Royal Hellenic Navy's Cruiser Force 1925-41

The ultimate cruiser class designed for the RHN also represented the epitome of all of Grand Admiral Stephanopoulos-Comneou’s tactical and strategic thinking.
Here was, finally, a cruiser design with the speed to catch anything afloat, carrying the armament to defeat anything that could catch her, and still be used in a fleet-oriented tactical deployment. It was also the ultimate expression of the various tactical ideas coming together of great thinkers and innovators, such as Sir Percy Scott, Lord Fisher of Kilverstone and Sir Frederic Dreyer.

The genesis of the Thevai-class heavy cruisers lay in Stephanopoulos’ concept of mobile and flexible fleet operation plans. Simply told, the Hellenic fleet could not afford to keep pace with the naval arms race, therefore it needed to acquire the most suitable ships for its wide-ranging tasks, the protection of a vastly increased shoreline which spanned two continents now, and the denial of enemy naval forces into Hellenic territorial waters, where they might set up bases and/or land troops in an amphibious operation.

Turkey had already expressed a close interest in the German pocket battleship type. They eventually purchased four vessels, armed with the accurate and deadly 11-in gun. To counter these, the Hellenic navy finally upped the ante by ordering the Thessalonike-class from Italy, followed a short while later by the Olympia-class from the US. Turkey, however, countered these orders by ordering heavy cruisers from Germany, a move that alarmed the Greek government sufficiently to order the Admiralty to investigate the best type to counter these moves.
Accordingly, the new chief naval constructor, Capt. Periclis Parasklefsides and the Chief Ordnance Officer, Com. Kostas Mavroangelou, travelled to the US where they immediately, during the spring of 1930, started to look for suitable design options, while studying the latest naval technological process. One class which was under construction at the time was the Portland-class, but its specifics were rejected, as it was too close in specifications to the Olympias, which were completing in US naval yards.
Instead, attention and focus was directed towards a wholly new type of heavy cruiser being evaluated, namely the New Orleans-class, which Preliminary Design had just completed (Jan. 1930.) The fact that the newly ratified London Treaty allowed an increase in the maximum of guns carried by cruisers made this design so much more attractive.
Having been introduced to Rear-Adm. George Rock of C&R, who was highly critical of the proposed design, Parasklefsides introduced several improvements in his proposal. The overall length was increased to 600 ft, from 570 ft and, later, 578 ft in the US design.

What was not resolved at the time was the number and disposition of the main armament.
Grand Adm. Stephanopoulos was an adherent to the British gunnery expert Adm. Scott’s disbelieves and misgivings about the future of the battleship, and a champion of the superiority of the medium-caliber guns. It was at his insistence that the last two battle wagons of the RHN, Kilkis and Lemnos had been relegated to guard ships at the Dardanelles.
Stephanopoulos, also, had served as the legendary Rear-Adm. Kountouriotis’ flag-captain during the two Balkan Wars, where he had experienced, firsthand, the impracticality and virtual uselessness of the battleship in the RHN.
However, with the adoption by Rump-Turkey of the pocket battleship as their main units, something substantially larger than the 8-in or 7.5-in gun was needed.
The answer came through Sir Julian Cripps Nicholson, Managing Director of Vickers Ordnance Works in Leeds, Britain. At a social gathering, at the British Embassy in Washington, late in June, 1930, the English gentleman pointed out the superiority of the fabled 9.2-in gun. In fact, the RN still used it in monitors, though the armored cruisers were long gone.
Sir Julian offered to have a new weapon developed within 16 month, which would meet the requirement of the Greeks. Having cabled this news to Constantinople, Parasklefsides received a go-ahead from his bosses, and Mavroangelou took the RMS Olympic to Liverpool and thence entrained for Leeds, where he arrived on Aug. 18, 1930.
It took, not 16 months, as Sir Julian had promised, but 10 to develop and test fire the new naval gun.
Basing the new type, called Vickers Mk XV, on the reliable and efficient Mk X, which was fitted to all of Sir Phillip Watts’ armored cruiser designs pre-war, the bore of the gun remained the same, 46.7 cal. with single motion breeches and changed rifling.
The gun weighed 32 tons, a slight increase from its original weight, but not a critical one.
Shell weight remained a tolerable 380 lb or 170 kg. Range of the gun was 36,000 yards, an increase from the original 29,600 yards.
Bethlehem Steel, Quincy, MA, designed the new turrets for the guns; this time real, protected turrets. Since it was decided to fit the new cruiser with ten of the new gun, BETHQ. made one two-barrel turret and one triple-barreled. The elevation was 45 degrees, depression 8 degrees. The turrets weighed 203 and 255 tons respectively. The guns were fitted in individual cradles, enabling individual elevation and depression.
Ammunition stowage was 200 rpg.
In the final design the disposition was as follows: two-three configuration forward; three-two aft, with viewpoint forward-aft. This ensured stability and maximum across-beam fire too, while retaining a considerable amount of end-on fire also.

Final orders for six units were placed in US yards beginning March 1, 1931.

The design as envisaged featured a well-protected 667-2 ft long hull, well subdivided. Beam was set at 70 ¾ ft, draught at 30 ½ ft full load.
Displacement was officially stated as ’10,000 tons’, but, when Jane’s in their 1934 edition included the information that the new Hellenic cruiser will ‘in all probability’ weigh around 12,000 tons ‘if not more’, the Naval Ministry published data stating the official displacement as 12,600 tons.
In reality, that was only extreme light, since all calculations showed that the class light would weigh 12,400 tons without armament, but standard displacement was, in fact, 13,070 tons, full load between 15,500 and 16,050 tons.

Thevai, the class-leader, was laid down at Norfolk Navy yard, Norfolk, VA, on Sept. 1, 1931, launched May 8, 1934 and delivered on April 26, 1935
Two ships, Sparta and Doxa were laid down at Bethlehem Steel, Fore River, Quincy, MA, Sept. 11, 1931 and March 1, 1932 respectively. They were launched June 2, 1935 and May 12, 1935 but delivered on the same day, Oct. 11, 1935.
The Serrai and Sphendoni were built by Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, VA, launched on Nov 22, 1934 and April 5, 1935 respectively and delivered on June 12, 1935 and Feb. 1 1936.
Finally, the Augousta (named after the Byzantine feminine Imperial title.) was built by New York Shipbuilding Corp., Camden NJ, launched Jan. 17, 1936 and delivered Sept. 10, 1936.

The finished vessels presented an awesome sight. A massive tower complex adorned the foc’sle area, very similar to, but smaller than those fitted to the New Mexico-class battleships after their reconstruction, or the British Nelson-class battleships.
Originally it was envisaged to have three slanted funnel uptakes, but the final draft showed a massive, imposing enclosed stack, very similar to those of the Lexington-class CVs, though much diminished in size.
Another feature was the rather oversized three-storied control top, which was a reflection on Grand Adm. Stephanopoulos’ obsession with fire control.

In 1904, a young Lt Com. Stephanos Stephanopoulos-Comnenou was assigned as one of the Hellenic Naval Academy’s cadets to the British gunnery establishment at HMS Excellent, which at that time was commanded by Rear-Adm. Percy Moreton Scott. Scott had early on adopted the Dreyer range clock, although still insufficient for long-range firing and aiming. But, Stephanopoulos quickly became a convert to the notion of long-range rapid fire, a conviction that was reaffirmed during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05. On a personal level, he was infatuated by the exuberant and no-nonsense personality of Scott's.
Stephanopoulos spent his two year stint at the HMS Excellent establishment closely watching his charismatic British mentor, and he became an accomplished gunnery expert in his own right. It was at the insistence of Stephanopoulos, then a Flag Captain, that Rear-Adm. Kountouriotis ordered his fleet to split, leaving behind his bedraggled battleships, instead rushing onwards towards the Turkish squadron, during the battle of Ellis, in Dec. 1912, with only his flagship, the 10-in gun armored cruiser Averoff and a small squadron of destroyers. The ensuing victory affirmed Stephanopoulos’ beliefs in the new Dreyer-Scott system, and when he assumed command of the fleet, succeeding Kountorioutis, he made every effort to teach the RHN the technicalities of that tactical concept.
Hence the very large control tops. In service, however, it was soon found to be rather impractical, and by 1939, all ships had had their tops greatly reduced in size.

The performance of this class did not disappoint either. A service full speed of 33.6 knots had been envisaged. All ships during their trials exceeded this handsomely; the Doxa, for instance making 35.98 knots on a straight four-hour run off Messina, on March 11, 1937.
The machinery was no less exceptional: 2 GE-Westinghouse Turbo-Electric turbine generator unit machinery, each developing 45,600 kW. In reality, it developed far more than that. Four drive motors, connected by geared couplings to the four shafts each developed 5,000 Volt (1,500 Amp.) and each with either 22 or 44 poles.

The additional armament, besides the ten 9.2-in, consisted of eight single, open shielded 5-in/25 and four 4-banked torpedo tubes for a total of 16 torpedo tubes.
There was also an assortment of AA MGs. Four Loire-Nieuport 130 floatplanes were carried and could be stowed in an integral hangar abaft of the twin catapults amidships.

Protection largely followed the New Orleans-class; a 9-2 ft wide belt, 4-in (200 lb) thick covered the vitals amidships, tapering to 2-in at the ends. Barbettes were now 5-in; turret faces 8-in, sides 1.5-in sides and 2.75-in roofs.
The integral two-storied conning tower was protected by a 5-in armor.
A 90lb steel deck covered the magazines, while these were additionally protected by an internal 120 lb thick belt.
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