Magenta class Broadside Ironclads (1861)

France: Magenta, Solferino 1859-63, Broadside Ironclads (1963-82)

Marine Nationale's Ironclads

Gloire class | Couronne Bd. Ironclad | Magenta class Bd. Ironclads | Arrogante class Flt. Batteries | Provence class | Embuscade class | Palestro class Flt. Batteries | Taureau | Belliqueuse Bd. | Ocean class | Alma class

Continuing into French 1860s capital ships, after Couronne, the first French all-Iron answer to the Warriors, let’s see rather unique ships, bearing Italian sounding names (of recent Imperial Victories): The Magenta class. These French Navy (Marine Nationale) early 1860s vessels designed by famous naval architect Dupuy de Lôme were the only two-deckers ever built, as well as the first ironclads to feature a naval ram as integral to the hull. They were classed as “ironclad ships of the line” and remained world’s unique ships for this. They would remain under commission until 1875 for Magenta (written off after an accidental explosion) and Solferino in 1882.

The Magenta is one of a series of ships designed by Dupuy de Lôme between 1859 and 1872, described as the “largest wooden-hulled vessels ever built in French shipyards” with a series of 23 capital ships.

Design of the class

The Magenta class originated from the same naval architect Henri Dupuy de Lôme which created the Napoléon in 1850, first steamship of the line, and Gloire, first sea going ironclad in 1859. The latter class was criticized for their Frigate’s lower battery was unworkable in the North Atlantic heavy weather, as their gun ports were impaired by seawater splashes and sometimes high waves.

Dupuy de Lôme addressed these concerns by a radical idea: Giving them an upper spar deck with guns workable in all weathers. They still kept a normal battery deck underneath. This rather unique solution had them presented as “ironclad ships of the line” and they remained unique in that guise in the French Navy. They were ordered years before the battle of Lissa (1859) and yet Dupuy de Lôme theorized their machinery meant they also could use a ram in combat. Gloire and sister ships indeed had a “snout” ram, more an afterthought, a short projection forward of the hull. Having an integral ram, i.e. integral part of the hull structure and shaping it, was new and revolutionary at the time. Couronne as completed as also had a ram, but it was short, and also an added piece.

Having a long projection, the “spur ram”, starting from the forecastle deck to well under the waterline, creating a long almost triangular projection into a point at the waterline, well reinforced by added beams and structural elements to “buffer” the shock of the ramming. These were all new and untested ideas, making these ships double oddities. The ramming idea was also evoked by several historians at in 1859 as an antique tactic now available with steam power again, and Napoleon III took a great interest in naval archaeology, so much so he ordered in 1860 a Roman Galley for testings.

The Roman Trireme reconstituted by Gaston Braun, model of the Marine Museum in Paris in 1861. It was tried on the Seine in Paris and in the Bay of Seine, but the trials were not satisfactory to say the least, at it seems the architect did not manage to lay out the internal rowers positions the right way. The British-Greek Olympias succeeded in this around 1985, however. No trireme was ever attempted again.

Again, they were watched with a suspicious interest on the other side of the pond. However, De Lôme could not standardize the design among the two shipyard concerned, when the ships were ordered respectively to Arsenal de Brest and Arsenal de Lorient, both on the Atlantic coast. Thus, as completed, they diverged in many ways. They were also, like the Gloire, wooden built.

Hull and general design

Magenta indeed measured 88.6 meters (290 ft 8 in) overall, but Solferino was shorter at 85.51 m (280 ft 7 in) long. Both had however the same beam of 17.34 meters (56 ft 11 in) and same draft of 8.44 meters (27 ft 8 in). Magenta displaced however substantially more than her sister at 6,965 metric tons (6,855 long tons) and Solferino displaced 6,796 t (6,689 long tons). The spur-shaped ram added almost ten meters (32 ft) to their overall length compared to the forecastle’s tip.
They also had a slight tumble home to further increase stability, as the Gloire were also criticized for rolling heavily. The way the armour was also installed contributed to better balance despite their overall height.

These ironclads had a crew of 674 officers and enlisted men. The battery was located on two levels at the center of the ship, with the battery ports continued by squared windows, which from afar would seem like added portholes. The final result looked like a classic “frigate” in disguise. Apart to the ram, probably difficult to see at a distance, she could have closed on an unsuspected other 1st rank frigate or ship of the line, confident of victory, wait for a harmless broadside, and then unleash one of its own. A deadly trap. However, in the long run that idea was doomed simply by the size and weight of the new generation of rifled breech loaders, which needed reinforced decks. Two decks was now excluded for stability reason, albeit new central battery ironclads would have for many a two-level battery. The difference was its concentration on the point of balance of the ship.

Powerplant

The Magenta class, given their ram and newly found ability, needed to be fast. They were given the best French industry could provide as a steam powerplant at the time. Both were given a single, but massive two-cylinder horizontal-return connecting-rod (HRCR) from Mazeline, a compound steam engine driving a single axial 2-bladed propeller shaft. Steam came from by eight* oval boilers which diverged by Yard but offered greater pressure. This engine was rated at 1,000 nominal horsepower, 3,450 metric horsepower (2,540 kW) for a speed above 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph).
*Sources differ. Gille and Silverstone: eight. Campbell: nine. (Conways).

Sea trials however were disappointing: Solferino only achieved 12.88 knots (23.85 km/h; 14.82 mph) from 4,012 metric horsepower (2,951 kW). This proved not they were bad steamers, but that their hull shape was too bulky and not optimized enough to overcome resistance. The peculiar shape of the ram, just below the waterline, also created extra turbulences. However, unlike the Gloire class, they proved more stable, with a metacentric height of just about 1.6m.
The Magenta class called for a mass of coal to feed their massive steam engine, between 625 and 800t, for a total of 1,840 nautical miles (3,410 km; 2,120 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

Of course alongside this powerplant they were given a three-masted barquentine rig with a sail area of 1,711 square meters (18,420 sq ft) for long crossings. If tested at sea, we don’t have their speed under sail alone. It was probably not helped by the hull shape either. The rigging was found insufficient and later amplified as barques with 1,960 square meters (21,100 sq ft) in 1864–1865. They were overall considered to be good seaboats, but not very manoeuvrable.
Magenta became the most recognisable French ironclads and very popular with the public, depicted in numerous press illustrations, engravings, paintings and also photographs. Her figurehead, an imperial eagle, was removed following the fall of the Second Empire.

Protection

Abover their thick wooden hull, they received a full-length waterline belt made of wrought-iron plates, 120 mm (4.7 in) thick. Above it was a thinner, second battery belt 109 mm (4.3 in) thick still, over both battery levels. This was a lot, so both ends were left completely unprotected. Meaning outside the central section, most (1/3) of the ship was vulnerable, but that was a price to pay to well protect its battery. There was also, like for Gloire, a conning tower close to the rear deck, protected by 100 mm (4 inches). Her steel plates were cast in Saint-Chamond and fixed on wood, some acting as flexible backing. This protection weighted a total of 812 tonnes. The bronze spur also designed at Saint-Chamond Navy steelworks, weighted 15.8 tonnes alone, and then was “the largest single cast steel piece forged in France in the 19th century”.

Armament

Originally, both ships were completed with a double volley and two large deck guns. Originally they had 48 canon de 16cm Modèle 1858-60, but it was changed in 1864, 1866, and 1868, twice. Her lower gun deck was 1.96 m high to compare with Couronne’s (1.79 m) and Gloire’s (1.81 m), found to low. Despite this, she had an upper battery gun for two covered gun decks.

The lower battery was divided between sixteen 194mm/16 50pdr SBML, eight per side, completed by five (out thirty-four) 165mm/17 M1858 MLR, for 13 lower ports and 12 upper battery ports with the remaining as shown on plans with the lighter 165mm/17 M1858 MLR. The largest ones were two 223mm/12 shell SBML (Paixhans guns) located for the forward one under folding shutters at the prow as chase guns in complement to the ram and the other aft on a turntable.

-194-millimeter (7.6 in) Modèle 1858–60: Smoothbore muzzle-loading guns
-164.7-millimeter (6.5 in) Modèle 1858–60: Rifled muzzle-loading (RML) guns
-225-millimeter (8.9 in) RML howitzers: Explosive shells deck Howitzers.
All 194 mm guns, ten 164.7 mm guns were mounted on the lower gun deck. The remaining 164.7 mm guns on the upper battery deck, and the 225 mm howitzers were positioned on the upper gun deck, the latter on pivot mounts as chase guns fore and aft.

With a rapidly evolving gunnery tech, they were rearmed, and 1864-65 all lower gun deck were removed. In 1864 both lost all 34 165mm/17 guns replaced by 165mm/19 M1864 MLR. 1865, Magenta was rearmed again, loosing 24 of the remaining 165mm/19 for four 240mm/18 M1864 MLR and eight 194mm/19 M1864 MLR.
This was still a combo of four 240-millimeter (9.4 in) RMLs, eight 194 mm smoothbore, but the latter had tow placed fore and aft as chase guns on the upper gun deck.
Then in 1868 Magenta saw the removal of four 194mm/19 and all sixteen 194mm/16 and her ten 165mm/19 guns. Instead, she had only six 240mm/18 M1864-66 MLR and her hull was sheathed and reached 18.3 m in beam ().
In 1869, Solférino saw the removal of two upper deck 223mm/12, and all former 194 and 165mm batteries, but she gained ten 240mm/18 M1864-66 MLR (six on her sister) as well as four 194mm/19 M1864-66 MLR relocated on deck as chase guns, and like her sister her hull was sheathed. The 19cm weighted 11 tons.
240 mm Modèle 1864–66 guns: These weighted 20 tons and fired shells of more than 140 kg.

Career of Magenta class

Construction started in Brest on 22 June 1859. She was launched on 22 June 1861, armed on 2 January 1862 or 1863 depending on sources. In her first trials, damage to the propeller blades forced the Admiralty to replace them with steel blades. She took part in many Atlantic exercises with Solferino, Couronne, Invincible and Normandie from Cherbourg to the Canarias islands.
In 1864, the Magenta she saluted in Cherbourg the USS Kearsarge after its duel on 19 June against CSS Alabama out at sea. Magenta suffered minor damage in July 1865 and January 1866, due to hurricanes in Cherbourg. She escorted and evacuated French troops after the failed Mexican expedition in 1867. She left Cherbourg in 1868 for Toulon via Algiers as flagship on February 1, 1870, relieving her sister in that role.
Furthermore, she was in Tunis, on September 4, 1870 when the Franco-German War of 1870 broke out, and by February 1871, the Magenta participated in the repressions in Nice (troubles of February 8-10, local commune) and in May to quell a riot in Kabylie, North Africa. In reserve in July 1871 she was rearmed and commanded from April 15, 1875 by Charles-Eugène Galiber. She was off the coast of Syria-Lebanon by June-July 1875, picked up sailors of the sloop Forfait, shipwrecked. On 21 July, she became flagship for a six ironclads naval exercise, commanding five smaller Alma-class central battery ironclads in the Tyrrhenian Sea and Corsica when it happened. The sloop missed her manoeuvre and was rammed by Jeanne d’Arc, sinking in 14 min.

In September 1875 she was placed under control for an archaeological mission via Algiers to La Goulette in Egypt. Admiral Pierre-Gustave Roze on September 27 ensured the transfer of 46 crates of archaeological remains from the Archaeological mission Pricot de Sainte-Marie. She was in Toulon by October 30.
On 31 October, an accidental nighttime galley fire started aboard Magenta while in port at Toulon, and spread out of control. Still the crew managed to flood her forward gunpowder magazine but the fire prevented them to reach the aft magazine and the captain ordered to abandoned ship, and warned the surroundings; She blew up shortly afterward, 2 hours 55 minutes after the fire broke out. Thus tore down her hull, and she sank in 15 meters (49 feet) of water. She still carried at the time, back from Egypt, Carthaginian antiques, notably 2080 Carthaginian tombstones and a marble statue of Vibia Sabina. Divers were sent to study a refloating, but this was judged impossible. But most of her artefacts were retrieved over time. The wreck was located in April 1994 and fragments of stela recovered since, as well as the statue, with fragments now on display at the Louvre.
Note: The French wikipedia article goes into great depth after the accident.

Solferino was Laid down 24 June 1859, launched on 24 June 1861 and commissioned on 25 August 1862.
Note: Missing Logs (for now). She was discarded in 1883.

Ocean, an ironclad inspired by the general hull design of the Magenta but first with barbette guns (pinterest, Maritime Museum).

Read More/Src

Books

Steam, Steel and Shellfire, The Steam Warship 1815-1905″, Conway’S history of the ship, Chartwell Books Inc.
Roger Chesneau and Eugene M. Kolesnik, ed., Conway’s All The Worlds Fighting Ships, 1860-1905, (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1979).

Links

https://www.navypedia.org/ships/france/fr_bb_magenta.htm
https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/paris/frenchironclads.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta-class_ironclad
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta_(1861)
https://www.worldnavalships.com/battleships2.htm
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/29911-magenta-1861-by-grandpaphil-172-card-french-ironclad-broadside-battleship-built-as-designed/

Model Kits

None. The galleon/ship of the line had more success.