French submarine Gustave Zédé (1893)

	Launch of Gustave Zédé, June 1893
History
France
Name	former Sirène, then Gustave Zédé
Ordered	4 October 1890
Laid down	1 February 1891
Launched	1 June 1893
Commissioned	1 May 1900
Out of service	9 August 1908
Fate	Sold for scrap, 2 August 1911
General characteristics
Type	Submarine
Displacement	260 long tons (264 t) surfaced; 270 long tons (274 t) submerged;
Length	148 ft (45 m)
Beam	10 ft (3.0 m)
Installed power	Originally 720 battery cells, redesigned to 300 in 1895; (no onboard means to recharge batteries);
Propulsion	2 × 360 hp (268 kW) Sauter-Harlé electric motors
Speed	9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) surfaced; 6.5 knots (12.0 km/h; 7.5 mph) submerged;
Range	220 nmi (410 km; 250 mi) at 5.5 knots (10.2 km/h; 6.3 mph) surfaced; 105 nmi (194 km; 121 mi) at 4.5 knots (8.3 km/h; 5.2 mph) submerged;
Crew	19
Armament	1 × 14 in (360 mm) Fiume 'short' torpedoes; 2 × torpedoes in Drzewiecki drop collars;

Gustave Zédé was one of the world's earliest commissioned naval submarines. She was launched on 1 July 1893 at Toulon, France, although only formally entering service with the French Navy in May 1900 after a long series of trials and design alterations. The submarine carried out the first successful torpedo attack by a submerged vessel against a surface ship.

Initially ordered as Sirène on 4 October 1890, on 1 May 1891 the boat was renamed after Gustave Zédé, a naval architect who had worked on its design, but who died in 1891 following an explosion during the development of an experimental torpedo. Development followed on from the previous smaller design, Gymnote. Both ships were electrically propelled using power from storage batteries.

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