Treaties and Treasuries Oppressing Awesome Fleet Building in History
- Thread starter Aaron Fox
- Start date
Thanks.Such a killjoys they were.
Well,few old battleships in Greece or Holland would not change anything.
gral
Well-known member
As already said, the Washington Treaty forbade this. Before the Treaty, the British didn't want to sell used ships because they wanted to keep the shipyards functioning, so they only wanted to sell newly-built ships. In the end, they didn't sell much of anything(Brazil got a K-class destroyer, Siam got one S-class, and I think that was it for deals before the Washington Treaty).
If i remember correctly,they confistated few battleship ordered by Greece,Turkey and South America - why they do not simply delivered them to rightfull owners,for some good money of course ?
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
The Chileans got one of their battleships(also unlike Turkey their ships weren't seized but purchased at full value due to the very good relationship between the UK and Chile so Chile had to buy back their ship)the other was too far gone into the conversion process that would yield HMS Eagle and the Turk simply didn't have the money to pay for their former ships and quite frankly the UK didn't want to sell them anything, something about willingly joining the opposing side. As for the Greek the two battleships they ordered were built in France and Germany respectively although they were planning on ordering a QE variant when the war broke out
Too bad the Latin American countries couldn't keep up their own egregious naval budgets or battleship race going because of their unfortunately moribund economies. Would've made those Naval Treaties even more complicated... Along with the entire world maritime balance of power.
gral
Well-known member
I've read a research paper on Brazilian naval plans between 1904 and 1945, and the biggest problem was money, true, but another big killer was political reliability. After Brazilian sailors revolted, took control of the shiny new ships and threatened to bombard the Brazilian capital in the 1910 Revolt of the Lash, the Brazilian Navy was deliberately kept in a leash, which of course included reduced budgets. The Navy Minister responsible for acquiring the dreadnoughts in 1906 managed, in 1925(his third time on the post) to secure enough funding for buying 3 10,000 T cruisers, 15 destroyers and 15 submarines, but the President of the time nixed the plan because a few Navy officers had taken part of uprisings against him in the previous year.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
As it turns out treating your navy like crap doesn't inspire reliability
gral
Well-known member
Yup. OTOH, the Brazilian First Republic wasn't in the habit of treating most people well, so it wasn't as if the Navy was alone in this.
Yes,it would be nice if each country have few battleships.Maybe even Argentina have one during Falkland war ? it would be sunken anyway,but it still would be more cool then sunking cruiser.
I just realised one thing - all countries keep some old battleships,especially Italy and France.They could instead build new one - new Italian battleships,foe example,have 8-381 guns and made 25 knots.
Japan could made more with 406mm,England more Renown or Hood class.
Would less obsolate battleships changed anything?
Japan could made more with 406mm,England more Renown or Hood class.
Would less obsolate battleships changed anything?
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Only France and Italy were allowed to build capital ships early. And they kinda had a mutual informal agreement to not build them during the 20s and early 30s. As for more Renowns and Hoods....no if the UK was going to build any new capital ships in the time period they would have been updated Nelsons or something along the lines of the F2 and F3 designs and not ships with WWI armor schemes
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Not build new - end building what are they arleady was making.And replace old design with them.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
The Admirals other than Hood got scrapped in their slips after being cancelled in February 1919 since the RN did the numbers and found that building a new design with wartime lessons added and with a AON scheme wouldn't be that much more expensive on a per ship basis. That was why the G3s got designed and where about to start building prior to the commencement of the Negotiations that produced the WNT WNT they actually got laid down albeit barely(which in theory the RN could have ruthlessly exploited a loophole in the treaty to "convert" a pair of them into 33,000 ton purpose built carriers . As for the Japanese they weren't allowed any new capital ships under the treaty heck they orginally weren't going to keep Mutsu and the same logic that applied to the RN also applied to the MN and the RM as well with their WWI ships still on the slipways
Thanks.
So, they were forbidden from finishing any arleady built battleship and replace older ones with that ?
Italy built new Francesco Caracciollo series - i have 33.000t,28 knots and 8-381,12-152 guns.
If they could replace their Conte di Cavour and Andrea Doria clases it would be useful.
England have no other newer types then Hood.
France could replace their 2 Courber class with another Bretegne or newer Normandie/12-340/
Japan - finish Tosa battleship/10-406/
If they were allowed to finish them,of course.
And how would that change WW2? for France - not at all,the same goes for USA and Japan.
But Italy with 4 better battleships could fare better in their sea battles.Or not.
...Google is your friend (or Bing, if you swing that way).
Wikipedia has a perfectly good summary article.
Or you could, just, you know, look at the actual text of the treaty itself.
Wikipedia has a perfectly good summary article.
Or you could, just, you know, look at the actual text of the treaty itself.
What the Latin American countries did was ridiculously short-sighted -- they decided that the shift from pre-dreadnoughts to dreadnoughts was their big chance to have naval power on par with the major European powers, because everyone was more or less starting over from scratch. This ignored the fact that the European superiority in fleets was built up from a base of economic superiority; while the Latin powers might grab an early lead by aggressively embracing dreadnoughts, there was literally no possible way they could stay ahead.
gral
Well-known member
I can't speak for the Argentinian and Chilean navies, but what I know of the Brazilian Navy is the following:
- The Brazilian Navy was neglected after the mid-1880s, just as the Argentinians and Chileans were starting their arms race, that went with the race to grab for each of their countries as much of Patagonia as possible; the chaos of the 1890s in Brazil meant that there was no feasible plan for Navy expansion, and whatever was bought was on an emergency basis;
- This means that by 1903 or so(when both political and economic situations were stabilized), the Brazilian Navy was mostly obsolete, quickly approaching the point that it would have to be replaced all at once;
- There were two big questions about what would be the Brazilian Navy of the early 20th century: Should we invest into infrastructure(maintenance and training, mainly) or new ships? Should we buy many, small ships or few, large ones? Investing in infrastructure would be a better base for future growth, but more than half of the fleet needed replacing RIGHT NOW. Smaller ships(coastal defence ships) would cover more ground, but the lack of firepower could be fatal(remember the main force of the Argentinian Navy back then was composed of 4 Garibaldi-class armoured cruisers, a very powerful collection of ships for the time and region);
- By 1905, the decisions were made: modern, large ships would be bought; it was felt that the need for replacement of a large part of the Navy was a bigger problem than the lack of modern infrastructure, and that the large modern ships would be able to give the Navy enough time to invest in infrastructure - in hindsight that would be a mistake. The Brazilian government would acquire 6 13,000 T battleships and 6 7,500-8,500 T armoured cruisers. Argentina, which 3-4 years before had managed to negotiate with Chile an end to their arms race, was already losing its shit over the Brazilian naval expansion, just as the keels for the battleships were being laid;
- Enter Mr. Eustace Tennyson D'Eyncourt, which back then was Vickers representative for South America, and who had ready access to both the Brazilian Navy Ministry and to RN naval plans. D'Eyncourt convinced the Brazilian Navy Minister to cancel the units being built, because there were designs on the pipeline that would make the Brazilian battleships obsolete even before launch. The Navy Minister, Admiral Alexandrino de Alencar, ordered new designs to be presented, something quickly done. As a result, Brazil bought 3 19,000 T dreadnought battleships(the armoured cruisers were put on hold for the moment), and the setting for the South American Dreadnought Arms Race was set.