on 25 July of the same year. Her fitting-out was delayed by the late delivery of fittings and armour. Suffren began her sea trials in November 1903, but was not commissioned until 3 February 1904. On 18 August 1903 she participated in a gunnery trial with the predreadnought off Île Longue. A mild-steel plate thick, measuring , was attached to the side of Suffrens forward turret to determine the resistance of an armour plate to a large-calibre shell with six sheep placed in the turret to simulate its crew. Masséna anchored away from Suffren and fired a number of 305-millimetre shells at the plate. The first three were training shells that knocked splinters off the armour plate. The last two shells, fired with full charges, cracked the plate, but Suffrens turret was fully operational, as was her Germain electrical fire-control system, and the sheep were unharmed. One splinter struck Masséna above her armour belt and left a 15-centimetre sized hole in her hull. Another splinter landed within a few metres of the Naval Minister, Camille Pelletan, who was observing the trials. When Suffren was commissioned in Brest, she was assigned to the Escadre de la Méditerranée shortly afterwards. After arriving in Toulon, she became the flagship of its commander, Palma Gourdon, on 24 February. Two months later she carried the President of France, Émile Loubet, on a state visit to Naples. As time went by several defects were revealed in service, including the weakness of the underpowered capstan which was barely capable of raising the anchor in waters deep. Another problem was that the centre engine and its propeller shaft tended to overheat. Gourdon was relieved by Charles Touchard on 4 October 1905. During fleet exercises off the Îles des Hyères on 5 February 1906, Suffren accidentally rammed the submarine when the latter miscalculated the fleet's movements while manoeuvring into firing position. Bonite rose to periscope depth less than in front of Suffren, but the latter managed to turn quickly enough while the submarine was crash-diving that Suffren only struck Bonite a glancing blow. This was enough, however, to breach two compartments abreast the ship's starboard engine room and she had to be docked for emergency repairs. Bonites bow was crushed and several of her ballast tanks were ripped open. Only by rapidly dropping her weighted keel was the submarine able to avoid sinking. No casualties were suffered by either