A Blunted Sickle - Thread II

I think you're actually underestimating the utility of the torpedo boats!

Of course, it doesn't make either strategic or economic sense for Norway to field major surface vessels; they simply don't have the wealth, resources, or position to win a naval arms race with their larger neighbors - indeed, OTL they very sensibly don't float anything bigger than a heavy frigate. What makes sense for them is basically a coast-defense navy with some subs for interdiction of nearby chokepoints.

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.

So if I were a Norwegian naval planner I'd grab every German torpedo-boat capture I could get my lunch hooks on, and then see if I could talk the British into selling me their war prizes for cheap. Even if I have to do some retooling to build workalikes of German parts, that will certainly be less expensive than new hulls; one could probably field two dozen of these things for less than the cost of a new destroyer.
Given the size of the size and manpower constraints of the Norwegian navy I think it needs to be built around the jeune école doctrine and make maximum use of British MTBs, U class submarines, larger patrol boat/minelayers and Amphib MPAs (capable of surface and ASW work) supported by supply/repair ships (to allow for the poor/lack of road communications in the far north).

Some of those could be ex-German ships taken as prizes

The Norge navy does not need larger ships but does need to be able to enforce its neutrality
 
The Belgians can afford them, theoretically, but any pressures to build up their navy seem in the short run to be similar to OTL. And like OTL, the major friendly naval powers will be willing to be willing to give them obsolete ships.

The Portuguese might be an option, they haven't had to lean as far toward Neutrality to balance the Spanish the way that they did iOTL. And they also have East Indies lands to defend from the Japanese (East TImor).

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)
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.
 
Given the size of the size and manpower constraints of the Norwegian navy I think it needs to be built around the jeune école doctrine

I almost mentioned jeune école doctrine myself. I agree.

I don't think jeune école was really a viable doctrine for its 19th-century French exponents, nor for any Great Power come to that. With Great Power status comes requirements for sea-lane protection and transoceanic power projection. Given the technology of the time there was no real alternative for those jobs to heavy capital ships, and for that matter there arguably still isn't today.

But for Norway, or other small countries with lots of coastal exposure? Sure.
 

Driftless

Donor
Given the size of the size and manpower constraints of the Norwegian navy I think it needs to be built around the jeune école doctrine and make maximum use of British MTBs, U class submarines, larger patrol boat/minelayers and Amphib MPAs (capable of surface and ASW work) supported by supply/repair ships (to allow for the poor/lack of road communications in the far north).

Some of those could be ex-German ships taken as prizes

The Norge navy does not need larger ships but does need to be able to enforce its neutrality

I almost mentioned jeune école doctrine myself. I agree.

I don't think jeune école was really a viable doctrine for its 19th-century French exponents, nor for any Great Power come to that. With Great Power status comes requirements for sea-lane protection and transoceanic power projection. Given the technology of the time there was no real alternative for those jobs to heavy capital ships, and for that matter there arguably still isn't today.

But for Norway, or other small countries with lots of coastal exposure? Sure.

I have always thought of Jeune Ecole as a more offensive-minded commerce-focused naval warfare. Does it encompass more? Here, the Norwegians are trying to prevent both the disruption of their sea-borne economy and to keep invaders at arms length - all with smaller, punching-above-their-weight ships.
 
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I have always thought of Jeune Ecole as a more offensive-minded commerce-focused naval warfare. Does it encompass more? Here, the Norwegians are trying to prevent both the disruption of their sea-borne economy and to keep invaders at arms length - all with smaller, punching-above-their-weight ships.
It evolved into a more complex doctrine involving commerce raiders but originally in its purest form the 'small school' doctrine was all about smaller steam driven ships armed with explosive shell firing guns (which was a new thing then) taking on larger warships in order to try and address the Royal Navy's superiority in numbers over the French Navy

As you put it trying to punch above its weight

So the description fits in that the Norge Navy would use MTBs, coastal submarines, MPAs and mine fields to defend its neutrality or in this case its sovereignty because in this case it is certainly now in the Anglo-French camp.
 
Honestly, the question in regards to Norway, is "What are the differences in desired navy Post-war between post-war OTL and post-war TTL?" In both cases they've got allied Great Powers that would take any hostile action in the North Sea by the Soviets or any other Naval Power as a great threat. 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.

By comparison, the argument is similar for the Belgians, but *not* for the Dutch. (Who will likely remain much more of a Naval Power iTTL at least through the 1950s.)

(Of course iTTL, the question may be what the Flemish Navy look like (the Wallonian Navy will just need a river based "Coast Guard"))
 
I have always thought of Jeune Ecole as a more offensive-minded commerce-focused naval warfare. Does it encompass more? Here, the Norwegians are trying to prevent both the disruption of their sea-borne economy and to keep invaders at arms length - all with smaller, punching-above-their-weight ships.

Cryhavoc101 got it right - "all about smaller steam driven ships armed with explosive shell firing guns".

Looking at the historical record, it's hard for me to avoid the suspicion that commerce-raiding was glued onto the original jeune école concept as a way to co-opt potential supporters who would be dissatisfied with a purely defensive doctrine.
 
By comparison, the argument is similar for the Belgians, but *not* for the Dutch. (Who will likely remain much more of a Naval Power iTTL at least through the 1950s.)

I was going to say that this neatly illustrates my earlier point; the Dutch can't go jeune école because they have a transoceanic empire to maintain.

But then I remembered that the Belgians do too. Did you forget the Belgian Congo, or is there some reason you think that particular colonial possession doesn't bring with it a requirement for a power-projection navy?
 
I was going to say that this neatly illustrates my earlier point; the Dutch can't go jeune école because they have a transoceanic empire to maintain.

But then I remembered that the Belgians do too. Did you forget the Belgian Congo, or is there some reason you think that particular colonial possession doesn't bring with it a requirement for a power-projection navy?
What realistic naval threat is there to either Belgium's control of the Congo, or communication with it?
In the case of the Netherlands, the threat they're preparing for is Japan to the East Indies, but even OTL Germany conquered the Belgian metropole and had no way to reach the Congo.
 
What realistic naval threat is there to either Belgium's control of the Congo, or communication with it?

Any major naval power that decides it covets the Congo's mineral wealth. You're right that the Germans aren't going to be one, but either Great Britain or France could readily manufacture a pretext to go in given Belgium's rather blood-soaked behavior in the region - and once both Columbium and Cobalt skyrocket in importance after the mid-1950s they'll have strong incentive to go all concerned and humanitarian. One squadron out of Gibraltar or Brest would interdict the sea-lanes to the Congo quite nicely if the Belgians didn't have some answer to it.

Given the reduced influence of the U.S. on the postwar order, colonial military adventurism isn't going to go out of fashion as fast as it did OTL. And ITTL even the Italians are a plausible candidate for knocking over the Congo! So, yes, I think the Belgians would conclude that they need something resembling a blue-water navy if they want to hold on there.

Whether this is actually possible for them is a separate question. I'm inclined to think not - it is highly doubtful Belgium has or could build the industrial base required, and OTL they (like the Norwegians) have never floated anything heavier than a frigate. Unlike the Norwegians, however, they have reason to try. It's that or lose the Congo, eventually.
 
Any major naval power that decides it covets the Congo's mineral wealth. You're right that the Germans aren't going to be one, but either Great Britain or France could readily manufacture a pretext to go in given Belgium's rather blood-soaked behavior in the region - and once both Columbium and Cobalt skyrocket in importance after the mid-1950s they'll have strong incentive to go all concerned and humanitarian. One squadron out of Gibraltar or Brest would interdict the sea-lanes to the Congo quite nicely if the Belgians didn't have some answer to it.

Given the reduced influence of the U.S. on the postwar order, colonial military adventurism isn't going to go out of fashion as fast as it did OTL. And ITTL even the Italians are a plausible candidate for knocking over the Congo! So, yes, I think the Belgians would conclude that they need something resembling a blue-water navy if they want to hold on there.

Whether this is actually possible for them is a separate question. I'm inclined to think not - it is highly doubtful Belgium has or could build the industrial base required, and OTL they (like the Norwegians) have never floated anything heavier than a frigate. Unlike the Norwegians, however, they have reason to try. It's that or lose the Congo, eventually.
What they need is other major powers guarenteeing their possessions. There is a close to zero percent chance that France and/or Great Britain will allow any encroachement into Belgian Congo. Even in the Interbellum, where Belgium was officially neutral, there was no Belgian Navy whatsoever.
 
Any major naval power that decides it covets the Congo's mineral wealth. You're right that the Germans aren't going to be one, but either Great Britain or France could readily manufacture a pretext to go in given Belgium's rather blood-soaked behavior in the region - and once both Columbium and Cobalt skyrocket in importance after the mid-1950s they'll have strong incentive to go all concerned and humanitarian.
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.
 
Are there any threats from other countries to the Belgian control of the Congo (as opposed to threats from the Congolese) which are both likely on a foreseeable timescale (so, not France or the UK, which can just buy anything they want from Belgium, and if they need a sweetener allow some reciprocal access to their own colonial markets), could be resisted by a Belgian Navy, and would be better served by a Belgian Navy than the Royal Navy and Marine Nationale?
France, the UK and a recovered Germany are all more threatening to Belgium than the Congo, and anyway too large to fight off without allies. The US is far too big, Japan is too far away, the USSR ditto. What does that leave you? Italy? Best solution is the UK and France closing Gibraltar and Suez to their ships, they can't get to Congo anymore. Spain? Again, British and French support solves the problem for you, no navy required. Portugal has enough colonies to handle already, ditto the Netherlands, and if you're aligned with the Anglo-French so are they.
 
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.

Can they build one that can win a naval war? Almost certainly not. They might be able to manage a tripwire, enough of a fleet that an aggressor power would have to use real force to deal with it and suffer considerable diplomatic and PR embarrassment as a result - enough that the prospect becomes a bit of a deterrent. Small nations have done this before; in some cases it's the only reason they have a navy at all.

To serve that function for the Congo, though, I think the Belgians would have to base ships at Matadi; that in itself might be impractical.
 
They might be able to manage a tripwire, enough of a fleet that an aggressor power would have to use real force to deal with it and suffer considerable diplomatic and PR embarrassment as a result - enough that the prospect becomes a bit of a deterrent. Small nations have done this before; in some cases it's the only reason they have a navy at all.

To be honest I doubt they can even do that - if another power decided to get into a war with Belgium over the Congo (I have no idea how likely that is but it does seem a fairly remote possibility) then a couple of light cruisers are going to wipe the Belgian navy out in a few hours unless the Belgians invest heavily and given that they have to rebuild after the war and their army and air force are going to be much higher priorities than the navy I'm not sure where the money is coming from in the post war years. 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 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.
 
In terms of post-war navies for the allied nations I think it would make a lot of sense to see a standardisation around British designs, modified depending on an individual nation's needs. France is really the only other country with the industrial capacity and colonial commitments to justify an indepenent fleet, and logically the Dutch, Belgian, Norwegian, Danish & Polish fleets will need to fulfill ancillary roles to the British in various theatres; North Sea & Atlantic defense and interdiction for the Norwegians & Danes, Baltic patrol and defense for the Danes & Poles, channel protection for the Dutch & Belgians, and deterence against Japan in east Asia for the Dutch.

Once you come to that conclusion then buying from Britain - either using British shipyards or builiding British designs under license - is the only thing that makes sense. From a logistical point of view doing anything else is madness when you are sharing bases and supplies, and will be coming under Royal Navy command & control in the event of war.

The French have too much pride to allow their own fleet to become a British auxiliary, but even so I would still expect to see agreement on things like a common calibre for naval guns and interchangability for electronics and other parts.
 
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