The Richelieu was a French battleship, a scaled-up version of the Dunkerque-class battleships and the lead ship of her class. Ordered in 1935, and designed to counter the Italian Littorio-class battleships, Richelieu was the first French 35,000-ton battleship and the first modern battleship built after the 1922 Treaty of Washington. She featured a main armament of eight 380 mm guns in two quadruple turrets in forward superfiring positions. Her armour and underwater protection were equal to her contemporaries, except for the Japanese Yamato-class battleships, but she was limited by a weak anti-aircraft artillery suite and optical-only fire control. In trial runs her speed was a little higher than her European contemporaries, and only surpassed by the U.S. Navy's modern, fast battleships.