The Redoutable was a French Navy 74 gun ship of the line, launched in 1749 and lost in the Battle of Lagos in 1759. She had a crew of 740. [a]
Its career was limited to the first four years of the Seven Years' War. The Redoutable was one of thirty-seven ships of the line lost by France during the Seven Years War - eighteen captured by the enemy, nineteen burned or wrecked. [2]
She was launched according to the norms defined by French shipbuilders in the 1740s to achieve a good balance of cost, manoeuvrability and armament and to keep up with the Royal Navy, which had had more ships of the line since the end of Louis XIV's wars. [3] The ship was laid down in April 1749 (at the start of the spike in ship construction between the end of the War of the Austrian Succession that year and the start of the Seven Years War in 1754) and launched on 24 October the same year. [4]
As with all ships of the line in that era, she had an oak hull. Her masts and yards were made of pine [5] and elm, linden, poplar and walnut for the gun carriages, the forecastle carvings and the interior woodwork. [5] Hemp was used to create her 80 tonnes of rope and almost 2,500 square metres of sails. [5] A second spare set of sails was planned to be kept in the hold.
On her lower deck were twenty-eight 36-pounder long guns (the largest calibre in service in the French fleet at that time), on her upper deck thirty 18-pounder long guns, and on her castles sixteen 8-pounder long guns - together they totalled 215 tonnes [5] and the ship embarked almost 6,000 cannonballs weighing 67 tonnes in total [b] and 8 tonnes of grapeshot, chainshot and barshot. [5] It also embarked 20 tonnes of gunpowder, stored as cartridges or loose powder in the ship's bilge. A quarter of that powder was loaded in advance to meet the needs of the lower battery of 36-pounders and a third for the other deck and the castles. [7]
In 1756, under the command of Pierre-André de Glandevès du Castellet, she formed part of La Galissonière's squadron of twelve ships of the line, sailing from Toulon and commanded to protect the French landing on Minorca. On 20 May she played a part in the French victory at the Battle of Minorca.
In 1759 she joined La Clue's squadron, sailing from Toulon with orders to join up with the Brest squadron and cover the attempted landing in England. It was destroyed off the coast at the end of the Battle of Lagos - its crew burned the ship on the beach beside the flagship Océan rather than let them be captured by the Royal Navy. [8]