HMS Scipion (1805)
Scale model of Achille, sister ship of French ship Scipion (1798), on display at the Musée de la Marine in Paris.
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| History | |
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 France
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| Name: | Scipion |
| Namesake: | Scipio Africanus |
| Builder: | Lorient |
| Launched: | 1798 |
| Commissioned: | 1802 |
| Honours and awards: |
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| Captured: | 4 November 1805, by Royal Navy |
 United Kingdom
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| Name: | Scipion |
| Acquired: | 3 November 1805 by capture |
| Honours and awards: |
Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Java" |
| Fate: | Broken up, 1819 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Téméraire class ship of the line |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 55.87 metres (183.3 ft) (172 pied) |
| Beam: | 14.90 metres (48 ft 11 in) |
| Draught: | 7.26 metres (23.8 ft) (22 pied) |
| Propulsion: | Up to 2,485 m2 (26,750 sq ft) of sails |
| Armament: |
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| Armour: | Timber |
Scipion was a 74-gun French ship of the line, built at Lorient to a design by Jacques Noel Sane. She was launched as Orient in late 1798, and renamed Scipion in 1801. She was first commissioned in 1802 and joined the French Mediterranean fleet based at Toulon, in the squadron of Admiral Leissègues. Consequently she was one of the ships afloat in that port when war with England reopened in May 1803. She participated in the Battle of Cape Finisterre and the Battle of Trafalgar. The British captured her in the subsequent Battle of Cape Ortegal. In 1810 she participated in the Java campaign, which in 1847 earned her surviving crew the Naval General Service Medal. She participated in the blockade of Toulon in 1813 and was paid off in 1814. She was broken up in 1819.
In 1805, she was part of Admiral Villeneuve's fleet. She took part in the Battle of Cape Finisterre and was one of Rear-Admiral Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley's ships at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Dumanoir commanded the six-ship vanguard of the French fleet, with Formidable, Scipion, Duguay-Trouin, Mont-Blanc, Intrépide and Neptune. Nelson's attacks left these ships downwind of the main confrontation and Dumanoir did not immediately obey Villeneuve's orders to return to the battle. When the ships did turn back, most of them only exchanged a few shots before retiring.
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Wikipedia