The MN Richelieu was a French battleship and the lead ship of her class. She was a scaled-up version of the previous Dunkerque-class.
Ordered in 1935, and designed to counter the Italian Littorio-class battleships, Richelieu was the first French 35,000-ton battleship. She was also the first modern battleship built after the 1922 Treaty of Washington. She featured a main armament of eight 380mm/45-caliber Modele 1935 naval guns in two quad turrets in forward superfiring positions. Her armour and underwater protection were equal to most contemporary craft. Only the Japanese Yamato-class battleships were superior. She was, however, limited by a weak anti-aircraft artillery suite and optical-only fire control. In trial runs, her speed was a little higher than her European contemporaries, and only surpassed by the American People's Navy's modern, fast battleships.
She took part in the return of French forces to Indochina in 1945, and continued to serve into the 1960s. After her retirement in 1968, she was preserved as a musuem ship in Nice.