Like "Iéna", "Suffren" carried her main armament of four 40-calibre Canon de Modèle 1893/96 guns in two twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. The turrets were traversed by electric motors, but were elevated and depressed by hand. The guns were loaded at an angle of −5° and they had a maximum elevation of +15°. They fired armour-piercing projectiles at the rate of roughly one round per minute. They had a muzzle velocity of which gave a range of at maximum elevation. "Suffren" carried 60 shells for each gun with each turret holding ready-use racks for 22 projectiles.