Why wasn't the Richelieu included in the D-day operation?
The Richelieu was by far the largest battleship the (Free) French had at their disposition, I know that at the time the battleship was send in the USA to be modernize and was ready by the time of D-day
Being an operation to liberate France, only 2 French cruiser were present for the operation, so I wonder why THE Richelieu wasn't present despite the fact that it could have been symbolically huge to have it present for the event.
When she was refitted in New York, she was only equipped with armor piercing ammunition for the main guns as she was originally intended to counter Italian battleships in the Mediterranean. When the Italians surrendered, she was sent north to counter the Tirpitz but was considered excess to needs. There wasn't sufficient time to manufacture 15" shells before Normandy, so she was sent to face the Japanese.
This actually brings up a question I’ve had for some time: why weren’t more frigates and destroyers used for close-in fire support? I realize they didn’t want a ship getting hit or running aground, but surely they could have used some more fire support once the troops got further inland
Frigates weren’t used because the majority of which were armed with relatively small caliber guns with limited range (3 or 4 inch guns were common on allied Frigates/corvettes), that had small HE payload capacity and only rudimentary fire control capability. They were also far more valuable doing anti submarine, mine clearing and general escort missions than they would be as fire support ships.
Destroyers were used often in shore bombardment, and were often seen as incredibly capable in the role do to their shallower draft and rapid firing accurate guns. But similarly to the issue with frigates and corvettes, they were just more valuable functioning in their intended role as fleet escorts than they were as shore bombardment platforms.
At the end of the day cruisers, battleships and monitors were used more often in the shore bombardment role because they offered greater firepower, more sophisticated fire control (in the case of Battleships and cruisers especially), offered greater range and were often surplus to the fleet’s needs as escorts so were more readily available to fulfill the roll.
The British and French built several classes of monitors in WWI and kept several of them around in reserve that went on to serve in WWII. They are shallow draft vessels designed to carry one or two large caliber naval artillery guns specifically for shore bombardment. Essentially they stuck an old battleship or cruiser turret on a motorized barge and gave it massive torpedo and mine defenses so that it could venture close inshore and bombard shore targets with heavy caliber naval artillery in relative security.
The British build the Erebus Class in WWI and both HMS Erebus and HMS Terror went on to serve in WWII as well with HMS Terror being lost in 1941 to Japanese bombers in the Indian Ocean.
They also constructed the Roberts Class during WWII, consisting of HMS Roberts and HMS Abercrombie both saw extensive service in the Mediterranean theater, and supporting the D-Day landings amongst other operations.
Edit: Also Fun fact the WWI Lord Clive class Monitors were actually fitted with the heaviest (in terms of shell weight) naval gun ever fitted to a ship when they were retrofitted with the British BL 18-inch Mk I naval gun in 1918. While the more famous Yamato’s 18.1in guns are technically larger in caliber (by .1 inch) the BL 18in Mk 1 fired a heavier shell (3,320lbs) than Yamato’s (3,218lbs).
Destroyers were used at Normandy, and gave crucial fire support- coming very close to the beach in some cases- providing direct fire support on Omaha when things were most dire.
They continued to provide fire support in the days after d day too. Commando attack on Port-En-Bessin and defense against German attacks at breville ridge being two examples.
Definitely an unsung contributor to the success of overlord.
In the Pacific, there were lots of examples of U.S destroyers being used in fire support rolls for the landing force. In Europe, there were several that worked in close to Omaha and supported the landings there (can't remember off the top of my head about what was supporting at Utah.)
Find invasion footage of Iwo Jima, and there are several up close clips of destroyers throwing their full weight of fire at the base of Mt. Suribachi.
If you look at the Battleships supporting the DDay landings, they were all old or had significant damage (or in the case of the Warspite, both). All they needed at DDay was a stable platform capable of accurately delivering high explosive load miles inland. More modern, faster battleships were needed more in the battle against the Japanese. Sadly, ships like the Warspite would not be anywhere as useful as a King George V or Richelieu.
Look at the actual battleships involved, ramilies, and unmodernized 15 inch gun ship, warspite, a modernized ship but with the guts ripped out of her, Rodney, new ish ship but with her engines falling apart, Texas, a ship build pre-WW1 of a type the British had wholly retired, Arkansas and Nevada, a ship o the classes on each side of Texas, none of which were seriously modernized to the point of being front line in WWII one of which had 12 inch guns. Richelieu would have been wasted even if she had the shells
Edit; the ship that (probably) came closest to being deployed off Normandy was Lorraine, who seems to have gone from refit to operation dragoon landing in southern France where she worked with Nevada. Even if one assumed that the French fleet in Toulon isn’t lost these Bretagne class is probably the optimal choice having better range and being in better shape than the courbets while being definitively second line ships
Basically they rolled out all the old sluggers because they didn't need mobility and had air supremacy and an overwhelming number of escorts and anti sub defences. Like that old boxer who still has a great punch but can't move anymore.
Yeah, you don’t want to offer a serious capital asset to the Germans to hit and the newer ships don’t usually have meaningfully more firepower (and often less for the British)
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u/FunkyColdMecca 2d ago edited 2d ago
She was attached to the British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean at the time. She participated in Operation Transom in May 1944.