Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "MN Depuy de Lome - Guide 333" video.

@obsidianjane4413 More style, but much less functional.
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@426baron Yep, France made sometimes baffling decisions with their naval designs in that era. For example, I can't imagine what they were thinking with mounting Dupuy de Lome's 194mm main guns on the wings instead of having them be the centerline guns fore and aft. The extremely limited ability to fire both guns forward or aft is in no way a good trade-off for only being able to fire one of them broadside. For that matter, given that the very slightly smaller Olympia was able to mount four 8-inch guns in a pair of twin turrets, there's really no excuse for Dupuy de Lome not doing the same with 194mm. Replacing the six single 164mm mounts fore and aft (in rather questionable layout too) with a couple of 194mm twin turrets would've made for a dramatically better ship. Then either discard the 164mm entirely, or (since they were probably worried about the 194mm's much lower rate of fire) drop the 194mm wing turrets in favor of some 164mm mounts along the sides. This probably wouldn't have even required any significant changes to the hull, just to the superstructure (which shouldn't have been that hard since Dupuy de Lome barely had a superstructure).
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It was basically just an attempt to remain competitive with what they could afford. Since the Royal Navy was always going to have a much bigger budget than the Marine Nationale (well at least until the 21st century), they were trying to find creative ways to work around that disadvantage.
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Did she still have the armor belt when converted to a freighter?
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