PHOTO GALLERY #8: Pipinos, submarine of the Hellenic Navy

S121 Pipinos, second of the Papanikolis class

Today, December 6th of 2015, Hellenic Navy celebrates the feast day of its patron Saint, Saint Nicholas and the anniversary of the Balkan Wars (1912-13) naval battles. As such day of the year is a great opportunity for citizens of Athens and Piraeus to visit warships of Hellenic Navy that visit Piraeus for three days (Dec 4-6) to pay tribute to the patron saint of sailors and to give the opportunity to the citizens to "learn more" about their country's Navy. Once again for the second time in a row I was there! S121 Pipinos, is the second submarine of the Papanikolis class (Type 214 designation for the Hellenic Navy) of the Hellenic Navy, the most advanced submarines currently in service with Hellenic Navy and a class of one of the most advanced submarines in this category (diesel-electric/conventional submarine). The name pays tribute to Andreas Pipinos who was a fighter in the Greek War of Independence, noted for his success with fireships. This is the second submarine of Type 214 class I have visited (Papanikolis was my first!). Enjoy more than 20 photos of the boat!

FLEETS #14: Swedish Navy, Israeli Navy and Egyptian Navy today

Written by D-Mitch

This is the fifth article about various countries' navies today. In these articles, I briefly describe a country's naval fleet by reporting the ships in each type/category of warships and by providing a nice image where all the types of warships are illustrated and the units of its class are reported. I include the vessels that will enter in service this year and I have excluded those that are about to be decommissioned. I deliberately excluded many classes of auxiliary ships; those that they have "0" defence capacity and those that have secondary roles such as hydrographic survey ships, tugs, depollution vessels and training ships.

NAVAL FORCES #7 and INFOGRAPHICS #19: Submarines of Europe, Mediterranean Sea and Asia-Pacific in 2015

The following images were created by Naval Graphics (twitter acount: Naval_Graphics) and they depict the submarines that are operational in Europe, Mediterranean Sea and the region of Asia-Pacific as of late 2015. All the images are posted here with his perimission. Enjoy these absolutely excellent graphs!

Submarines of Europe and Mediterannean Sea in 2015. By Naval Graphics. Image in high resolution here.

NAVAL FORCES #6: Naval Power in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2015

The following image was created by me (D-Mitch) in order to illustrate the major naval fleets in the Eastern Mediterranean. This image was included in a long and very detailed article (in Greek) titled ΝΑΥΤΙΚΕΣ ΕΞΕΛΙΞΕΙΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΙΚΗ ΜΕΣΟΓΕΙΟ (English: Naval Developments in the Eastern Mediterranean) that was written by me and fox2 and you can enjoy it in the above mentioned link. This article marks my new cooperation with fox2 at his blog idbam.blogspot.gr; more articles will follow in the future.

Naval Power in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2015. Image in high resolution here.

INFOGRAPHICS OF COAST GUARD VESSELS #1: Greece, Turkey and Romania

Written by D-Mitch

With this new post I begin a new category of infographics of various coast guard vessels from around the world. These infographics aim to highlight the most important equipment of the vessels; I do not analyze the systems in depth as I do for the warships instead I provide some basic information mainly from Wikipedia (if else I provide the source) about the ships, their history and their capabilities.

1. Dost class offshore patrol vessels of the Turkish Coast Guard

Guven OPV. Photo: Combat Master

The CMS of Guven. Photo: Combat Master

The contract for the construction of four Dost class offshore patrol vessels at RMK Marine Shipyard was signed on 16 January 2007. These large ships were commissioned the period 2013-2014. The design of the these ships are based on the Sirio class offshore patrol vessels produced by Italian Fincantieri. With the commissioning of these ships, the Turkish Coast Guard is able to perform its duties mainly search and rescue in sea state 5 and higher. These ships are the first Turkish Coast Guard vessels that can support helicopter operations. (source: turkishnavy.net)

HISTORY #4: Age of Sail largest warships

Compiled information from Wikipedia articles by D-Mitch

In the previous post I included a number of infographics of various types of warships from the Age of Sail, the period lasting from the 16th to the mid-19th century where naval warfare was dominated by sailing ships armed with cannons. In this post I will describe briefly some of the the largest, most powerful and advanced warships of that era.

HMS Victoria the largest wooden warship which ever entered service

HMS Victoria was the last British wooden first-rate three-decked ship of the line commissioned for sea service. With a displacement of 6,959 tons, she was the largest wooden battleship which ever entered service. She was also the world's largest warship until the completion of HMS Warrior, Britain's first ironclad battleship, in 1861. Victoria´s hull was 79.2 metres (260 ft) long and 18.3 metres (60 ft) wide. She had a medium draught of 8.4 metres (27.5 ft). Her hull was heavily strapped with diagonal iron riders for extra stability. Victoria was the first British battleship with two funnels. She was armed with a total of 121 guns (32 8-inch smooth-bore muzzle-loading guns on the lower gun deck, 30 8-inch (200 mm) guns on the central gun deck, 32 32-pounders on the upper gun deck, 26 32-pounders and one 68-pounder on the upper deck). Victoria was ordered on 6 January 1855, laid down on 1 April 1856 at Portsmouth, and launched on 12 November 1859. She cost a total of £150,578 (2010: £11,764,000) and had a complement of 1,000. During trials in Stokes Bay on 5 July 1860 Victoria reached a top speed of 11.797 knots (21.848 km/h), making her the fastest three decker worldwide, along with the French Bretagne. 

INFOGRAPHICS #18: Age of Sail warships (collection)

The anatomy of an 18th c Man-of-War

In this post I have included a number of infographics of various types of warships from the Age of Sail, the period lasting from the 16th to the mid-19th century where naval warfare was dominated by sailing ships armed with cannons. The end of the sail began in the late 1840s when the steam technology became available. Many ships that were intended to be built as sailing ships they received during their construction or shortly after their launch, engines and screw propeller. The largest, the most powerful and advanced warships of that era will be presented in summary in a next post, the HISTORY #4: Age of Sail largest warships. A great look inside HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's famous flagship (104-gun first-rate ship of the line) at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and world's oldest naval ship still in commission, can be found here.

Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary - Today, past and future (a quick overview)

Written by D-Mitch

RN warships from WWI to 2010. By www.dailymail.co.uk

In this post I aim to present in brief the impressive decline of the United Kingdom's naval force (Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary) through the last decades as well as the current and the future status of the fleet and its synthesis according to the decisions that have been taken the last years. I will not describe all the kind of cuts in the numbers of the various warship categories and craft neither I will expand upon this topic as numerous other very good sites (first of all the savetheroyalnavy.org that its main aim is to put pressure on the UK government to properly resource the RN, others such as the ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot.com, the britisharmedforcesreview.wordpress.com, the thinkdefence.co.uk, the ukdefencejournal.org.uk and more) have focused and analyze thoroughly this issue and the decline of UK's naval power. My main target is to summarize in a simple way the UK's naval power through the last decades by using a variety of infographics, charts and useful information compiled from some good sources.

FLEETS #13: French Navy, Portuguese Navy and Finnish Navy today

Written by D-Mitch

This is the fifth article about various countries' navies today. In these articles, I briefly describe a country's naval fleet by reporting the ships in each type/category of warships and by providing a nice image where all the types of warships are illustrated and the units of its class are reported. I include the vessels that will enter in service this year and I have excluded those that are about to be decommissioned. I deliberately excluded many classes of auxiliary ships; those that they have "0" defence capacity and those that have secondary roles such as hydrographic survey ships, tugs, depollution vessels and training ships.