Greek ironclad Hydra Hydra ( ) was an ironclad warship of the Greek Navy , named for Hydra , one of the Saronic Gulf islands which played a key role in the war at sea during the Greek War of Independence . The lead ship of her class of ironclads , she was ordered in 1885 in response to a crisis in the Balkans and Ottoman naval expansion . The ship was launched in 1889 and delivered to Greece by 1892 . She was armed with a main battery of three guns and five guns , and had a top speed of . " Hydra " and her sisters saw heavy service with the Greek Navy . They participated in the Greco – Turkish War in 1897 until the Great Powers intervened and prevented the Greek Navy from capitalizing on their superiority over the Ottoman Navy . " Hydra " saw action in the First Balkan War at the Naval Battle of Elli and was present at the Naval Battle of Lemnos , but was too slow to actively engage the Ottoman forces . She did not see action during World War I , and was reduced to a gunnery training ship after the end of the war . She was ultimately broken up for scrap in 1929 . Construction . In 1885 , Greece ordered three new ironclads of the . " Hydra " was ordered from the " Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire " shipyard in St . Nazaire , France during the premiership of Charilaos Trikoupis . The ship , named for the island of Hydra , was launched in 1889 , and by 1892 , she and her sister - ships " Spetsai " and " Psara " were delivered to the Greek fleet . The ship 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 steam engines of unknown type ; they were rated at and provided a top speed of . Coal storage amounted to . " Hydra " s main battery consisted of three guns . Two guns were mounted forward in barbette s 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 casemate s 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 boat s . These included four L / 22 guns , four 3 - pounder guns , four 1 - pounder guns , and six 1 - pounder revolver cannons . The ship was also armed with three torpedo tube s . The ship was armored with a mix of Creusot and compound steel . The main belt was thick and the main battery was protected by up to of armor . Service history . The ship 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 , " Hydra " and her sister - ships were partially rearmed ; " Hydra " was modified at the La Seyne shipyard . Their small - caliber guns were replaced with one gun forward , eight 9 - pounder guns , four 3 - pounders , and ten 1 - pounder revolver cannon . 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 . The Ottoman fleet , which included " Turgut Reis " , " Barbaros Hayreddin " , two outdated ironclad battleships , nine destroyers and six torpedo boats , sortied from the Dardanelles at 9 : 30 . The smaller ships remained at the mouth of the straits while the battleships sailed north , remaining near to the coast . The Greek flotilla , which included the armored cruiser " Georgios Averof " and " Hydra " and her sisters , had been sailing from the island of Imbros to the patrol line outside the straits . When the Ottomans were sighted , the Greeks altered course to the northeast , in order to block the advance of their opponents . In the ensuing Naval Battle of Elli , the Ottoman ships opened fire first , at 9 : 50 , from a range of about 15 , 000 yards ; the Greeks returned fire ten minutes later , by which time the range had decreased significantly to 8 , 500 yards . At 10 : 04 , the Ottoman ships completed a 16 - point turn , which reversed their course , and steamed for the safety of the straits in a disorganized withdrawal . Within an hour , the rout ed 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 " Hamidiye " 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 " appeared approximately 12 miles from Lemnos ; when the powerful Greek ship 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 . " Hydra " and her sisters were too slow to keep up with " Georgios Averof " , and played no part in the engagement . By 1914 , " Hydra " had been withdrawn from active duty to serve as a gunnery training ship . At the outbreak of World War I in at the end of July 1914 , Greece ' s pro - German monarch , Constantine I , decided to remain neutral . The Entente powers landed troops in Salonika in 1915 , which was a source of tension between France and Greece . In October 1916 , " Hydra " and a pair of torpedo boats defected to the Venizelist faction in the National Schism . Ultimately , the French seized the Greek Navy on 19 October ; the heavy units of the Greek fleet were disarmed and placed in reserve for the remainder of the war . " Hydra " was decommissioned in 1918 and stricken from the naval register the next year . She was to be sold for scrapping in 1921 , but instead returned to her role as a naval artillery school from 1922 until 1929 when she was broken up for scrap .