Bougainville

History: The Bougainville class was a group of colonial avisos, or sloops, built for the French Navy during the 1930s. They were designed to operate in the remote locations of the French Empire.

The Bougainville-class ships were armed with three 40-caliber Canon de 138.6-millimetre (5.46 in) mle 1927 guns in single mounts, one superfiring pair forward of the superstructure and the third gun atop the aft superstructure.[4] The mounts had a range of elevation from -10° to +28°, which gave the gun a range of 16,600 meters (18,200 yd) at maximum elevation,. They fired 40.6-kilogram (90 lb) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 700 m/s (2,300 ft/s) at a rate of five to six rounds per minute. The fore and aft magazines had a total capacity of 785 shells. The ships were fitted with a 3-metre (9 ft 10 in) Mle 1932 coincidence rangefinder that fed data to the type aviso mechanical fire-control computer.

Type: Destroyer

Primary Country: France is one of Europe’s largest countries. It is bordered by six countries other nations: Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the southeast and Spain to the southwest. The United Kingdom borders France via the English Channel. The country is considered to be the gateway to Europe as there are several large international airports (two of these can be found in Paris), ferry terminals and the French rail service.

In 486, Frankish tribes unified under Merovingian kingship. In 843, Western Francia was established from the division of the Carolingian Empire. In 1789, the French monarchy was overthrown, and in 1792, the First French Republic was founded. In 1958, the Fifth French Republic was established.