This "D-214 Sachtouris" is one of the six Gearing FRAM I destroyers that the Greek Navy has had in service. All of these ships were transferred by the U.S. Navy between 1973 and 1980, in accordance with the terms of several cooperation agreements signed by the USA and its allied countries. According to these agreements other twin vessels of this Sachtouris were also sent to Brazil (2), Ecuador (1), Mexico (2), Pakistan (6), South Korea (5), Taiwan (12) and Spain (5, Churruca D-61, Gravina D-62, Mendez Núñez D-63, Lángara D-64 and Blas de Lezo D-65).

These Sachtouris units are destroyers with antisubmarine capacity, which proved to be very useful in scenarios like the Mediterranean Sea.

The main armament is composed of two 127 mm twin mounts, a Bofors 40 mm single mount, two Harpoon missile launchers, in quadruple containers with a capacity of eight missiles, and one eight-tube Asroc antisubmarine missile launcher.

As secondary armament, these destroyers can carry two 32,4 mm Mk 32, and torpedo launcher tubes.

As regards electronics, they carry an SPS-37 air-surface radar, an SPS-10 surface and a Decca navigation radar. It also has a Mk25 radar together with the 37 for fire control and a RTN 10X together with the NA21/30 Argo fire control system. The SQS-23 sonar operates in conjunction with the submarine fire control systems.

The Sachtouris was first launched in 1945 and was finally ready in January 1946, for which reason it did not participate in combat during World War II.

These ships were propelled by four Babcox & Wilson steam boilers. They were seaworthy strong ships, simple and having a low maintenance cost. Their performance was really good in all the Navy forces they served. In some cases, these ships were in service for 50 years, which gives us an idea of their high quality.

Bibliography

Sea Forces of the World, Christopher Chant,Crescent.1990.

All pictures were taken at the Alicante port in July 1992.