WI the 8th and 10th largest navies in 1940 went to war .

CalBear

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Where do they fight?

The result will be quite different if it is off the Falklands than if it is in the DEI or in the North Sea.
 
How about a middle ground- somewhere in the Caribbean, say, off the coast of Trinidad. Assume that the Dutch can stage out of Curacao and that Argentina has basing rights in Northern Brazil.
 
Argentina. Netherlands don't have anywhere nearby to support their fleet and nothing to match the fire power of the two Argentine battleships.

It should be noted that the Argentine Dreadnoughts were not longer servicable in other roles than training servicemen and coastal protection in 1940. Their time was over and the Argentine Navy did already have their replacements in the form of three relatively well designed cruisers as active fighting navy. (along with twelve relatively modern, but somewhat fragile destroyers ofd British design, comparable with the Dutch Admiralen Class (8), which had the same basical design by the way.) Submarines however were Dutch, as Argentina only had a very few small coastal boats. Dutch submarines were propably one of the best and most advcanced of their day, even more advanced than the ones of Germany at the time.

All in all, the Dutch had a more ballanced navy, although almost fully focussed on the Dutch East indies, as ranges of ships were relatively short, due to the abbundance of oil and fuel in the colony. The Dutch also had more naval airpower available for simmilar reasons.

For that reason the Dutch Navy was a defensive one, and could not operate far away from its bases. A clash with Argentina over whatever sort of target was out of the question. (Possibly the Dutch would use diplomatic power only in such a case.)
 
What about training (and here my ignorance is really showing)? I would presume that the Netherlands, with its rich maritime heritage as well as a far-flung colonial empire, would have a navy that was overall better trained and maintained than Argentina's. I would think that would give the Dutch a real advantage, expect perhaps in the immediate waters off Argentina.
 
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