The ships of the Dupleix class had a main armament that consisted of eight quick-firing (QF) 45-caliber Canon de 164 mm Modèle 1893–96 guns. They were mounted in four twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure and a pair of wing turrets amidships.Chesneau & Kolesnik, p. 305 The guns fired shells at muzzle velocities ranging from . This gave them a range of about at the turrets' maximum elevation of +15 degrees. Each gun was provided with 200 rounds, of which 44 shells were stowed in the turrets, which it could fire at a rate of three rounds per minute.Friedman, p. 223; Jordan & Caresse, pp. 85, 87, 89
