The
Gloire-class ships were designed as enlarged and improved versions of the preceding by
Emile Bertin. The ships measured
overall, with a
beam of and a
draft of . They
displaced . Their crew numbered 25 officers and 590 enlisted men. The sisters' propulsion machinery consisted of three
vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single
propeller shaft, using steam provided by
water-tube boilers, but the types of machinery differed between them.
Sully had three-cylinder engines fed by 28
Belleville boilers that were designed to produce a total of intended to give them a maximum speed of . During her
sea trials on 23 May 1903, the ship reached from . The cruisers carried enough coal to give them a range of at a speed of .
Armament and armor The
main battery of the
Gloire class consisted of two
quick-firing (QF) 194 mm Modèle 1893–1896 guns mounted in single-
gun turrets fore and aft of the
superstructure. Their
secondary armament comprised eight QF
164.7 mm Modèle 1893–1896 guns and six QF
Canon de Modèle de 1893 guns. Half of the 164.7 mm guns were in two singe-gun
wing turrets on each
broadside and all of the remaining guns were on single mounts in
casemates in the
hull. For defense against
torpedo boats, they carried eighteen QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss| and four
Hotchkiss guns, all of which were in single mounts. The sisters were also armed with five
torpedo tubes, of which two were submerged and three above water. Two of these were on each broadside and the fifth tube was in the stern. All of the above-water tubes were on pivot mounts. The ships varied in the number of
naval mines that they could carry and
Sully was fitted with storage for 10. The
Gloire class were the first French armored cruisers to have their waterline
armored belt made from
Harvey face-hardened armor plates. The belt ranged in thickness from . Because of manufacturing limitations, the thinner end plates were
nickel steel. Behind the belt was a
cofferdam, backed by a longitudinal
watertight bulkhead. The upper armored deck met the top of the belt and had a total thickness of while the lower armored deck curved down to meet the bottom of the belt and had a uniform thickness of . The main-gun turrets were protected by of Harvey armor, but their
barbettes used plates of ordinary steel. The face and sides of the secondary turrets were thick and the plates protecting their barbettes were thick. The casemates protecting the 100-millimeter guns also had a thickness of 102 millimeters. The face and sides of the
conning tower were 174 millimeters thick. ==Construction and career==