Royal Hellenic Navy's Cruiser Force 1925-41

[DG_Alpha]

Wow, that ship's impressive, a true floating fortress.

[erik_t]

It's a beautiful drawing, and a well-considered design.

Is the 45deg elevation realistic for this era? Certainly battleship turrets of that vintage were not elevating so far, although they might not have needed to to achieve range desired by the designers. Casemate mounts are mostly before the period of my personal interest, but I would expect them to be even more limited in maximum elevation. A quick Navweaps check suggests the USN 7"/44 casemate gun was limited to only 15deg.

[bezobrazov]

erik_t: you're absolutely right about you doubting the casemated guns' possibility to elevate to 45 degrees. That's, of course not so. Their degree would be, at most 18-20 degrees - at most. Plus with (as I point out in my technical post), the sea spray and foam. gun laying would be very hard indeed. However, while I have info about this particular French gun - and its turret design could elevate to 45 degrees, I have no info pertaining the casemated gun designs, so am leaving that off (for now, at least).

So, in other words, yes, the range variable would be quite considerable, indeed! For the RHN, that would not, however, have constituted much of an issue, since their principal adversary, the Imperial Osmanli Fleet, did not possess anything that could out-range the cruisers of the Hellenic fleet, and the ranges tended to creep down to between 15,000 to 8,000 yards, where the casemated guns would have had a fair chance to obtain target range.

Thank you for your compliment though!

[bezobrazov]

So, having posted the mighty Stemma, I thought it only proper to also post the more famous Georgios Averof, the Italian Ansaldo built armored cruiser that was RAdm Pavlos Kountouriotis' flagship during the two epic battles of Elli (Dec, 16, 1912) and Lemnos (Jan. 18, 1913) which both stunning victories established Hellas as a new naval power in the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. She (or he, considering after whom the ship was named!) was originally the third unit of the very powerful Pisa-class ACRs, but, due to financial constraints, the Italian Government cancelled the third unit, when about 20% finished on the hull. The Greeks immediately purchased the vessel, contracted with Armstrong-Elswick to provide the armament (four 9.2" and eight 7.5", all in electrical turrets) and put down a down-payment of 300,000 Lire, most provided by the Greek businessman Georgios Averof, after whom the ship subsequently was named. The ship was delivered in the spring of 1911, and accepted in July same year. Originally her first Capt. Damianos was unable to quell a mutiny among her crew, training in Livorno, being a rather weak character, so the veteran Capt. Kountouriotis was dispatched and was able through his sheer personality to calm the emotions and bring the new ship home to Piraeus.

In 1912, Capt. Sofoklis Dousmanis was appointed her commanding officer and proved to be an excellent choice. Kountouriotis had, in the meantime been promoted a RAdm, commanding the Aegean Squadron. His flag lieutenant was Cdr Stephanos Stephanoupolos-Comnenou. Dousmanis was the Chief of Staff to Kountouriotis, but being both captain of the flagship and the chief of staff was a complicated dual function, and, on Dec. 15, only a day before joining action with Capt. Ahmet Ramiz Bey's Osmanli squadron of battleships, ironclads and cruisers, Stephanopoulos was elevated into the position as Acting Chief of Staff, and it was at his suggestion that the admiral ordered the hoisting of the famous 'Z'-signal, denoting "Independent Action". This single flag signal saw the two armored cruisers of the Greek squadron, Dousmanis' Averof and Katsonis' Stemma surge forward, ahead of the lumbering 14-16 knot battleships, as they gave chase to the Turks, already retreating. The four destroyers accompanying the squadron independently, but deftly took their positions ahead or abeam of the two racing cruisers, which now, independently each crossed the Turks' "T", but from different angles. While Averof kept up a devastatingly accurate fire on the Osmanli flagship Barbaros Hayreddin, damaging her substantially, the Stemma, taking advantage of her superior speed and towering bulk, steered straight into the center of the Turkish squadron, blasting away with its impressive arsenal of 7.6" guns. Incredibly enough, this was also the first time that either of the Hellenic warships had fired their guns! Yet, the discipline aboard the Greek vessels were such that they not only hit home on their targets, but their almost Nelsonian tactics, in its sheer audacity, panicked their adversary so much that they abandoned the Aegean to the Greeks, allowing the Hellenic forces to occupy in a leisurely fashion nearly all the important islands along the Asia Minor coast.

The following year, the Osmanlis tried a break-out, using the fast protected cruiser Hamidiye as a bait, in order to attempt to corner the dangerous Greek armored cruisers and destroying them with fast, accurate battleship fire. The plan completely collapsed when the Greeks did not fall for the trap, but, instead, as at Ellis, commenced independent actions, with two Greek wings, the port led by Averof, focusing on the Turkish flagship Barbaros Hayreddin, the starboard led by Stemma, focusing on the Mesûdiye and the cruiser Mecidiye, and the five destroyers. Each wing had two destroyers as well, following in the wake of the cruisers. The Hellenic battleships were relegated to fire support ships, having to catch up as they could. Again, the Turks were forced to make a hasty retreat, in spite of putting up a generally excellent rate of fire. The accuracy was dismal though. The Greeks had a lower rate of fire in both battles, but their rangefinders (Barr & Stroud 4.5ft and 9ft coincidence rangefinders) did a splendid job quickly finding the ranges. The actual battle range varied between 11,000 down to 6,000yds.

So, here's now the Hellenic Fleet flagship during the First Balkan War, Georgios Averof, as she looked liked at Ellis, 1912. The only things I have altered from the original is the color and shading of the boot topping, some cosmetic details in the bridge complex and adding the battle flags and the famous 'Z'-signal flag:

[emperor_andreas]

Very nice work!

[Thiel]

Surely you mean it was the first time they fired their guns in anger, not the first time they fired them at all?

[bezobrazov]

No, Thiel. What I wrote I meant. It's completely based on what actually did happened: the Averof was basically delivered without the ammo for her main guns and only a token amount for her 7.5in guns; one which also was faulty. During its voyage home, Kountouriotis exercised his crew in all practical aspects of seamanship, target ranging, gun laying, but did never fire the Averof's guns - never. Yet, in both battles, off Elli and Lemnos, the Greeks were able to score what amounted to pivotal victories, thanks to the superior rangefinders on the Averof and discipline among its crew. It's a true, albeit incredulous story, I know, yet it did happen! I've only taken the liberty in my AU to include one more ACR, the Stemma, but am keeping the AU-story otherwise fairly close to the real events.

[odysseus1980]

Having read real history for various sources, I confirm that fact too. And CA Averoff is still afloat as museum ship.