The Hellenic Navy's newest warship arrived in Greece upon the completion of her delivery voyage from France on Thursday, January 15.
HS Kimon is the first ship in a new class of three multi-role frigates ordered from by the Hellenic Navy from French defence shipbuilder the Naval Group.
The vessel is a variant of the defence and intervention frigate (frégate de défense et d'intervention; FDI) designed by the Naval Group for the French Navy. She belongs to the FDI HN class, alternately known as the Kimon-class, which was developed specifically to satisfy the Hellenic Navy’s operational requirements.
Like the baseline French Navy FDIs, the FDI HNs were built to be capable of anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and insertion and extraction of special operations forces. Each frigate can operate alone or as part of a naval task force and can be deployed long-term over long distances.
Kimon has a displacement of 4,500 tonnes, a length of approximately 122 metres, a beam of 18 metres, a crew complement of 125 including aviation personnel, and a combined diesel and diesel propulsion arrangement that will deliver a maximum speed of 27 knots and a range of 5,000 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 15 knots.
The ship's armament includes Aster and RAM surface-to-air missiles, Exocet anti-ship missiles, MU90 torpedoes, a Leonardo/OTO Melara 76mm rapid fire naval gun, and two Oerlikon 20mm cannon fitted on Leonardo remote weapon stations.
