List of battleships of Greece

In the early 20th century, the Greek Navy embarked on an expansion program to counter a strengthening of Greece's traditional rival, the Ottoman Empire.

As the Ottomans had a significant head start in battleship construction, the Greek Navy purchased two obsolete American pre-dreadnoughts—USS Mississippi and Idaho—as a stop-gap measure in June 1914.

Greece remained neutral for the first three years of World War I, though in October 1916, France seized the Greek Navy and disarmed both of the battleships.

The guns that had been ordered for the ship in the United States were instead sold by the manufacturer, Bethlehem Steel, to the Royal Navy to arm the British Abercrombie-class monitors.

The new battleship was to be named Vasilefs Konstantinos and was to be built to the same design as the French Bretagne class from AC de St Nazaire Penhoet.

They were needed to counter Ottoman naval expansion while the Greeks waited on their newly ordered dreadnoughts to be completed abroad.

In October 1916, the French seized the Greek fleet and disarmed Kilkis and Lemnos; they were put back into service at the end of the war.

German Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers bombed both ships in the harbor; Kilkis was sunk outright while Lemnos was beached to avoid sinking.