Greek destroyer Panthir
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 Destoyer Panthir |
|
| Career (Greece) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | Panthir (ΒΠ Πάνθηρ) |
| Namesake: | panther |
| Ordered: | 1912 |
| Laid down: | 1911 |
| Launched: | April 1, 1911 |
| Commissioned: | 1912 |
| Decommissioned: | 1946 |
| Fate: | broken up |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 880 tons standard |
| Length: | 89.4 m (293 ft) |
| Beam: | 8.3 m (27 ft) |
| Draft: | 3 m (9.8 ft) |
| Propulsion: | 5 × Foster Wheeler boilers (4 coal-fired and 1 oil-fired), replaced by Yarrow oil-fired boilers in 1925 5 funnels combined Parsons and Curtis steam turbines |
| Speed: | 31 knots (57 km/h) maximum (32 knots (59 km/h) after 1925) |
| Complement: | 58 |
| Armament: | As completed: 4 × Bethlehem 4-inch (102 mm) guns 1 × 75 mm anti-aircraft gun 6 × 21-inch (533 mm)torpedo tubes 3 × electric search lights 1925: 75 mm gun removed 37 mm anti-aircraft gun added four-barrel 40 mm gun added 2 mortars added Modified for laying 40 mines 1942: 3rd and 4th stern torpedo launchers removed 1 × 3-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft gun added 1 × 20 mm Oerlikon gun added A/S type 123A detection device added |
Panthir (Greek: ΒΠ Πάνθηρ, "Panther") served in the Hellenic Royal Navy from 1912–1946.
The ship, along with her three sister ships of Wild Beast class destroyers Aetos, Ierax and Leon, was ordered from England. They were purchased ready for delivery, each for the sum of £148,000 from the English shipyards Camell Laird in Liverpool, when the Balkan Wars seemed likely. These ships had originally been ordered by Argentina; Panthir was originally named Santiago. Accepted by Captain Ath. Miaoulis, RHN in Palermo, Sicily. where she arrived manned by foreign crew.
During the Balkan Wars, the Royal Hellenic Navy purchased only the minimum amount of ammunitions, 3,000 rounds of torpedoes. Torpedoes were not available for this class of ship, and for this reason these ships were initially named 'scouts' rather than 'destroyers'.
During World War I, Greece belatedly entered the war on the side of the Triple Entente and, due to Greece's neutrality the four Beast Class ships were seized by the Allies in October, 1916, taken over by the French in November, and served in the French Navy from 1917-18. By 1918, they were back on escort duty under Greek colors, mainly in the Aegean Sea.
In 1919-20 she participated in the operations in Southern Russia evacuating Greek refugees from the Russian Civil War with the battleships Kilkis and Limnos and the destroyer Leon, remaining for 263 days in the Black Sea. During the Asia Minor war, she took part in the blockade of the Asia Minor coasts.[1]
After the war, Panthir was refurbished from 1925–1927. She also participated in the Second World War, after surviving the German invasion of April, 1941, Panthir was based in the Indian Ocean. Between May and October, 1942, her armament was updated in Bombay enabling her to offer better Anti-Aircraft protection and Anti-Surface capabilities on her new missions.
After the end of World War II, Panthir was stricken in 1946.
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