The Gloire-class ironclads were a group of three wooden-hulled armored frigates built for the French Navy in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Gloire, the lead ship of the class, was the first ocean-going ironclad warship to be built by any country. The ships of the Gloire class were classified as armoured frigates because they only had a single gun deck and their traditional disposition of guns arrayed along the length of the hull also meant that they were broadside ironclads.