Greece’s first home-built submarine set for launch
Greece’s first domestically built submarine, a Type 214 diesel-electric vessel named Pipinos, will be ready for launch on October 6, the Hellenic Navy said on Thursday.
Pipinos is the first of three vessels commissioned by the navy to be built by Hellenic Shipyards at Skaramangas, west of Athens, and is expected to join the fleet within the first half of 2015.
Also by end-October, Hellenic Shipyards is expected to complete upgrades on the Type 209 Okeanos. Matrozos, another Type 214, is slated to be launched by the end of the year. The three vessels will bring the Hellenic Navy’s Type 214 submarine fleet to four, following the delivery in 2010 of Papanikolis, built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft GmbH (HDW) in Kiel, Germany.
The cost of constructing the two watercraft and the upgrade of the third has been set at 75 million euros.
