Royal Hellenic Navy's Cruiser Force 1925-41

Vice Adm. Konstantinos Kriezis obtained an almost mythical stature during WW2, akin to that of, say Sir Andrew Cunningham or "Bull" Halsey. His spirited, aggressive and extremely skillful defense of the Black Seas littoral was seen as a major holding operation against the Axis. Thus his great victory over the Turkish fleet at Third Sinope (Nov, 1940) was feted both in London and, less conspiciously, in Washington.
Kriezis, during these operations flew his flag from the heavy cruiser Olympia, completed in 1932. In most essentials she was a modified Northampton-class cruiser, with cage masts and double the number of torpedoes. Olympia already had a very special standing among the Greeks; for it was from her bridge that Grand Admiral Stephanopoulos had commanded the Hellenic Fleet during the war-like operations, creating Greater Hellas.

In 1938 it was planned to send the cruiser back to the United States for a thorough refit and modernization. As it were, the international tense sitution prevented that. Instead, by the fall of the following year a team of American engineers and technicians led by Lt.Cdr Curtis, arrived at the Arsenal in Constantinople to supervise the refit and rebuilding. The team brought equipment bought by the Hellenic government along, amongst which were several sets of directors, 1.1" AA-guns and new torpedotubes with reloads. The RHN, in contrast to the USN, did not regard the TT mounts as either fire- or explosion hazards.
The modernization process involved the partial cutting-down of the aft lattice mast, surrounding the stump with a large, wide AA-gun bridge. The 5"/25s received splinter protection, the bridge was partially rebuilt; an AA-gun platform being erected on top of the conning-tower. The old armored range finders were discarded, as they had turned out to be unreliable in service, and replaced with modern American ones. Two additional directors were shipped; one abaft the aft stack, on the main AA-gun director station, the other atop the aft mast stump.
The Olympia was also painted in a variant of USN:s Measure 1/5, the ship being painted in a dark blue hull color with tops left in grey. In addition she sported a gigantic false bow wave, artfully designed by a mere 15-year old budding seascape artist, Panayiotis Tetsis, who, when Italy and Turkey attacked his home country, had flocked to the Royal Banner, being commissioned an ensign onboard the fleet flagship, in Nov., 1940. He painted the false bow wave in such fashion as to attempt to show the ship steaming at a higher speed than normal.

She was done and floated out of her drydock just in time for the Italian attack on Hellas, in Oct. 1940.

My depiction shows the Olympia flying the colors at the Battle of Third Sinope.
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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

That camo is impressive

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"If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done." ~Ludwig Wittgenstein

Bezo, you put the rest of us at shame. That's a real beaute!

KHT wrote:

Bezo, you put the rest of us at shame. That's a real beaute!

agreed.

Great work! Details, camouflage... whole idea of the thread in the first place... Great!

Thank you very much, guys! I'm happy it's appreciated. No Love's Labour Lost here, evidently!

To All Fellow Americans: Have a Happy and Safe Labor Day!

Beautiful camo! And thanks...will do!

-Matt

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

I have been posting images of how the RHN ships looked like at the war's beginning. I have also provided information about the opposing fleets at the important Battle off Sinope, Nov. 27, 1940. However, I have not provided a visual cue as to how the opposing fleet's main units actually looked like. So, it's time to take a deeper look at the ships of the Republic of Turkey, sometimes referred to as 'Rump'-Turkey, since, at the Peace at Lausanne, terminating the War of 1920-23, it was stripped of its entire North-Western territory, which was ceded to Hellas.

The Turkish navy had a very troubled history. Not only during various, more of less despotic, megalomaniac and half-deranged Sultans did its fortunes either soared to its zenith or plummeted to its nadir. The republic was, unfortunately no different. The navy's strong man, its charismatic leader after the German departure, in 1919, was Hüseyin Rauf Orbay Bey, a most accomplished and talented, wily cruiser commander. He was immensely popular, both with the Turks, but especially among the navy's personnel. He was, however, not kindly regarded by another strong man, emerging from the rubble of war and defeat: Mustapha Kemal Pasha. In fact, Kemal regarded Rauf as one of his principal rivals, and therefore sought with all means possible to contain and limit Rauf's areas of influence, with the sad result that the Turkish navy was very much absent during that war, surrendering the initiative and dominance of the Aegean and the Straits to the Greeks. By 1925 Rauf was gone, having been ousted from his post as Navy Minister, Prime Minister and member of the Military Council. A year later he was forced into exile. For the Turkish navy these events were disastrous, since Mustapha Kemal now viewed the navy with increasing suspicion.
Seeing that the whole country needed to modernize, Kemal Atatürk, as he was now known as, realised that the navy, too, needed to follow suit. Therefore he turned to his old friends in Germany for assistance. With an outstanding loan of 320 million Reichsmark, Atatürk, in 1928, signed an agreement to have three armored ships (Muharebe zirhli) built by Howaldtswerke, Hamburg, A.G. Weser, Bremen and Vulcan, Schichau, Stettin. These ships, the Barbaros-class, were basically slightly enlarged Deutschlands, with the same armament, except that the Turks preferred to have secondary 150mm turrets; four twins which were provided in a novel design which served as basis for subsequent Reichmarine and Kriegsmarine secondary turrets. The ships were diesel driven, with their eight MAN diesels driving two shafts with an identical output to the Deutschlands, 52,000 SHP. Speed was slightly reduced from 26 knots to 25, but in reality this did not matter much. The main armament comprised two triple turrets carrying the 280mm gun, fore and aft. Eight above-water torpedo tubes were provided, but the arrangement, similar to their German cousins left much to be desired and they were prone to wetness even in calm seas. Eight 105mm AA guns were also provided in counter balanced mounts; a fairly advanced design feature. Finally one Arado Ar 196 was shipped.
The ships dimensions were 190.5 m oa length; 21.67 m beam and 7.35 m draft. Displacement was 12,050 tons standard and 16,500 tons full load. All In all they represented good value for the money. What the Turks did not know was that the armor scheme of the new ships did not meet the eye as specified: instead of the 80mm side armor, they had only 60, tapering further at the ends to 50 mm. The deck was protected by only a meagre 25 mm hardened steel citadel. Only the main turrets were armored as envisaged. This fatal thinning of their armor would have consequences later.
Having taken delivery in Germany of their new ships, they were sailed to Turkey and entered Hellenic water, through the international shipping channel in the Straits and the Bosporus. The Hellenes got a good view of their future antagonists, as they crossed from the Aegean into the Black Seas between Aug. 20 -24, 1935.
The ships were stationed at Trabzon, the principal Turkish naval port in the Black Seas. There, on oct. 29, 1937, they were ambushed by the Hellenic navy who utilized their superior number of destroyers to send all three to the bottom of Trabzon's shallow harbor. They were raised, and, by 1939-40, again in commission, Turkey, in the meanwhile, having been forced to sue for peace, in 1938.
The Turks were poised on revenge, however, and when the able and charismatic Vice Admiral (Tugamiral) Muzaffer Ciler Koral assumed command in the summer of 1940, the odds brightened. The following battle off Sinope, Nov. 27, dashed all such hopes, however, since Ciler was wounded early on in the action and had to relinquish command of his force to his chief-of-staff, Rear Adm. Mehmed Cittin Ecergülbey, a vacillating and not very bright officer, having mainly risen to high ranks through his political connections. It was known that Ciler had opposed Ecergülbey's appointment but was overruled. Now, this officer singularly accomplished the virtual annihilation of the Turkish force by his stubborn, slavish insistance of adherence to the line-of-battle formation, while the Greeks comfortably surged around the Turkish fleet, picking their targets at convenience.
As a result the flagship, Barbaros was scuttled at the end of the battle by her crew, having had her foreship sheared off by a torpedo hit, which filled the armored ship rapidly. Ciler was transferred to a destroyer. The Barbaros' indefatigable Captain, Mustapha Cevdet Yasgan, fought his ship to the last, manning a machine gun as the former flagship took her plunge into the depths of the Black Seas.
The two other ships had very active careers too. The Turgutreis was selected as Ciler's new flagship upon his return to service after a lenghty convalescence, and onboard her, Ciler fought the Greek fleet with determination and valor, albeit without much success.

I give you the Barbaros-class Armored Ships:
[ img ]

While the ship itself is impressive and the story sounds plausible I doubt the Turks could have kept them operative for any amount of time without a high degree of German assistance.
The Deutchland's diesel engines were essentially experimental and required constant pampering by a large team of highly trained technicians to keep them running.

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