Greek destroyer Panthir

Destroyer Panthir
History
Greece
Name:	Panthir (ΒΠ Πάνθηρ)
Namesake:	Panther
Ordered:	1912
Builder:	Cammell Laird, Birkenhead
Laid down:	1911
Launched:	April 1, 1911
Commissioned:	1912
Decommissioned:	1946
Fate:	broken up
General characteristics
Class and type:	Wild Beast class
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") was a Wild Beast class destroyer which served in the Hellenic Royal Navy from 1912–1946.

Panthir, along with her three sister ships (Aetos, Ierax and Leon), was purchased ready for delivery, each for the sum of £148,000 from the English shipyard Cammell Laird in Birkenhead, when the Balkan Wars seemed likely. These ships had originally been ordered by Argentina; Panthir was originally named Santiago del Estero. 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 ammunition, 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 Wild 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 1919-1920, she participated in the operations in Southern Russia evacuating Greek refugees from the Russian Civil War with the battleships Kilkis and Lemnos 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.

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