French battleship Devastation main battery cannon.
Formidable was an ironclad barbette ship built for the French Navy between her keel laying in late 1879 and her completion in early 1889. The ships of the class was designed in response to Italian naval expansion, and carried a main battery of three 370 mm (14.6 in) guns all mounted in open barbettes on the centerline.
French Battleship Magenta
Battleship Courbet
Photo Diego Mar
Redoutable was a central battery and barbette
ship of the French Navy.
She was the first warship in the world to use
steel as the principal building material.