What If the Dutch Received Some of the German Ships Sunk at Scapa Flow

Actually, OP...you fastened on the wrong part of my post as the important issue...

You're neglecting how the Dutch as a nation believed/thought during the Interwar Period with regards to their Pacifism and their Neutrality...NOR did they divorce the revenue generated by the NEI as separate from the rest of the nation; as a voting population, they regarded Holland's armed forces, "domestic" and "colonial", as a whole when it came to their Pacifism. For instance...remember, it was the proposed cruisers intended for the Colonial fleet that created widespread popular protest in Holland!

Your idea is actually demanding a POD that involves the entire Dutch nation and its politics.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
thanks Pylo!

That is an extremely good point. by 1942 the Dutch had a rather different view of pacifism!
The Japanese Empire was a rather ( with the poss. exception of Taiwan & the Rykuyus) a rather shoddy, brutal affair. The NEI was rapidly becoming a model colony...

 

Actually if it's food aid that would acquire the Ships then why this even going on?? Australia and new Zealand would get the entire fleet

 

Or Argentina. Anchor the fleet in Stanley Harbour.... aka habanos MAlvinas

 

Nah I prefer Australia.. then again Im biased.

HMAS Too good mate..
HMAS Top bloke...
HMAS Crikey

 

Well it would solve the British political problem of the potential of them ending up with hostile powers. Britain could probably even use the food. The question of course then becomes who pays to move how much to Germany? Not to mention how to get it there. For some reason I expect that there wasn't a huge excess of shipping during this period.

 

Actually while there was a smaller amount of cargo tonnage it was not nearly as bad due to America's construction of cargo and troop ships with some 5 million in tonnage constructed in 1917.. compared to 1914's 200,000.

But that's as about as far as Ill go into it as it's not really my area.. Was only having a little fun mentioning Australia and New Zealand.. Besides had we had those ships we would have confused the Japanese on whop to attack first.. The Yanks of the Anzacs

 

Small point, there was no HMS Invincible in WWII; the carrier intended to sail with Force Z was the newly commissioned Indomitable. She had a grounding accident while running trials and was unable to accompany the force.

If events like the embargos went as they did historically, I expect the Japanese would still launch their offensive Dec 7-8, adjusting their plans and deployments if there were more Dutch or other forces to deal with. They'd still start with the assault on Malaya and plan to attack the NEI in a later phase. One speculation is the extent to which a larger Dutch naval force would develop coordinated plans with the British prior to hostilities; historically the allies did not even start setting up the ABDA command until the war was underway. Would our hypothetical Dutch fleet sail with Force Z?

Presumably the Japanese would still hit Pearl Harbor, to keep the US Pacific Fleet from interfering while they conquered their Southern Resource Area, but they might expedite the return of Kido Butai and its redeployment to the East Indies. One option I've thought about before is to route the carrier force via the Marshalls, Truk, or Palau rather than back to the home islands. As it turns out, that would give them a chance of catching Enterprise and/or Lexington, both of which were operating west of Hawaii. Perhaps our four Dutch battleships would end up costing the Allies two American carriers??

 

The British fighter force as a whole in Malaysia was old and limited. The Dutch airforce was also obsolete. With out adequate air support even BB's were of little use. If nothing else there were the 4 Yamashiro class BB and the 2 Nagato's available for support.

 

True, They were in the process of upgrading much of it.. But little had arrived before the battle began and ended.

The biggest contributing factor I seem to find was lack of coordination, Which could have been overcome had ABDA been set up secretly earlier.. Say 1940??

As for the Dutch air force units, While against Zero's t hey would be wiped out.. Lets not forget the successes that so called 'obsolete' air craft had in WWII

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

the Netherlands simply slept too long & paid the price. Anthony Fokker had great designs, produced in very limited qualities.
In closing , I woudl recc.reading
[h=1][/h][h=2]The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes[/h]and http://ggdc.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/WorkPap/1996/199626/199626.pdf
Accounting for Economic Growth in the
Netherlands since
1913

Research Memorandum

Bart van Ark and Herman de Jong

A satudy which shows the Netherlands had the funds post worldwar one. I realise many posters love samaurai culture & the IJN's history - but the Japanese empire was a foe not to be ignored.

 

Whether a county "can pay for" something is as much a matter of policy and priorities as economics. Countries put vastly different proportions of their national wealth into their militaries. Japan in the 1920s-30s spent as much as 1/3 of its national budget just on the navy, and of course the Dutch or anyone else who were willing to make that kind of commitment could have had a more powerful fleet than they did.

 

The 1913 Dutch proposal called for no fewer than nine dreadnought battleships, to serve and presumably rotate between home waters and the NEI. The first step involved procurement of four ships, for which a number of designs from various builders were considered. Interestingly for our current discussion, the preferred designs were German, described as being based on the Kaiser class but with the main armament in four twin turrets on the centerline. The guns would have been 13.5" or 14", neither of which was a German caliber. The Kaisers had 12", and the Germans were developing 38cm/15" for the Baden class battleships and 35cm/13.8" for the Mackensen class battle cruisers which never entered service. The secondary and lighter guns do appear to be standard German types. The situation is somewhat reminiscent of the battle cruiser Salamis which in 1914 was under construction in Germany for Greece. The Greeks wanted 14" to match the 13.5s on the Turkish battleship Reshediah, under construction in Britain, so they ordered four twin turrets from Bethlehem Steel in the US. With the advent of war, heavy guns could not be delivered to Germany, so Charles Scwab of Beth Steel made a deal with Churchill to sell them to the Royal Navy, which mounted them in a new class of monitors for coastal bombardment. The RN also got Reshediah, which became HMS Erin.

The fleet at Scapa included the five Kaisers and the four Konigs, the next, slightly improved class, basically the fleet the Dutch had considered six years earlier, if they could accept 12" guns - and if the Allies, including France and Japan, were willing to sell them.

One more point that I don't think has been mentioned yet - if the Dutch acquired a significant battle fleet by any means, they would have to have been included in the Washington Naval Conference and Treaty; or alternatively powers like France and Japan would have insisted on retaining larger fleets themselves.

 

thank you Carronade!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Japan was pretty much at the limits of what it could finance- hence the bolt together mini tanks, lack of convoy escorts, lackofArmy dive bomberss against Russia in 1938. Lack of a reserve merchant marine- surplus of asassinated prime & cabinet ministers!

Lack of turbo drills for the oilat Dalian & in Indo china. surplus of crazy quasi warlords brewing trouble....

My apologies to anyone I amy have brushed over with hard posts- but http://ggdc.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/ro...626/199626.pdf
Accounting for Economic Growth in the Netherlands since 1913 is a 'must read." Don't believe the blog posts when you can check the hard data. The Netherlands could have afforded an air force, a couple of light carriers like USS Ranger,etc. PLus bargain basement ships.

The moral is to never neglect defense when the neighbours are gunning up & planning to cross your lines.

 

Interesting Info.

 

That document does not detail the day-to-day economic activities (ie: how much was the government focusing on in what area). It focuses on numbers which, although interesting, don't tell the full story. I read through about 10 pages and I saw nothing of great detail besides numerical analysis economic figures. If there is something of interest buried in there, post it and I'll be happy to read it.

From http://www.waroverholland.nl/index.php?page=holland-1918-1940:

This clearly states that the Dutch economy was troubled, and there was a focus on social, labour and economic reform. Your document states it was doing better than the surrounding countries -- of course, seeing as how each country bordering it was bogged down in a four year conflict.

Your figures back this up. As I said many messages ago, the Dutch had trouble figuring out how to pay for the fleet pre-WW1, and if the economy is not even as good post-WW1 what makes you think they could afford to operate a large fleet? Even with the cost reductions associated with a used ship, the navy would still have to be expanded, the ships would have to be updated and sailors would have to be extensively trained and re-trained. Operating a large fleet is expensive, especially when you need to develop the necessary support vessels to facilitate blue-water operations. There is a big difference between less than a dozen crusiers and a significant chunk of the Kaiser's High Seas Fleet. As Carronade said rather well, the Dutch could theoretically afford them - heck, Liechtenstein's GDP is about 5.5 billion, so they could afford a 5 billion dollar Nimitz Class Carrier - its a question of how much of your economy you want directed towards the fleet. And given the pacifist attitude of the time, I would guess this amount was very little.

Again, here you have it. The Dutch were focused on domestic reforms, not an offensive fleet. Given the fact that they were hard-hit during the Depression, why would they have money to spare to modernize the ships (assuming that they gained control of them, which they lacked the money and political will to do so in the first place)? To put them on-par with Japanese forces, they would have had to been modernized in in late 1920s or 1930s. Most Japanese ships were modernized during this time, and not having the Dutch ships undergo this process would result in pitting (at best) early 1920s technology against mid 1930s technology. Keep in mind you would also have to keep the crews well-trained -- the Japanese put a lot of effort into training their crews, so the Dutch couldn't go up against them effectively without similar efforts.

Furthermore, with a focus on disarmament, why would the Dutch see the need to keep the ships active? Remember that the RN was scrapping several WW1-era ships at this time. How could a cash-strapped, economically-struggling (and small) nation like Holland justify keeping a large offensive navy blindly waiting for a Japanese threat that not many Europeans viewed as being serious?

 

Ill definitely try and get my hands on that book, But does any one actually also have a suggestion on one dealing with the Australian economy?? Being Aussie am curious as to what we could have had...

 

War over Holland is a military blog site.His 'family povery history ' is not borne out by the serious studies.

Bloggers have no academic review.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ban Kangaroo birth control......

 

This latter was important - it had been emptied BY holding the Guilder on the Gold Standard for far too long when the majority of other Euopean nations affected by Wall Street sooner or later let their go into free-fall and rebalance. It was also the main reason why the Depression lasted in Holland right into 1936.

P.S. don't ascribe any blame to Fokker for low production numbers of Fokker's designs...the Dutch government ordered small numbers...