoutable" - French battleship of 1878

The battleship "La Redoutable" is a steel armored ship with a central battery, built for the French Navy between 1873 and 1878. The first steel warship in the world. He saw active service in the 1880s and 1890s in the Mediterranean. 1901 he participated as part of the French escadre, when the "Boxer Rebellion" was suppressed in China. 1910 written off and sold for scrap. The Franco-Prussian War and its dire financial consequences for France led to a serious delay in the development of the ironclad fleet. 1867-1869 the ships, that had begun to be built, were completed extremely slowly due to insufficient funding of the Navy's programs and entered service already obsolete. Of the seven ocean-going armored ships, which in 1871-1878 joined the French fleet, six had wooden hulls and only one had iron. It was necessary to take urgent measures to change the situation. France was the first country in the world to master steel production on an industrial scale. As a structural material, steel was significantly superior to conventional wrought iron and was less sensitive to environmental influences. It was decided, that the new French armored ships should be built with the active use of steel. The battleship, named "La Redoutable", was launched at the Lorient shipyard in August 1873. It was the first ocean-going warship, built after the Franco-Prussian War and the first ship, to be built using a lot of steel. "La Reoutable" was a significant step forward for both French and world shipbuilding. For the first time, a large amount of steel was used in the hull, the rhombic arrangement of the weapons and many other elements. In the "La Redoutable" project, the French managed to avoid many of the mistakes of previous projects. It was a powerful, well-armed and properly configured battleship with good stability and excellent seaworthiness. This design first implemented the doctrine of matching the ratio of broadside to advancing/retreating firepower to the number of heavy guns, and later became a cornerstone of French design until the end of the 19th century. In addition, the French managed to build it quite quickly - only 5 years passed from laying the keel to taking it into service. In general, French shipbuilding managed to "return to the scene" with a truly impressive design that greatly influenced world shipbuilding and is quite on par with the latest British casemate battleships, such as HMS "Alexandra".

A small but complex, well designed and richly detailed ship model for intermediate to advanced modellers. The complexity is greatly increased by the developed rangout, only the sails and their control cables are absent. The model depicts a well-maintained ship (judging by the color of the decks), although You wouldn't be able to tell from the other detailing. There are templates for tying shingles, the stock of colors is small, the graphic instruction is excellent, the textual one is small and only complementary to the graphic one.