From Russia With Love: Arms deals and the Dutch Defense

POD: In the 1920's the Dutch recognize Soviet Russia. When they buy a lot of arms in 1939 they get them from Soviet Russia, which delivers before May 1940. Soviet Russia just happens to be the lowest bidder. ITOL, the arms were ordered from Germany which did not deliver them, following the first rule of arms sales. (Do not get killed with your own goods.)
So we have an equipped Dutch army fighting against the Germans. The geography of the Netherlands favors defenders, and if the battle can be prolonged enough the French and British will send in reinforcements. Will this change the outcome of the war? And how much Dutch architecture will be destroyed?
 
Lots.
The NL would become a war zone I'd imagine- there's no breakthrough happening on the French/German border so the major fighting will be in the low countries.

I just replayed HOI2 as Britain and that's what ended up happening, I dreaded to think what happened to the Dutch architecture :p
 
So we have an equipped Dutch army fighting against the Germans. The geography of the Netherlands favors defenders, and if the battle can be prolonged enough the French and British will send in reinforcements. Will this change the outcome of the war? And how much Dutch architecture will be destroyed?
I'm not sure if Sovjet ordenance was up to snuff at this point....

Anyway, I can't see it changing anything, the Germans would still have bombed Rotterdam after a week. The Dutch would be forced to surrender under the threat of the other main population centers being bombed.
 
If a few dozen tanks and maybe tens of thousands of soldiers get destroyed taking the Netherlands then they won't be available for the battle of France.

Which might effect things. I don't think the Netherlands can viably resist, the numbers are just too stacked against them, but a small change can have some effect.
 
I'm not sure if Sovjet ordenance was up to snuff at this point....

Anyway, I can't see it changing anything, the Germans would still have bombed Rotterdam after a week. The Dutch would be forced to surrender under the threat of the other main population centers being bombed.

British population centers were bombed and Britain did not surrender.

If the Dutch have a more formidable army-in-being, they might not break so easily.
 
British population centers were bombed and Britain did not surrender.

If the Dutch have a more formidable army-in-being, they might not break so easily.

Well, the centre of Rotterdam was basically bombed out of existence. I'm not sure we can put this in the same order of magnitude as the British bombings, who had a better defence force. The Dutch simply had no way of fighting an air war as the Germans had basically total air dominance. In light of the thread I think we should examine if the Russians could have provided the Dutch with effective AA, that might well buy them a couple of days.

The Dutch army didn't quite 'break'. The whole reason for carpet-bombing Rotterdam was that the Dutch army put up a stubborn fight and had already delayed the Germans way longer than expected.


A pic to illustrate the devestation:
(The pick is a bit to big, I'm not comfortable placing it here)
so here's the link:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Rotterdam.jpg
 
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What did this arms purchase consist of? If the Dutch had bought large amounts of decent AAA and fighters, it may have allowed them to defend their airspace to some extent. Could this have bought enough time for the British to decide to send reinforcements? After all, the Netherlands is placed so that German bombers heading for the UK fly over/near it, so RAF units based there would have a role in the BoB.

On the other hand, the Soviets would have sold the Dutch I-16s and pehaps a few LaGG-1s- no match for Me-109s!
 
The I-16 could outmanuever the Me-109, it just takes some skill. The Spanish Civil War proved that.

Russian tanks were quite good by 1939 standards. The T-26 is comparable to some of the Pz. III (J) marks. But wasn't the Dutch military spendings pushing the envelope a little bit? Their guilders also crashed with the deppression. They were just starting to rearm in the 1936s. They also had to reinforce DEI (Indonesia) with the threat of Japanese invasion.


Rotterdam was bombed by a bit of an accident. The Dutch were putting a lot of fight and the Germans were negotiating with the Rotterdam's commander to surrender, but they dispatched bombers already. So up goes Rotterdam.
 

Markus

Banned
Lots.
The NL would become a war zone I'd imagine- there's no breakthrough happening on the French/German border so the major fighting will be in the low countries.

Just for the record:

Belgium was a deception, the Netherlands were a sideshow in the deception, the "real thing" was going on in the border region of Luxembourg, Belgium and France. If the direct assault in the very north get´s delayed/stuck, the whole Netherlands will just be bypassed and mopped up later.

@Slamet: I think your assesment of the T-26 is too optimistic. The T-26 had paper thin armour(15mm) and -much worse- a two man turret. IMO that makes the thing a waste of money. Better by some 37mm AT-guns.
I also doubt the claims about a I-16 and a Me109-E being roughly equal.
The 109 is over 100kph faster and it also depends what version of the I-16 the Dutch get. The one on wikipedia entered in production early 39, so depending on the soviet´s own needs, you might just get the type 17 version with a 750hp engine and a less effective supercharger.
 
There is no need to buy fighters from another country: Fokker was available in the Netherlands itself. After WWI, he put all his equipment from Germany on a train and set up shop in his home country.

If the Dutch government was willing to pony up the money, Fokker would have eagerly supplied high quality airplanes.

For the ground war: tanks are useless for fighting the Germans. They have years of experience with the things and the country is not that great for tanks. What is needed is anti tanks guns and the will to invest in concrete for defences. For the rest, more modern general equipment and some decent training for mobile warfare would have helped.
 
The I-16 and Me-109 AREN'T equal! I was only pointing out that the I-16 due to its low speed can outmanuever the Me, at least in the hands of an experienced pilot.

As I said before, can the Dutch afford enough military pieces to delay the Germans that long? Remember they had to reinforce the DEI as well.
 
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