Amiral Charner class: cheapening an already cheap strategy

The Amiral Charner class was intended to deliver an armoured cruiser on roughly 4,750 tons, about 1,500 tons less than Dupuy de Lôme. The smaller hull imposed another economy on a strategy already justified as a cheaper alternative to battleships. The ships retained several calibres of guns, including separate 7.6-inch and 5.4-inch weapons plus three smaller patterns. At the same time, much of their armour remained between roughly forty and ninety millimetres. The result combined reduced protection with the same ammunition and spare-parts complexity that made independent operations difficult.