I don't think the British would object to the Netherlands getting them. At least not any surface ships. They are allies and they are not rivals. Would the French have any interest in obtaining them for themselves? I'm sure the three navies all have the same potential enemy in the Pacific in mind.
Really doesn't make any sense for the MN - quite apart from national pride issues, they'd come with absolute nightmares supporting them due to different practices and standards. The Dutch are a little different - they've only really got three very light cruisers/destroyer leaders (the two
Tromp class &
De Ruyter) and nothing bigger, so the standardisation problems are potentially a little less severe.
It's still a lot to swallow for the Netherlands -
De Ruyter had a crew of up to 435,
Hipper was at 1,382 and
Lützow about 1,000. If they take on one of them, it'll only be one hull and I suspect they'd decommission
Java and
Sumatra to free up enough men to man her.
I think Lützow in particular would be very useful to the Netherlands - the combination of long cruising range and heavy armament would be ideal for the Pacific.
Though they would probably want to up the AA if possible.
And some extreme air conditioning.
I'd expect a major rebuild for anything they take on - not just an overhaul after being neglected for the last year, but also some major updates to the radar and fire control systems, etc.
Within the next 48-72 hours, I suspect army size formations might start surrendering.
What I have pencilled in is that no formation much bigger than a battalion will surrender for the rest of the war - essentially the German command & control system has broken down under the shock of the overwhelming forces that have hit them, and if you can't turn up and give orders in person the chances of them actually being obeyed is quite low. So you'll see Army HQs surrendering, but it doesn't mean much as their subordinate formations are really not paying very much attention.
My personal opinion is that since a lot of the ideas and trends which drove the 1944 refundation of the republic were in place in 1940 and since the jolt of victory will be there as well to provide impetus, we would still end up with a reform at the end of the war: the PSF will be in favour of it, the SFIO probably if they can tie it to social reforms, and a part of the radicaux as well. I think we will have a reform of the republic that formalises the empowerment of the Président du Conseil, the prime minister, and gives a stronger role to the President of the Republic as well - something a bit like Auriol's activism OTL, but mayber stronger if the right get a say; tied in with a welfare package closely similar to OTL's one, and to all the same packages seen in western europe at the same time.
As well, french politics will be both more consensual and more conservative than OTL I believe. If reduced to the Hexagon, this "IIIrd republic and a half" could probably stand for a while...
... but the decolonisation will be a pain, probably even more than OTL.
That's vaguely similar to what I have in mind - there is a general recognition that the pre-war system didn't work and needs to be reformed, but no agreement on how. What they've got at the moment is a system where Raynaud, Daladier and Blum thrash out what they're going to do in private and then tell everyone else what they're going to do. That **just about** works under the huge pressure of wartime, but will fall apart as soon as the war is over.
I'm thinking something along the lines of the Fourth Republic, with additional changes to encourage stable coalitions.
805 pages and one week later finally caught up! Well done pdf27!
I've had two children since I started writing it, and they're both in school!
Muslims who had served in the military (and possibly the civil service) and displayed an appropriate degree of assimilation, maybe; there's the precedent set by the Senegalese tirailleurs. Otherwise, I doubt it.
Once the precedent has been set, it's going to be harder and harder over time to deny them. The French have also used a
lot of colonial manpower in this war, so we aren't just talking about a handful of people.
Not sure on the Danes or the F/S Union, depends on how useful it would be in the cramped spaces of the Baltic.
The Americans *might* want one to study. Not sure what favors or money would be worth it for them to get it.
Another option are the Canadians/Australians/NZ (well maybe not NZ)
Not a hope in hell.
- The Union already have Ramillies plus some spare turrets so have all the heavily armed floating scrap they could want.
- The US has a bad case of not-invented-here syndrome coupled with the fact that the German warships didn't do well at all in the recent war so what do they have to learn from the losers?
- The RCN/RAN/RNZN are entirely integrated with the Admiralty, logistically as well as operationally. No way would they take on any non-UK designs.
Also, at this point, can the British ship fuel into Stettin?
Nope - nasty mix of ice and minefields in the Belt/Oresund while the Kiel Canal is still blocked.
I can see a small core group (UK, Dominions, France) sharing lots of intelligence with each other on global concerns, while the other nations like Poland are only shared some intel about their region. A lot of overlapping groups and some stressed UK and French analysts trying to work out who gets what, without over-sharing or sharing so little they get nothing back.
I'm assuming the British and French will essentially share everything, with the British sharing with the Dominions where appropriate.
To my eye, the German ship types that would be most beneficial for Norway to receive as prizes would be M1935 minesweepers, submarines, S-boote (E-boats), R-boats, and some of their tenders (if the aviso Grille is seized in Norway, maybe she ends up as the new Norwegian royal yacht instead of MY Philante - or maybe not). I think for the main surface units - escorts, destroyers, cruisers (if any) - Norway would prefer units that are compatible with British equipment and logistics, although if there are German fleet torpedoboats within Norwegian waters, Norway may well want those.
The RN are likely to have a fair number of surplus ships postwar, so I'm leaning towards Norway buying from the UK.
EDIT; having thought this a bit further through, I think a lot will depend on the relative timing of the military repression and of the coming to power of a left-wing government in France (which I think very likely to happen postwar). If a left-wing government comes to power quickly and grants independance swiftly, there's a chance bloodshed can be avoided and a path set for future independances. If, however, elections are long to come, or the government becomes embroiled in institutional reform for too long, or the military/colonialists act very quickly, then there is a possibility that the government will backtrack on a repression/escalation already in progress -- which could foster a myth of "betrayal" in the army similar to what happened post-Indochina OTL.
Decolonisation is one of the things that's going to be a pain to write postwar - I've got the British empire roughly mapped out but not the French.
Torpedo boats fit this kind of posture well because of the geography of Norway's Atlantic Coast - all those fjords and barrier-island chains are an ideal environment for sneak-and-shoot by small, nimble shallow-draft ships. And they're cheap to buy and run, too, not requiring large crews.
The problem with torpedo boats is that they're really a fair-weather only weapon. Not great for Norwegian conditions.
The Greeks and the Turks would be both interested potentially. Turkey wanted a pair of heavy cruisers and longer term a replacement for Yavuz. Greece a large cruiser capable of running down Italian heavy cruisers venturing in the Aegean. The Greeks are more likely to want to order a new ship from Britain though, the German cast offs are too slow for their intended role. Their budget of about 4-5 million pounds for the heavy ship should suffice for the 18,500t design they had approached Britain about in 1939... or given the franc exchange rate for ordering an updated Strassburg from France.
Lots of options out there, and lots of shipyards looking for work at the end of the war...
I'm not sure that the Finnish/Swedish Union being more of a power *or* the fact that the F/S U still has an Arctic Port (They do, right?) which keeps Norway from having a Land Border with the USSR make much of a difference in the Naval Planning. Different ships will of course be available iTTL, but the major outlines of what they want will be the same.
Yep, Petsamo is still part of the Union, since it was in Finnish hands at the end of the winter war. Not sure it makes much difference though as it's essentially indefensible.
There's no way Belgium are ever going to be able to afford a navy that could even consider taking on the French, never mind the Royal Navy. They didn't have a navy at all up until about 1938 when they hastily converted a few trawlers and other minor boats, the main use of which was to evacuate Belgian gold to the UK in 1940. They manned a handful of minesweepers, corvettes and patrol boats for the RN during the war and the RN then gifted them three patrol boats after the war. If any nation with a proper navy decides to go after their empire then they've lost it. Their only real hope in our reality and probably in this one is to stay friends with the bigger boys (whatever versions of the UN or NATO come out of this world once the Germans are finished off) and hope they keep the other big boys away.
They've barely got enough sailors to man a couple of surplus destroyers and depending how the Cold War looks in this world keeping an army capable of contributing to keeping the Soviets out of Belgium/western Europe is far more of a priority than building a navy big enough to keep hold of a big bit of Africa where they've behaved so badly that even the other colonial powers think they've gone a bit far.
Correct. In OTL they had a handful of frigates as a contribution to the NATO escort pool - ITTL they're more likely to have a handful of minesweepers and fishery protection vessels.
The Marshall Plan seems doubtful to happen in this world (no American involvement in the war and far less worry about Communism in Europe given that the Soviets are still on the far side of Poland rather than a few hours drive from Calais) so Europe will have to pay her own bills and there's not going to be money for anything more than a handful of surplus French or British ships (or German war booty) and manpower's going to be thin on the ground even for that.
I think postwar loans are quite likely though - the US will want markets, has the capital available, and the major factor against them during the war was the fear of being sucked into another war. In peacetime, that's less of an issue.