In the mid 30 the Argentine navy showed some interests in selling it's two BB, The ARA Rivadavia and Moreno. The ships had been given an upgrade in the US in the late 20s, an in OTL US pressure and lack of takers killed the idea. The BB then had a leisurely life until broken up in the 50s.
Let's say that the KM bought the ships in 1935 as an inexpensive quick way to get back into the BB business. We noe have two lines of thought that can be followed from the german side:
1. Keep the ships more or less in their as bought state, with minimal upgrades (radar, AA, etc) this will limit their use to North Sea Operations, their lack of speed making them unsuited for breakout into the Atlantic.
This could have some interesting implications for the Norway operations, and force the RN to use more heavy units later to cover the Russia bound convoys.
2. Upgrade the ships along the lines of the Italian Cavour rebuilt. This requires more money, but if we go the "remove midships turrets/remove casemated guns/instal new machinery/new secondary and AA batteries/reshape the bow/upgrade the heavy guns" we could end up, in 1940, with the KM having four rather than 2 heavy units both for Norway and for Atlantic ops.
Cost would be limited for the first option, rather larger for the second, but apart from the initial buy, that required some hard currency, we're still within Nazieconomics limits.
