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The Iberian Navy is a bit of a problem for me. Do I continue to have a "Spanish Civil War" which I use in other countries pages to point out the dangers of aircraft -v- ships, where the much better German aircraft sank many ships off the coasts of Spain. Or do I have a 'Palace' revolt instead akin to what happened in Italy and bring the 'Iberians' into WW2 on the Axis side. In doing so I completely unbalance WW2. Spain was key to the Axis victory in more ways than one. Iberia joins Axis at same time as Italy, June 1940 when France is finished. German forces take Gibraltar and close Mediterranean to Allied forces from the Atlantic. Malta falls, Axis forces take Egypt and head for the Arabian Peninsular oilfields and the Indian sub-continent beyond. Best of all Italy being protected by so much Axis 'lands' is more amenable to war production. Italys fleet can project either into the Indian Ocean through the Red Sea or out into the Atlantic through the Pillars of Hercules. What happens to the Vichy Fleet if it is trapped in the Western Med, does it try to join the ships at Alexandria? Where do they go once Alexandria falls? Next major ports are Trincomalee, Perth, Singapore or down to South Africa and Madagascar. With so much to grab, the Turks would have also got off the fence with the defeat of the British in the Middle East and joined the Axis, giving the Germanic States forces just a short run from the border of Turkey to the oilfields of the Caucasus. Take the Caucasus and the Soviets run out of fuel to stop the Germanic States forces.
With my creation of the 'Allied War Reparation Commission' to sell off the excess German and Austro-Hungarian ships and materiel the Iberians can purchase one Kaiser, two Helgoland and a Westfallen to join the battlefleet the Iberians already have from the building of the Reina Victoria Eugenia class of super dreadnoughts. Having the ex-Germanic States ships allows the Iberians to cull the 11" & 12" turrets off of the old echelon armed dreadnoughts and use them to build new ships with much more modern equipment fuelled by 5 years of total war technology. The Iberians have a shipbuilding industry but it does not have the infrastructure to produce the thick plate armour and heavy turrets required for capital ships. Stripping the ex-Germanic States ships circumvents those needs. Vickers-Armstrongs supply the Iberians with the armour and other materiel requirements to build the ships in Iberian yards.
Portugal has had a proud tradition of naval endeavours where the seamen have proved themselves time and again to be at the forefront of naval exploration. Unfortunately the change to iron ships marginalised a lot of countries that did not have the resources to build their own. This included Portugal who throughout the period I am interested in have had not much more than destroyer sized vessels. Join Portugal and Spain to produce Iberia does not change much to the capabilities of either country or to Iberia just maybe a few more financial resources and personnel to produce and man the navy vessels I give them.
The Iberians have a number of overseas posessions which require a force of some kind, both army, navy and eventually airforce units to keep in order. These posessions are what pay for the expansion of the Navy and other armed forces that then are used to ensure that the bounty from the posessions keeps flowing to the world markets. Once the war begins, access to those poseesions are easily cut by the position of British Commonwealth forces between the posessions (Angola, Gao, Macau etc) and the homeland. But the joining with the Axis eventually returns those posessions back to Iberia with a few extra besides. The Naval forces at these overseas posessions sell themselves dearly but are overwhelmed. The largest units make a break for the Iberian peninsular and whether they make it or not is yet to be written.
Mines bigger than yours!!
Iberian Republican Navy (IRN).
Page Address (Click on thumbnail for page view)
|Príncipe de Asturias (CV)||1||1927|
Battleships / Battlecruisers
|Cristobal Colon (BB)||1||1941|
|Reina Victoria Eugenia (BB)||2||1916|
|IRN Lisboa (BBR)||2||1913|
Heavy / Light Cruisers
|Mendez Nunez (CL)||2||1919|
|Almirante Cervera (CL)||2||1917|
|Blas de Lezo||16||1942|
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