Greek battleship Hydra
| 300px Hydra - Θ/Κ Ύδρα | |
| Career (Greece) | 60px |
|---|---|
| Namesake: | Hydra Island |
| Ordered: | 1885 |
| Builder: | Havre Shipyards |
| Launched: | 1889 |
| Commissioned: | 1889 |
| Decommissioned: | 1918 |
| Fate: | sold for scrap |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | Standard 4,885 tons |
| Length: | 103 m |
| Beam: | 15.8 m |
| Draft: | 6.4 m |
| Propulsion: | 2 steam engine |
| Speed: | 17.5-knot (32 km/h) maximum |
| Armament: |
3 x 270 mm guns 1 x 150 mm gun 1 x 100 mm gun 3 x 6-inch (152 mm) |
| Armour: |
12-30 cm on the hull 7.5 cm on the deck |
The Ironclad warship Hydra (Greek: Θ/Κ Υδρα), named for one of the Saronic Gulf islands which played a key role in the war at sea during the Greek War of Independence, served in the Royal Hellenic Navy from 1889 - 1929.
The ship, along with her two sister ships of the Hydra Class, Spetsai and Psara, was ordered from France in 1885 during the premiership of Charilaos Trikoupis, as part of a wider reorganization and modernization of the armed forces, which had proved themselves inadequate during the Cretan uprising of 1866 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878.
The ship saw limited action in the Greco-Turkish War (1897), as the Royal Hellenic Navy failed to make use of its superiority over the Ottoman Navy. By the outbreak of the Balkan Wars in 1912, Hydra, along with her sister ships, was antiquated, but she did take part in the conflicts, in which Greece liberated the islands of the Eastern Aegean and defeated Ottoman Turkey in the two decisive naval battles of Elli and Limnos.
During World War I, Greece belatedly entered the war on the side of the Triple Entente and the Hydra class ships served as coastal defence units. She was decommissioned in 1918 and subsequently used as a naval artillery school, until 1929 when she was scrapped.[1]
References
- ↑ Vice Admiral C. Paizis-Paradellis, HN (2002). Hellenic Warships 1829-2001 (3rd Edition). Athens, Greece: The Society for the study of Greek History. pp. 78. ISBN 960-8172-14-4.
See also
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