Hoche at the boundary between ironclad and battleship

Hoche occupies a disputed boundary between the last French ironclads and the first all-steel battleships. The preference here is to classify her as a late ironclad, leaving the later Marceau ships a stronger claim to the battleship label. Her canceled sister was absorbed into the Marceau program, whose higher freeboard allowed three guns of the same caliber to sit higher above the water while retaining tumblehome. Despite Hoche's top-heavy appearance, she is described as having fewer stability problems than some ships that followed her. Her service included repeated passages through the Bay of Biscay as well as substantial Mediterranean service, making her seakeeping better than her profile suggests.