INTRODUCTION PART 2: TECHNOLOGICAL HISTORY

INTRODUCTION: THE FRENCH NAVY, 1816-1859

PART 2: TECHNOLOGICAL HISTORY

Innovations in Sail
        France in 1816 faced an opponent with an overwhelming superiority in numbers of both ships of the line and frigates. The Americans, however, had demonstrated during the War of 1812 a way to overcome this problem--they did not try to compete in numbers, but built frigates larger and stronger than the standard British models. Thus, while British (and French) frigates carried 18-pounder guns, some American frigates carried 24-pounders in hulls that were bigger and more solidly built than their European counterparts. The French resolved to follow the American example and decided on the general characteristics for a class of 24-pounder frigates in May 1817. In a proposed naval program drafted in 1818, the minister not only increased the number of frigates relative to ships of the line but specified that the first eight frigates to be built would be of the new, large type. After a design competition, the first ship of the new group, Jeanne d'Arc, was laid down in 1819.
        Even such a simple matter as increasing the caliber of guns in frigates led to unexpected complications: in fact, it upset the whole system of ship construction in the French navy. The 74-gun ship of the line, then the backbone of the battle line, had been built since 1786 to a standard design with 36-pounders on the gun deck, 18-pounders on the main deck, and 8-pounders or carronades on the spardeck (upper deck). In rough weather, however, these ships had to close their gun deck ports to keep the water out, which meant that in unfavorable seas their armament would be reduced to the 18-pounders on the main deck, no match for the 24-pounders in the new frigates. The adoption of the new frigates meant that the old 74 had to go, and in 1819 a new "74" was designed with 24-pounder guns on the main deck. This design, however, was larger and almost as well armed as the navy's standard 80-gun ship, further disrupting the rank structure, and the extra weight of its guns made it unstable.
        The new 24-pounder frigates were a disappointment in service. When Jeanne d'Arc went to sea on trials, she was found to be too small to carry her armament at either the designed speed or height above water. During the 1820s the armament of the class was progressively reduced. While the matter was under discussion, the naval commander at Toulon, following an ancient practice, received permission to "razee" an old 74 whose upper deck had become rotten. The result was a powerful frigate, Guerrière, with a battery of 36-pounders (her former gun deck battery). Her armament outclassed the 24-pounder frigates, and she performed brilliantly on her sailing trials because of the ample dimensions of her hull.
        The creation of two new types of frigates and the inadequacy of the old and new 74-gun ship designs forced the navy to revise its entire rating structure for warships for the first time since 1786. The new structure was proposed in 1822 by Baron Tupinier. Tupinier felt that the 24-pounder frigate would be as successful as the razees if its hull were increased in size by some 15 percent. As for the problem with the ships of the line, he made the obvious suggestion of abandoning the effort to improve the 74 and instead making the old 80, whose hull was better proportioned to carry the desired armament, the backbone of the new fleet. He then looked at the proposed new classes and noted that there would be a big gap in strength between the 24-pounder frigates and 36-pounder razees, and also a gap between the old 118-gun three-decker (which he proposed keeping unchanged) and his enlarged 80. No other nation had filled these gaps, but Tupinier proposed that, just as the United States had taken the technological lead at sea with her jump to 24-pounders, France should now take it with a jump to 30-pounders. He proposed adding a 30-pounder frigate and a super two-decker ship of the line with 30 pounders on the main deck.
        The rationale behind these proposals became somewhat clouded when, during the deliberations on his report, Tupinier proposed an additional innovation: arming all the ships of the line in the fleet with the same caliber gun, 30-pounders, of varying lengths and weights depending on their position in the ships. This resulted in the deletion of the 36-pounder frigate, because the 36-pounder gun was to be eliminated from the fleet.
        Tupinier's system was formally adopted as the standard for the new navy in a royal ordinance signed on 10 March 1824, which also gave legal sanction to Portal's fleet of 40 ships of the line and 50 frigates. In its final form the system called for four classes of battleships: the old three-decker, now carrying 120 guns, Tupinier's new large two-decker with 100 guns, his successor to the old 80 which now carried 90 guns, and a handful of 74s (now with 82 guns), restored to the program for use in shallow water. The three classes of frigates: 30-pounder, 24-pounder, and the old 18-pounder, continued to be distinguished by their artillery until the system of a uniform armament of 30-pounders was extended to them in the 1830s.
        Remarkably, the disruption in sailing ship categories stopped abruptly with the decree of 1824. This indicated that Tupinier had in fact restored an equilibrium between the different classes of ships by producing roughly equal intervals of size, strength, and cost between them. It also reflected the fact that the equilibrium was not challenged from the outside. The British built a few equivalents to Tupinier's 100-gun ship of the line, but avoided any further innovations in ship design and were even slower to match the larger classes of French frigates.

Steam Propulsion
        One of the two innovations which revolutionized naval warfare in the middle of the 19th century was steam navigation. The French navy took an early and strong interest in it. The navy realized from the beginning that the principle involved in steam navigation, mobility independent of the wind, was of enormous military importance, and it embarked on what today we would call a research and development program. The navy's first exposure to steam came in 1818 when it was called upon to provide two small steamers for use in an expedition up the Senegal River. Even at this very early stage, the navy resolved to build both the hulls and engines in France rather than buying them in England. This was a risky decision, since no fully satisfactory steamer had yet been built in France; but the navy wanted to give French industry experience with the new technology and, if possible, to free France from reliance on Britain for steamers. Despite flaws in their design and construction, the two ships, Africain and Voyageur, gave good service in Senegal.
        In 1819 the navy decided to compensate for France's almost complete lack of experience with steam by sending an engineer, Marestier, and a naval officer to the United States to collect as much information as they could. Information was also collected by a series of visitors to England. Steam made its first appearance in the French navy's building program when a steam floating battery similar to the American Fulton I was included in the 1821 budget. The navy soon cancelled this project because it realized that there was a more urgent need, in peacetime as well as in war, for steam tugs that could tow large warships in and out of the major ports. In September 1822 the navy ordered two 80nhp steamers, Coureur and Rapide, for use as tugs at Rochefort, plus a similar 60nhp ship, Caroline, for use in French Guiana. Responsibility for building these ships was naturally given to Marestier. Once again, the hulls and engines were built in France, but Marestier felt it necessary to order the engines from English-owned factories located in France. Coureur demonstrated in her trials in 1824 that she could tow anything up to a large transport out of port in fair weather against wind and tide by herself, and that two of her type could tow a frigate.
        The navy was quick to build on this experience, and in early 1825 included four new steamers in the budget for 1826. Three of these, Nageur, Pélican, and Souffleur, were originally to have had 80nhp each, but, probably on the basis of the trials of the earlier ships, this was doubled to 160nhp, also well above the 100nhp which was then the maximum in the British navy. This increase in size would hopefully enable each to tow a frigate alone and would give the steamers better qualities at sea. The new type figured prominently in the navy's first steamer building program, drawn up by a special commission in late 1826. This program called for an initial fleet of 30 steamers: 24 of 160nhp plus the six smaller ones already existing.
        The navy encountered major technical problems in producing the three new large ships. Their construction fell behind schedule and they proved to have major design faults. One result was that the navy lost faith in the private engine builders then in France. This prompted it to take two crucial steps in 1827: it purchased in England an engine for a a new 160nhp ship, Sphinx, in order to get a sample of the latest technology, and it established its own steam engine factory at Indret where it could control the production of future machinery. Sphinx proved to be completely successful and the navy adopted her and her engine as a model for future steamer construction.
        Between 1830 and 1840 the navy made a concerted effort to develop an infrastructure of factories capable of building marine steam machinery in France. The navy felt it had to take the lead, because the French merchant marine did not offer a large enough market to support a steam engine industry. In 1833, when the British merchant marine had 382 steamers, France had only 75 with an average of 30 horsepower each. By 1838 the French steam merchant marine had about doubled, but so had the British.
        During the 1830s, France built 23 copies of Sphinx for the navy, ten more for a postal packet service, plus a number of smaller steamers. This permitted the navy to keep Indret busy and also award contracts to private builders. The first contracts under this policy were awarded to Hallette at Arras and Cavé at Paris in 1831-32. Both remained dependable builders of navy engines until the late 1840s. Efforts to develop additional competition in the field were largely unsuccessful until the Schneider brothers at Le Creusot received their first contract in 1839. The navy's relations with its engine builders, including its own yards, are summarized in table 4.

TABLE 4

FRENCH NAVAL ENGINE BUILDERS, 1819-1859

Ships:		Max	Name	Location
1st	Last	NHP

1819	1819	32	Périer (Scipion)	Paris (Chaillot)
1823	1827	160	Manby (Aaron) & Wilson	Charenton
1828	1828	160	Aitken & Steel	Paris (à la Gare)
1828	1828	160	Gengembre (Philippe)	Paris
1830	1830	160	Frimot	Landerneau
1831	1831	60	Dumoulin (G.)	Paris
1831	1831	120	Martin (Emile)	Fourchambault
1832	1832	40	Pelletan & De la Barre	?
1832	--	1200	INDRET
1833	1848	450	Hallette (Alexis)	Arras
1833	1856	900	Cavé (François)	Paris (St. Denis)
1839	1839	160	Villack (R. de)	Charenton
1839	1841	160	Sudds, Adkins & Barker	Rouen
1841	--	650	Schneider Bros.	Le Creusot
1842	1843	220	Pauwels	Paris (St. Denis)
1842	1843	220	Stéhélin & Huber	Bitschwiller
1843	1843	80	Beslay	Paris
1844	1851	450	Benet (Louis)	La Ciotat
1844	1858	900	CHERBOURG
1844	--	650	Mazeline Bros.	Le Havre
1846	1847	180	Baboneau (J.-A.)	Nantes
1846	1854	200	Gâche (Vincent) & Voruz	Nantes (2 firms)
1846	1858	400	LORIENT
1847	1847	200	Taylor (Philip)	Marseilles
1848	1854	200	Nillus (Charles-Michel)	Le Havre
1848	1869	480	ROCHEFORT
1852	1856	500	BREST
1854	1858	900	TOULON
1855	1855	90	Charbonnier, Bourguignon	Paris (Asnières)
1855	1855	90	Gouin	Nantes
1855	--	600	Forges & Ch. de la Med.	La Seyne (FCM)

NOTES TO TABLE 4: Foreign builders used by the navy were Fawcett & Preston of Liverpool (1829-41), Fenton, Murray & Jackson of Leeds (1836), Maudslay of London (1837), Miller & Ravenhill of London (1842), Rontgen of Fijenoord, Holland (1844-45) and Napier of Glasgow (1857).

        Another important development in the 1830s was the increase in the size of steamers. The British demonstrated in the early 1830s that larger engines were feasible, and the desire to keep up with the British finally impelled the navy to break with the Sphinx model and order its first 220nhp steamer in 1836. It hedged against technological uncertainty by ordering a 220nhp engine from the English firm that had built the engine of Sphinx. Hardly had the navy settled on the 220nhp steamer as its new standard than the size of steamers in England increased again, first to 320nhp, then to 450nhp. These new large ships offered additional capabilities: they could cross the Atlantic without refueling, and they could carry their main guns below their upper deck like true frigates. In 1839 and 1840 France placed orders for its first steamers of 320nhp and 450nhp. Once again, it ordered the first engines of the new sizes in England.
        The French navy took its last big step towards independence of England in steam technology in 1840. In 1838 French shipping interests began efforts to develop transatlantic steam packet lines to compete with ones being established by English firms. All their proposals, however, relied on a large postal subsidy from the French government, which decided, after long deliberations, that it wanted to ensure that the ships would be suitable for military use and would be immediately available in case of war. The only way to accomplish this was for the government to build the ships and run the lines itself (as it was doing with the 160nhp packets in the Mediterranean). On 16 July 1840 a law was passed that directed the navy to build 14 ships of 450nhp and 4 of 220nhp for use on three packet lines. (A fourth line was to be commercially operated.)
        The original intention was to order the engines for most of the packets in England, where prices were lower and quality was higher. However the Levant crisis with England reached its climax on the day after the packet bill was signed. The navy reexamined the issue and concluded that it should buy the engines in France in order to encourgage French industry and end France's dependence on England for marine steam engines. This decision resulted in Schneider receiving orders for five 450nhp engines, Cavé getting four, and Hallette three. Each builder had to expand his facilities to build engines of this size, but all proved equal to the challenge. In May 1843 the first of the ships, Labrador, ran trials and the trials board concluded that her machinery was superior to the English machinery in a similar ship, Asmodée.
        During the 1840s further advances in steam navigation came thick and fast in England. Direct-acting engines, tubular boilers, the screw propellor, and iron hulls for ships all appeared within a few years of each other, while the largest engines approached 900nhp in size. French engineers watched these developments closely, sometimes going to England to do so. They no longer bought samples in England, however, before producing their own improvements. Practically all French naval machinery after 1840 was designed and built in France. Several important new French engine firms appeared, notably Mazeline at Le Havre and Benet at La Ciotat. The success of Dupuy de Lôme's fast screw ship of the line Napoléon indicated that by around 1850 French engineers and production facilities were able to compete on nearly equal terms with their English counterparts.

Naval Gunnery
        The second of the two innovations which revolutionized naval warfare between 1816 and 1859 was the shell gun. In 1821 a French artillery officer, Paixhans, wrote that the day of the ship of the line had passed. His secret was a gun which would fire explosive shells instead of solid shot. Explosive shells had long been fired from mortars, but these used a vertical trajectory which precluded accurate aiming, particularly from a moving ship. A number of artillery officers had experimented with firing explosive shot from regular cannon, which, with their horizontal trajectory, could be accurately aimed; and Paixhans felt that he had finally overcome the technical problems that had frustrated his predecessors.
        The navy was sufficiently interested in the technical details of Paixhans' gun to test it in January 1824 against an old 80-gun ship, the Pacificateur. The effects were dramatic: the explosions of the shells tore gaping holes in the sides of the ship, and the trials board realized that a hit on the waterline might have sunk her. From that day on, navies faced a dilemma: the wooden ship of the line was the only form of sea power that they could imagine, but any ship, large or small, with a few well-handled shell guns had the potential to destroy it.
        The trials board recommended wholesale adoption of the new invention in coastal forts, gunboats, mortar vessels, and floating batteries. (A second report also included steamers, which subsequently made extensive use of the new artillery.) However it only recommended limited use of shell guns in ships of the line: two to four in each ship, and only after further tests. The board indicated that its main fear was that large quantities of explosive shells could not safely be stowed in a wooden ship under enemy fire. Later critics also complained that the shell gun had a shorter effective range and was less reliable than conventional long guns.
        Paixhans remained convinced that shell guns could destroy any conventional battleship afloat, and in a remarkable leap of the imagination predicted that the answer to the dilemma might be a large ship with an iron hull, armor on its sides, and steam propulsion. He erred only in thinking that iron hulls and armor would neutralize artillery, and that the main armament of such a ship would be large numbers of soldiers who would carry the enemy by boarding! Lieutenant Montgery, an officer who generally supported new innovations, reacted more cautiously. He wrote in 1822 that, if one side used shell guns, the other would too, requiring each side to develop defenses against them. Experiments in the United States had shown that five inches of iron plate would stop projectiles from shell guns. Hence, he argued, the new weapon could be nullified, after the expenditure of much money, leaving neither side better off than before.
        Whatever the reason, the shell gun entered the battle fleet in France slowly (though not as slowly as in England). It was not mentioned at all in a decision establishing the standard armament of all the ships of the fleet in 1828. It first appeared in small numbers in large ships in a similar decree in 1838, reflecting experiments which had begun a few years previously. Several classes of smaller ships in this decree, however, were armed almost entirely with shell guns, notably spardeck corvettes and all steamers. During the 1840s the system of standard armaments began to break down as more and more experiments were conducted with shell guns on larger ships. Noteworthy was the frigate Psyché, commissioned in 1846 with an armament including 18 22cm shell guns on her main deck. The last decree to have much effect on the fleet, issued in 1848, increased the number of shell guns in the batteries of ships of the line and frigates, and further increases took place in the 1850s.
        Meanwhile, the search for more powerful types of artillery accelerated. In the early 1840s the French developed a 27cm shell gun to match the British 10-inch shell gun. In 1844 Joinville proposed putting two on the steam frigate Infernal, but they were found to be too cumbersome and were replaced with 22cm shell guns. (The 27cm shell gun was later carried by the steam frigate Sané during the Crimean War.) In the same report, Joinville recommended that the navy develop a 50pdr smoothbore, also for use on steamers. Its introduction was accelerated after the French saw British steamers use a 68pdr gun in the joint Anglo-French action at Obligado against the Argentines in 1845. In 1849 the French adopted two new models of guns, the 30pdr No.3 and No.4, to replace 30pdr carronades and 16cm shell guns on large ships. In 1856 they decided to revive 36pdr guns and carronades in place of the largest 30pdrs. These models, along with the others used by the French navy in 1816-59, are summarized in table 5.

TABLE 5

PARTICULARS OF FRENCH NAVAL ARTILLERY

Desig	Cal.	Model	Lngth	Lngth	Wght	Proj.	Notes
	in.	Year	ft-in	Cals.	cwt.	lb.
Long Guns
50pdr	7.6"		10'5"	16.4	91.0	55.5
36pdr	6.9"	1786	9'5"	16.1	69.3	40.3	Also M1856 (9'8")
30pdr No.1	6.5"	1820	9'3"	16.5	59.7	33.8	Also M1849 (9'1")
30pdr No.2	"	1820	8'6"	15.4	48.9	"	Also M1849 (8'4")
30pdr No.3	"	1849	7'7"	13.7	42.1	"
30pdr No.4	"	1849	7'4"	13.3	36.6	"
24pdr long	6.0"	1786	9'0"	17.6	49.3	26.6
24pdr short	"	1824	8'4"	16.3	41.6	"
18pdr long	5.5"	1786	8'5"	18.1	40.6	20.1
18pdr short	"	1824	7'11"	17.0	33.8	"
12pdr long	4.8"	1786	8'0"	19.5	28.9	13.4
12pdr short	"	1824	7'3"	18.8	23.1	"
12pdr No.3	"	1856	6'3"	15.6		"	Small ships and boats
8pdr long	4.2"	1786	8'6"	24.0	22.9	9.0
Pierrier	2.1"	1786	3'0"	17.2	1.7	1.1	Also M1840. In boats

Carronades
36pdr	6.8"	1825	4'8"	7.9	22.6	40.3	Also M1804, M1856
30pdr	6.4"	1820	4'9"	8.4	19.9	33.8
24pdr	5.9"	1824	4'1"	7.8	14.9	"	Also M1804
18pdr	5.4"	1818	3'9"	7.8	11.4	20.1
12pdr	4.8"	1818	3'3"	7.6	7.5	13.4	Used in boats, etc.

Shell Guns
27cm	10.8"		8'8"	9.2	102.3
22cm No.1	8.8"	1827	8'2"	10.6	71.6	57.0	Chamber as 24pdr
22cm No.1	"	1841	8'2"	10.6	71.6	"	Chamber as 30pdr
22cm No.1	"	1842	9'1"	12.0	71.1	"	Also M1849
22cm No.2	"	1842	8'1"	10.6	53.6	"	Also M1849
16cm	6.4"	1827	7'2"	13.0	29.1	22.1	Also M1849
12cm No.1	4.7"	(1849)			5.9		Field gun, small ships
12cm No.2	"	(1839)	2'10"	6.8	2.0	8.6	Mountain gun in boats
32cm mortar	12.8"	1840	4'1"	3.0	85.8		Also M1859

Muzzle-loading Rifles
16cm	6.5"	1855	8'2"	14.3	77.2	58.2	Conv. 22cm No.1 M1841
16cm	6.5"	1858-60	9'8"	16.7	71.6	69.5	Also M1858
14cm No.1	5.5"	(1864)	8'5"	17.5	45.3	41.2	Conv. 18pdr long
14cm No.2	5.5"	(1867)	7'11"	16.5	36.0	"	Conv. 18pdr short
12cm	4.8"	(1859)	6'3"	15.4	12.0	23.8	Conv. Army field gun

Breech-loading Rifles
16cm	6.5"	1860	9'8"	15.9	71.6	69.5
16cm	"	1864-66	11'1"	19.2	98.4	"	Also 99lb solid shot.
14cm	5.5"	1864-67			37.4	41.2

NOTES TO TABLE 5 Lengths are nominal (face of muzzle to back of base ring) for muzzleloaders, maximum for breechloaders. Lengths of carronades and shell guns are close approximations.
Weights of projectiles are for solid shot for long smoothbores and shells for the others. Shell guns were named after the solid shot that matched their bore: the 27cm, 22cm, and 16cm were also called 150pdr, 80pdr, and 30pdr shell guns respectively. Until 1862 the weight of the shell for 16cm M1858 and 1860 rifles was 67.0lb.
The pierriers and all three 12cm models were made of bronze.
This table is repeated in Appendix C with units of measurements in the metric system.

        The main artillery innovation of the 1850s, however, was the rifled gun. The French had began serious experiments with rifled cannon in 1845. Trials in 1854 of a 16cm rifle converted from a 22cm No.1 M1841 shell gun were successful, and the gun was ordered put in production for use against the Sebastopol forts in the Crimean War. The guns did not reach the Crimea in time but were used at Canton and in Indochina in 1858. Rifles of 14cm and 19cm converted from the 30pdr No.3 and 50pdr were developed at the same time but not put in service. In the 1860s, long and short 18pdrs were converted to 14cm rifles to replace the smaller 30pdrs (No.2 through No.4) and larger guns (especially the 30pdr No.1 and the 22cm No.1 M1841) were rifled for use in coastal fortifications.
        In 1858 the French introduced their first wholly new rifle, the M1858 16cm gun. It had the same external dimensions as the 36pdr, and replaced it and the 30pdr No.1. In 1859 they introduced three improvements to this weapon: modified rifling (the M1858-60 MLR), a steel sleeve shrunk over the cast iron breech for added strength (applied to all guns of this type as quickly as possible) and breech loading (the M1860 BLR).
        Simultaneously, the French introduced 4.7in iron armor on the Gloire class in response to earlier advances in artillery. They then developed a rifled 45kg oblong solid shot to defeat the new armor, but discovered that the M1858 and M1860 guns, designed to fire a 31.5kg oblong shell, were not strong enough to fire it. They therefore designed a new 16cm gun in 1864-66 to fire this shot, and it, along with three larger M1864-66 guns (19cm, 24cm, and 27cm), inaugurated France's participation in the battle between gun and armor.

Ship Design
        The controversy which surrounded ship design in England during this period was almost completely absent in France. This stability was probably due to two features of the French system which the English lacked: a central administration which maintained firm control over the design process, and a professional corps of naval constructors.
        Responsibility for administering ship design, along with many other matters such as operating the dockyards, rested in a directorate at the Ministry of Marine known initially as the Directorate of Ports and later as the Directorate of Works and the Directorate of Materiel. The head of this directorate was a senior naval constructor who reported directly to the Minister and also participated on some of the navy's most important advisory councils. He shared his influence over the design process with the head of the French naval constructor corps, the Génie Maritime. The Génie was already an established institution, having been created in 1800 from a similar organization which had existed since 1756. Its head controled the careers of his subordinates and supervised the technical aspects of ship design and construction.
        In addition to providing central control of the design process, these two officials also provided remarkable continuity. One man, Baron Tupinier, was Director of Ports for 20 years from 1823 to 1842, and another, Baron Rolland, served as head of the Génie Maritime for a similar period, from 1817 to 1837. A particularly active ship designer, Boucher, served as head of the Génie from 1837 to 1842, Director of Ports from 1842 to 1847, and again as head of the Génie from 1847 to 1851. Dupuy de Lôme revived this tradition of longevity by serving as Director of Material from 1857 to 1869.
        There was still considerable room in the French system for autonomy and innovation. The naval constructors who actually designed and built the ships were concentrated in the five main naval ports (Cherbourg, Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, and Toulon). They served under Maritime Prefects and local Directors of Naval Construction who also had substantial authority and influence. The Director of Naval Construction at Rochefort from 1831 to 1845 was Hubert, a particularly successful designer of frigates and steamers.
        The normal procedure for initiating a new design was for Paris to decide on a set of general specifications and then send circulars to the ports inviting any engineers who were interested to submit plans. In essence, these circulars set in motion a design competition between the ports. When the plans arrived in Paris, the navy's technical advisory board, the Council of Works, would evaluate their technical merits and the Director of Ports would recommend a course of action to the Minister. He did not feel obliged to limit his choice to one plan: if several were satisfactory, he often recommended building one or more ships to each so their performance could be compared at sea. Thus the frigate competition of 1817 led to construction of ships on four different plans, all based on the same specifications. This practice was applied often in subsequent years, especially to sail frigates and spardeck corvettes. It was not, however, applied to ships of the line.
        The interaction between Paris and the ports also provided opportunities for engineers to promote their own ideas. Dupuy de Lôme, for example, persuaded the Maritime Prefect at Toulon in 1845 to send to Paris his proposal for an iron-hulled armored frigate. Paris turned down this proposal, but Dupuy de Lôme soon found another opportunity in a circular sent to the ports in December 1846. The minister asked the ports to submit plans for the installation of steam engines in existing ships of the line, but Dupuy de Lôme responded with a proposal, based on his earlier work, for an entirely new ship with much greater steam power. This time, good luck and strong support from Toulon and the Prince de Joinville enabled him to overcome opposition in Paris and secure an order to build his ship, which became the highly successful Napoléon.

APPENDIX C
TABLE 5 IN METRIC MEASUREMENTS
PARTICULARS OF FRENCH NAVAL ARTILLERY

Desig	Cal.	Model	Lngth	Lngth	Wght	Proj.	Notes
	mm.	Year	cm.	Cals.	Gun kg	kg.
Long Guns
50pdr	194.0		317.0	16.4	4624	25.15
36pdr	174.8	1786	286.5	16.1	3520	18.28	Also M1856 (293.5cm)
30pdr No.1	164.7	1820	282.9	16.5	3035	15.34	Also M1849 (277.5cm)
30pdr No.2	"	1820	259.0	15.4	2487	"	Also M1849 (255.0cm)
30pdr No.3	"	1849	231.0	13.7	2140	"
30pdr No.4	"	1849	223.0	13.3	1860	"
24pdr long	152.5	1786	273.5	17.6	2504	12.08
24pdr short	"	1824	253.9	16.3	2115	"
18pdr long	138.7	1786	257.2	18.1	2062	9.12
18pdr short	"	1824	240.1	17.0	1716	"
12pdr long	120.7	1786	243.0	19.5	1466	6.09
12pdr short	"	1824	221.5	18.8	1174	"
12pdr No.3	"	1856	190.5	15.6		"	Small ships and boats
8pdr long	106.0	1786	259.8	24.0	1166	4.08
Pierrier	53.0	1786	92.0	17.2	85	0.49	Also M1840. In boats

Carronades
36pdr	172.6	1825	143.3	7.9	1146	18.28	Also M1804, M1856
30pdr	163.0	1820	143.8	8.4	1011	15.34
24pdr	150.8	1824	124.1	7.8	755	"	Also M1804
18pdr	137.6	1818	114.3	7.8	578	9.12
12pdr	120.7	1818	98.6	7.6	381	6.09	Used in boats, etc.

Shell Guns
27cm	274.4		262.9	9.2	5200
22cm No.1	223.3	1827	249.1	10.6	3636	25.86	Chamber as 24pdr
22cm No.1	"	1841	249.1	10.6	3636	"	Chamber as 30pdr
22cm No.1	"	1842	277.7	12.0	3614	"	Also M1849
22cm No.2	"	1842	246.4	10.6	2722	"	Also M1849
16cm	163.0	1827	217.6	13.0	1480	10.00	Also M1849
12cm No.1	120.5	(1849)			300		Field gun, small ships
12cm No.2	"	(1839)	86.0	6.8	100	3.9	Mountain gun in boats
32cm mortar	324.8	1840	124.4	3.0	4361		Also M1859

Muzzle-loading Rifles
16cm	165.0	1855	249.1	14.3	3924	26.4	Conv. 22cm No.1 M1841
16cm	164.7	1858-60	293.5	16.7	3640	31.5	Also M1858
14cm No.1	140.0	(1864)	257.2	17.5	2300	18.7	Conv. 18pdr long
14cm No.2	138.7	(1867)	240.1	16.5	1830	"	Conv. 18pdr short
12cm	121.3	(1859)	191.0	15.4	610	10.8	Conv. Army field gun

Breech-loading Rifles
16cm	164.7	1860	295.0	15.9	3640	31.5
16cm	"	1864-66	338.5	19.2	5000	"	Also 45kg solid shot.
14cm	138.7	1864-67			1900	18.7

NOTES TO APPENDIX C: Lengths are nominal (face of muzzle to back of base ring) for muzzleloaders, maximum for breechloaders. Lengths of carronades and shell guns are close approximations.
Weights of projectiles are for solid shot for long smoothbores and shells for the others. Shell guns were named after the solid shot that matched their bore: the 27cm, 22cm, and 16cm were also called 150pdr, 80pdr, and 30pdr shell guns respectively. Until 1862 the weight of the shell for 16cm M1858 and 1860 rifles was 30.4kg.
The pierriers and all three 12cm models were made of bronze.