The armament for this ship was ordered from Bethlehem Steel in the United States and could not be delivered due to the British blockade of Germany.

[3] The initial step in the Greek rearmament program was completed with the purchase of the Italian-built armored cruiser Georgios Averof in October 1909.

[4] The Ottomans, in turn, purchased two German pre-dreadnought battleships, Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Weissenburg,[A] amplifying the naval arms race between the two countries.

They then tried to buy ships from the United States, but were rebuffed due to concerns that such a sale would alienate the Ottomans, with whom the Americans had significant industrial and commercial interests.

[9] In early 1912, the Greek Navy convened a committee that would be in charge of acquiring a new capital ship to counter Reşadiye, initially conceived as a battlecruiser.

The program was finalized in March, and along with the new battlecruiser, the Greeks invited tenders for destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines, and a depot ship to support them.

[14][B] In June 1912, the Greek Navy selected tenders from Germany's AG Vulcan for two destroyers and six torpedo boats, to be completed in just three to four months.

Then, one month later, the Greeks selected Vulcan again for the construction of their battlecruiser, with its armor and armament coming from Bethlehem Steel in the United States.

British firms were furious, again alleging that it would be impossible for Vulcan to make a profit on the contract, and surmising that the German government was subsidizing the purchase to get a foothold in the shipbuilding market.

[20] When the Argentine government refused to sell the ship, he agreed to redesigning Salamis, and a committee that included Greek and British naval officers was created to revise the design.

The Foreign Minister, Lambros Koromilas, and the Speaker of the Parliament, Nikolaos Stratos, conspired to have the larger proposal adopted while Venizelos was attending the peace conference that resulted in the Treaty of London.

The most significant changes were a 50% increase in displacement, the addition of a fourth twin-gun turret, and the arrangement of the main battery in superfiring pairs.

[16] M. K. Barnett, writing for Scientific American, remarked that the ship would "not mark any particular advance in warship design, being, rather, an effort to combine the greatest defensive and offensive qualities with the least cost.

"[21] The Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers, however, believed that the ship was designed for speed and firepower at the expensive of heavy defensive armor.

The guns proved to be highly resistant to wear in British service, though they suffered from significant barrel droop after around 250 shells had been fired through them, which contributed to poor accuracy after extended use.

According to Gardiner and Gray, the battery was to consist of twelve 6 in (152 mm) /50 caliber guns, also manufactured by Bethlehem, mounted in casemates amidships, six on either side.

[27] According to Norman Friedman, these twelve guns were sold to Britain after the war broke out, where they were used to fortify the Grand Fleet's main base at Scapa Flow.

[29] Salamis's armament was rounded out by twelve 75 mm (3.0 in) quick-firing guns, also mounted in casemates, and five 50 cm (20 in) submerged torpedo tubes.

[16] Salamis had an armored belt that was 9.875 in (250.8 mm) thick in the central section of the ship, where it protected critical areas, such as the ammunition magazines and machinery spaces.

The Brazilian Navy put their third dreadnought (Rio de Janeiro) up for sale in October 1913, and they found no shortage of countries interested in acquiring it, including Russia, Italy, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire.

Moreover, the Greek consul general in Britain claimed that the Bank of England was prepared to advance all the money needed to purchase the ship as soon as a French loan was guaranteed.

Arrangements for all this took quite some time, however, and at the end of December, the Ottomans were able to secure Rio de Janeiro with a private loan from a French bank.

The Greek government pressed AG Vulcan to finish Salamis as quickly as possible, but she could not be completed before mid-1915, by which time both of the new Ottoman battleships would have been delivered.

[33] Kerr criticized this purchase as "penny-wise and pound-foolish" for ships that were "entirely useless for war", carrying a price that could have paid for a brand-new dreadnought.

According to a postwar report written for the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, the incomplete vessel was towed to Kiel, where she was used as a barracks ship.

[42] In 1928, with the impending recommissioning of the Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz (ex-SMS Goeben), Greece considered responding positively to an offer from Vulcan to reach a compromise, one option being to complete and modernize Salamis.

Admiral Periklis Argyropoulos, the Minister of Marine, wanted to accept the offer, pointing to a study by the General Staff that demonstrated that a modernized Salamis would be capable of defeating Yavuz owing to the heavier armor and more powerful main battery of the Greek ship.

The British naval architect Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt issued a study in support of Argyropoulos, pointing out that Salamis would likely also be faster than Yavuz and would have a stronger anti-aircraft battery.

[43] Venizelos determined that the cost of completing Salamis would be too high, since it would preclude the acquisition of destroyers or a powerful naval air arm.