The Katsonis class was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

-built class of two submarines for the Hellenic Navy

Hellenic Navy

The Hellenic Navy is the naval force of Greece, part of the Greek Armed Forces. The modern Greek navy has its roots in the naval forces of various Aegean Islands, which fought in the Greek War of Independence...

, serving from 1927–28 until the Second World War. The ships of the class were the first new submarines acquired by Greece after the First World War.

Appearance and characteristics

In general, they were similar to the French Navy

French Navy

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

's Circé class submarines, but the conning tower was larger in order to accommodate the rotating platform of the 100 mm gun.

Ships

Two ships were built:

• Katsonis (Y-1), commissioned on 8 June 1928, it was sunk by a German submarine chaser on 14 September 1943
• Papanikolis (Y-2), commissioned on 21 December 1927, it served throughout World War II until scrapped in 1945. Only its conning tower has been preserved, and is exhibited at the Hellenic Maritime Museum.