Afaik, german yards were pretty much shutdown. Shortage of materials, social and economic turmoil and the allies controling everything would put a stop to that. Such countries would be better off going for british of french unfinished ships, or 2nd hand ones not in bad shape.
Assuming you have the Cash prior to late February 1919 you could probably buy the 1 or more of the 3 Admiral class ships the UK was planning on canceling.
Not sure the Brits are going to want a stray Admiral floating around in service of a country that could possibly fight the UK in the future.
Apart from that given her size could any “not major” power sustain her?
True but they do need the cash. And it's not like say for example Chile or the Netherlands is going to be fighting the UK anytime soon.
Versailles said:
Oh boy would having 2 or 3 Admirals in Dutch service would be extremely useful come 1940 and beyond.
How could the Dutch support anything like that given OTL spending, again do they even have docks that could take an admiral class?
Yeah I doubt the RN would willingly part with an Admiral. But I think a few older ships may be available. I asked for the incomplete German ships though as they could be modified to suite the users needs.
Well the suggestion was that a partially completed warship that the British did not intend to complete would be sold.
Do we know how far long the construction of the canceled Admirals specialized material like engines, armor plate, guns and turrets and the fire control systems for them was?
The three were suspended within 6 months of laying down, so I suppose it depends did the UK keep building the specialised equipment while they were suspend?
How big was a Scharnhorst compared to an Admiral? Given Design 1047, which was inspired by the Scharnhorst, was at worst a large heavy cruiser, and at best a Battlecruiser, I'm sure that a dock could be enlarged or freshly built to accommodate.
The Hood was effectively 30m longer though only a couple of meters wider. It seems a bit much if they need to think of new docks for just one capital ship and I'm assuming at least two docks, one in the Netherlands and one in the East Indies?
Although you could probably make due with the one in the East Indies being a floating drydock which you probably could aquire from the Germans since they had a couple of the right size lying around and needed some cash.
The Dutch at the time of the discussions leading to the Rome naval conference in early 1924 were willing the accept a limit to battleship tonnage of 26,500t (equal to their existing ships). They were one of only 3 countries along with Norway and Sweden to accept the proposed limits. How do you convince them to pay for an Admiral? Or a battleship in general when the perceived wisdom is that the war to end all wars just ended?
That's the tricky part. Probably a couple serious incidents involving Japan would do though
If they are already having serious incidents with the Japanese, would they really go for one single BC even with an enlarged escort fleet rather than a balanced fleet make up? I mean 1 Hood isn't going to change anything by itself.
