Greek ironclad Spetsai

Spetsai was long between perpendiculars and had a beam of and a mean draft of . She displaced as built. She was powered by a pair of marine steam engines of unknown type with steam provided by four coal-fired fire-tube boilers; they were rated at and provided a top speed of . Coal storage amounted to . Two guns were mounted forward in barbettes on either side of the forward superstructure; these were L/34 guns. The third gun, a L/28 gun, was placed in a turret aft. The secondary battery consisted of four L/36 guns in casemates were mounted below the forward main battery, and a fifth 5.9-inch gun was placed on the centerline on the same deck as the main battery. A number of smaller guns were carried for defense against torpedo boats. These included four L/22 guns, four 3-pounder guns, four 1-pounder guns, and six 1-pounder Hotchkiss revolver cannons. The ship was also armed with three torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and one in the bow. The ship was armored with a mix of Creusot and compound steel. The main belt was thick in the central section and was reduced to at either end of the vessel. The main battery barbettes were protected by up to 14 inches of armor. Spetsai was fitted with an armor deck that was thick. ==Service history==

In 1885, Greece ordered three new ironclads of the . Spetsai was ordered from the Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée shipyard in Le Havre, France, during the premiership of Charilaos Trikoupis. The ship, named for the island of Spetsai, was launched on 26 October 1889, and by 1892, she and her sister-ships and were delivered to the Greek fleet. Spetsai saw limited action in the Greco–Turkish War in 1897, as the Royal Hellenic Navy was unable to make use of its superiority over the Ottoman Navy. The Ottoman Navy had remained in port during the conflict, but a major naval intervention of the Great Powers prevented the Greeks from capitalizing on their superiority. In 1897–1900, Spetsai and her sister-ships were partially rearmed; Spetsai was modified at the La Seyne shipyard. Their small-caliber guns were replaced with one gun forward, eight Canon de 65 mm Modèle 1891| guns, four 3-pounders, and ten 1-pounder revolver cannons. One of the 14-inch torpedo tubes was replaced with a weapon. In 1908–1910, the old 5.9 in guns were replaced with new, longer L/45 models. The Balkan League, of which Greece was a member, declared war on the Ottoman Empire in October 1912. Two months later, the Ottoman fleet attacked the Greek navy, in an attempt to disrupt the naval blockade surrounding the Dardanelles. Within an hour, the routed Ottoman ships had withdrawn into the Dardanelles. The Naval Battle of Lemnos resulted from an Ottoman plan to lure the faster Georgios Averof away from the Dardanelles. The protected cruiser evaded the Greek blockade and broke out into the Aegean Sea; the assumption was that the Greeks would dispatch Georgios Averof to hunt down Hamidiye. Despite the threat to Greek lines of communication posed by the cruiser, the Greek commander refused to detach Georgios Averof from her position. Georgios Averof, Spetsai, and her two sisters appeared approximately from Lemnos; when the powerful Greek cruiser was spotted, the Ottomans turned to retreat with Georgios Averof in pursuit. She scored several hits on the fleeing Ottoman ships before breaking off the chase. Spetsai and her sisters were too slow to keep up with Georgios Averof, and played no active part in the engagement. ==Footnotes==