The Greek Navy has a very long history, which stems from the special geographical distribution of the Greek land, 15% of its 130,000 square kilometers of land area is islands, Greece has about 3,000 islands, most of which are scattered in the Aegean Sea, and its coastline is as long as 15,000 kilometers. But for the Greek Navy, the pressure it faced at sea was very large, all due to the distribution of the Aegean sea islands, thousands of islands in the Aegean Sea, most of which were distributed to Greece, some of which were even much closer to Turkey (the pot of the Ottoman Turkish Empire), and with the rise of the Turkish Navy, this undoubtedly put great pressure on the Greek Navy.
Such an exaggerated distribution of islands is really helpless for Turkey
The weak Greek navy
Today's Greek navy has long lost the glory of the Hellenistic city-states bc, relying entirely on old destroyers/frigates as cards. 4 Kimon-class destroyers (formerly U.S. Navy Charlie M. F. Adams-class destroyers), 6 Elie-class guided-missile frigates (Corton-class frigates of the Dutch Navy), 3 Epirus-class frigates (formerly Knox-class frigates of the U.S. Navy), and today's protagonist 4 Hydra-class frigates (German-made MEKO 200Mod3HN frigates).
The elderly Charlie F. Adams-class destroyer
This is compared to the Turkish Navy, which now wants to build aircraft carriers, which is simply shabby. Of course, the hard days are about to come out, and the Greek Navy will purchase 3 FDI-HN frigates and 3 Wind-Chasing corvettes from France in the future to enhance its naval strength.
The Turkish Navy's new amphibious assault ship ANATOLIA
Hydra-level story
It's interesting to think of the Greek Navy buying Hydra-class frigates, but the Turkish Navy next door ordered four MEKO 200 TN1 frigates from Germany in the early 1980s, called yavitz-class frigates. This broke the balance of power in the Aegean Sea, so the Greek Navy, which was not willing to fall behind, also quickly purchased 4 MEKO 200 frigates from Germany, and required higher technical performance than Turkey bought, so Germany improved according to the requirements of the Greek Navy and launched the MEKO 200Mod3HN type, which is the Hydra-class frigate.
Hydra-class frigate III of the Greek Navy
Of course, the story did not end here, the Turkish Navy then introduced two MEKO 200TN2A/B frigates, called barbaros class and Sarisili class, the last two Sarisiri class frigates built entirely by turkey. And eventually laid the foundation for Turkey's homemade island-class/Istanbul-class frigates.
The first ship of the Turkish Navy's most advanced Istanbul-class frigate was launched
Hydra-class equipment
The Hydra class adopts codog wood-fired alternating power mode in power, using two LM-2500 gas turbines of GE corporation in the United States as the power at high speed, with a maximum speed of 31 knots, and two German-made MTU 20V956 TB92 diesel engines as the power at low speed, maintaining an economic speed of 18 knots, the maximum mileage reaches 4100 nautical miles, which is enough to support long-distance patrol escort in the Aegean Sea.
Two dense arrays
In terms of shipboard weapons and equipment, US-made weapons are the mainstay. The main gun is a US-made MK45 Mod2A 127 mm naval gun, and the anti-ship side is two quad Harpoon anti-ship missiles. For air defense, the 16-unit Mk48 Mod5 vertical launch system is used to launch ESSM's improved Sea Sparrow anti-aircraft missile, plus a dense array of 20 mm close-in gun systems on the bow and hangar. The MK46 light anti-submarine torpedo can be launched by two triple-mounted MK32 324 mm torpedo tubes, while a Sikorsky S70B anti-submarine helicopter can also be carried out for long-range anti-submarine missions.
Hydra-class shipboard armament
In terms of shipboard electronics, the Hydra class is mainly equipped with European equipment, equipped with a Thales DA08 D-band air-to-air search radar and a Thai MW08 F-band 3D air-to-sea search radar, and the combat data system is a Thales-STACOS (SEWACO) Mk2 tactical command and control system.
| Displacement | Standard: 3360 tons Full load: 4000 tons |
| Length | 117.5 meters |
| width | 14.8 meters |
| draft | 6.0 meters |
| Maximum speed | Section 31 |
| voyage | 18 knots 4100 nautical miles |
| member | 173 |
Hydra class service
The Hydra-class frigates, which served a total of 4 ships, changed the greek navy's dilemma of using second-hand warships as large-tonnage surface ships, and also had a technical performance advantage over the same type of frigates of the Turkish Navy in the short term, but this advantage quickly dissipated with the development of the Turkish Navy's upstart.
| Hull number | Ship name | Service time | status quo |
| F452 | Hydra | 1992.11.12 | In service |
| F453 | USS Spoutersee | 1996.10.24 | |
| F454 | USS Psara | 1998.04.30 | |
| F455 | USS Salamis | 1998.12.16 |