[3] The ship's greatest weakness was her "inability to generate sufficient electric current to power the multitude of auxiliary motors on which their advanced machinery and complex gun mountings were dependent.

Many of the auxiliary motors themselves were also seriously underpowered, particularly the servomotors for the gun mountings (which were slow to train and elevate) and for the rudder (which contributed to the ship's poor maneuverability.

From 21–30 October 1939 the Force de Raide escorted the KJ.4 convoy to protect it against the heavy cruiser Deutschland which had sortied into the North Atlantic before the war began.

A sortie by the battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst into the North Atlantic on 21 November prompted the Force de Raide to sail from Brest to rendezvous with the British battlecruiser HMS Hood and patrol the area south of Iceland, but the German ships were able to return safely under the cover of heavy weather without being engaged.

The necessary improvements identified for the main armament during her sea trials a year earlier were finally implemented, the canvas cover for the back of the turrets was replaced by a rolling door, new radios were installed, and shields were fitted to the anti-aircraft machine guns and the searchlights.

Despite the attack, Volta fired 88 shells at a British destroyer—a performance rated by her gunnery officer as her best up to that point—before managing to escape to Toulon in the company of the battleship Strasbourg and a number of other destroyers.

[6] After the Armistice with Germany in June 1940, the French Navy decided to increase the anti-aircraft strength of the Mogador-class destroyers and installed two 13.2 mm Browning machine guns on platforms attached to the sides of the No.

This was a version of the American .50 caliber M2 Browning re-chambered to use the standard French 13.2 mm ammunition and with its rate of fire increased to 1000 rounds per minute.

Later in the year the SS 6 sonar was scheduled to be replaced by a French copy of the British ASDIC, but it was still sitting on the dockside when Volta was scuttled in Toulon Harbour when the Germans tried to seize the fleet on 27 November 1942 to prevent it from defecting to the Allies.