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The ''Hydra'' class of ironclads composed three ships, , , and . The ships were ordered from France in 1885 during the premiership of Charilaos Trikoupis, as part of a wider reorganization and modernization of the Greek armed forces, which had proved themselves inadequate during the Cretan uprising of 1866. Launched in 1889 and 1890, the ships were ready for service with the Greek Navy by 1892. They were armed with a main battery of three guns and five guns, and had a top speed of . The ships frequently served together throughout their careers. Their participation in the Greco–Turkish War in 1897 was limited due to intervention by the Great Powers. Modernizations in the 1890s and 1900s upgraded the ships' armament, but by the First Balkan War, they were too slow to keep up with newer vessels in the Greek fleet, particularly the armored cruiser . They saw action at the Battle of Elli but were left behind due to their slow speed at the Battle of Lemnos. Thoroughly obsolete, the ships were reduced to secondary duties after the war and did not see active duty during World War I. The ships were intended to be sold in 1919, but were retained out of active service until 1929. ==Design== The Balkan crisis that started with the Serbo-Bulgarian War, coupled with Ottoman naval expansion in the 1860s and 1870s, prompted the Greek Navy to begin a rearmament program. In addition, the Greek fleet had proved to be too weak to effectively challenge Ottoman naval power during the 1866 Cretan Revolt. In 1885, Greece ordered three new ironclads of the ''Hydra'' class.〔Gardiner & Gray, p. 382〕 The ships were ordered from the Graville and St. Nazaire shipyards in France during the premiership of Charilaos Trikoupis.〔Brassey, p. 25〕〔Gardiner, p. 387〕 The ships were long between perpendiculars and had a beam of and a mean draft of . They displaced as built. By 1910, their displacement had increased slightly, to . Approximately 400 officers and men crewed each ship. The ships were powered by a pair of triple expansion steam engines with four double-ended cylindrical boilers; they were rated at and provided a top speed of . Coal storage amounted to The boilers were trunked into two funnels.〔〔Gardiner & Gray, p. 383〕〔''Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers'', p. 427〕 The hull was divided into 118 watertight compartments.〔 The ''Hydra'' class was armed with a main battery of three Canet guns.〔 Two guns were mounted forward in barbettes on either side of the forward superstructure; these were L/34 guns.〔L/34 refers to the length of the gun in terms of calibers. An L/34 gun is 34 times long as it is in diameter.〕 The third gun, a L/28 gun, was placed in a turret aft. The secondary battery consisted of four L/36 guns in casemates were mounted below the forward main battery, and a fifth 5.9-inch gun was placed on the centerline on the same deck as the main battery. A number of smaller guns were carried for defense against torpedo boats. These included four L/22 guns, four 3-pounder guns, four 1-pounder guns, and six 1-pounder revolver cannons. The ships were also armed with three torpedo tubes.〔 Two tubes were placed on the broadside and one was mounted in the bow.〔 The ships were armored with a mix of Creusot and compound steel. The main belt was thick amidships and reduced to on either end of the hull. At a normal displacement, the main belt extended for above the waterline. Under a full load, however, the belt was completely submerged below the waterline. Above the belt, a strake of 3 in of armor covered the side of the vessels amidships. The main battery was protected by of armor with 12-inch thick barbettes.〔〔Brassey, p. 233〕 ''Hydra'' had an armored deck thick; the decks of ''Spetsai'' and ''Psara'' were increased to .〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hydra-class ironclad」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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