These warships differed a lot from their predecessors in many ways : The adoption of a quad turret design reduced the weight of the ship, allowing for a better armor and a better propulsion. Béarn would follow soon after, in January 1914. Among those warships, the first battleships of what would become the Normandie class : Normandie, Flandre, Gascogne, and Languedoc. The international growing tensions in the 1910’s pushed the French government to agree to lay down 4 battleships at once starting 1913, instead of only 2. The idea was to bring the number of capital warships of the French navy to 28, through 4 classes : The Courbet class, laid down in 1911 and finished in 1913, the Bretagne class laid down in 1912 and finished in 1915, and the Normandie class and the Lyon class. In 1912, as the creation of the first dreadnought serie, the Courbet class, was pretty much underway, the French parliament voted in favor of a massive modernization program to catch up with the biggest navies of its time, as a big part of the French navy was obsolete. Although there are operational battleships which should be prioritized over this class (Courbet, Bretagne, Dunkerque), it’s an interesting idea to explore, and giving life to those forgotten warships seem to me like a good way to add uniqueness to the futur French tech tree.

Equipped with quad turrets, they prefigure the future fast battleships of the French navy, and their unique configuration among dreadnought era capital ships, as well as the fact that they were mostly built before their ultimate demise make this class a strong contender as a powerful battleship for the French navy. Among them, the battleships of the Normandie class seem like an interesting addition to the French tech tree. Given the recent announcements and the evolution of naval gameplay in War Thunder, a new realm of possibilities has been opened. NOTE : This is a repost of an old suggestion on the previous forum.

About the Normandie class and its interest in War Thunder

War thunder navy battleships release