[1] Five 100-millimetre (4 in) watertight bulkheads divided the hull into compartments, although they only reached up to the main deck.

[1] Friedland had one Indret 3-cylinder horizontal return connecting rod compound steam engine driving a single propeller.

[1] On sea trials the engine produced 4,428 indicated horsepower (3,302 kW) and Friedland reached 13.3 knots (24.6 km/h; 15.3 mph).

[1] They fired a shell weighing about 500 g (1.1 lb) at a muzzle velocity of about 610 m/s (2,000 ft/s) to a range of about 3,200 meters (3,500 yd).

[5] The hull was not recessed to enable any of the guns on the battery deck to fire forward or aft.

However, the guns mounted in the barbettes sponsoned out over the sides of the hull did have some ability to fire fore and aft.

The sides and the transverse bulkheads of the battery itself were armoured with 160 millimeters (6.3 in) of wrought iron.

Friedland joined the Mediterranean Squadron in 1878 and the ship bombarded the Tunisian port of Sfax from 6–16 July 1881 as part of the French occupation of Tunisia.