Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 228 (Part 1)" video.
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I chewed some of the alternatives in a comment a couple hours ago. The South American powers didn't have the money. The two surviving Invincibles were offered to Chile. Chile declined. Agincourt was offered to Brazil. Brazil declined. The only reasonably possible buyer would be the Dutch. They would want a ship that was "turn key", not something they would need to pour a lot of money into. They would want something oil fired, because that was the fuel they had in abundance, on Borneo. iirc, the RN did not put a Farthing into the Iron Dukes and Tiger in the 20s. They were never given torpedo bulges, never converted to oil fuel, no supplemental deck armor added. The USN however, did pour millions into modernizing Florida and Utah, only a few years before Florida was scrapped and Utah converted to a target ship. They received new oil-fired boilers (surplus from the North Dakota program), bulges and deck armor (also surplus from the ND program). But they still carried 12" guns and plodded along at 21kts. Would the Dutch want them, in the early 30s?
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wrt the question about the WNT not having the clause preventing sale of ships. iirc, navies of the dominions were regarded as part of the British Navy. I am sure a Philippine navy would be regarded as part of the USN. There could be some potential customers in South America. Chile did buy back Latorre. The UK did offer the two surviving Invincibles to Chile, at 200,000 Pounds each, plus some 600,000 Pounds each for renovation, but Chile declined. Argentina and Brazil did not have the money for more battleships. Greece had the incomplete Salamis sitting in the Vulcan yard in Germany, but did not want it. Litigation over the fate of Salamis ran through most of the 1920s. The Dutch abandoned their pre-WWI battleship plans. Italy, France, and Russia abandoned battleships that had been under construction before the war, so they are unlikely to be interested in buying more. The only other power of any size that comes to mind is China, but it's navy at the time appears to have been a shambles. So, I don't think there would be a market for old, war-worn, ships with no torpedo protection, no deck protection, and coal fired.
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@satern7473 I looked in to that a bit recently. The ships the Netherlands was looking in to at the start of WWI would have been meat on the table in 41. I'm not sure how realistic the 1047s were. They seem to be a very ambitious, and expensive, design. If they had built anything heavier than De Ruyter, I'm thinking maybe a variation on a Deutschland. Maybe with a steam plant, rather than diesel, as their fuel source was close at hand, so the ships would not need extreme range, and steam may provide more speed. During the invasion of the DEI, all four Kongos were in theater, escorting the carriers. If the Dutch had one or two Deutschalnds deployed, the Kongos would simply be brought forward to deal with them, if they had survived the air strikes.
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@drafty9580 for the heck of it, I tried to find a sale price for Florida, but came up empty. She was broken up in a navy yard, so no labor and material cost for the breakup. The newspapers said the metal was offered for bid, but did not report what the winning bid was. A dozen years earlier, Dreadnought was sold for scrap, for $176,000. The first question would be could the Netherlands buy Florida and Utah for less that it cost to build De Ruyter? I have not found construction cost for De Ruyter. Of course, the second question is would the Netherlands want two slow, old, ships?
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