WesWorld

I'm just going to lay down Canada's basic situation (as I understand it), some preliminary ideas I have for the direction to take it, but mostly I'd like suggestions and feedback from the community

As far as I know, Canada has no rivalries or serious problems with any other country at this time. Nor does it have any strong ties to any nations, except it's parent country (GB). Given America's continued neutrality during WWI, Canada doesn't have ny real bonds with that country, nor any 'issues' that I'm aware of (but I could be wrong)

Canada will be starting with 10 factories, and an assortment of modest shipyard facilties, and only one drydock capable of accomdating her largest ships, Renown and Repulse.

Canada is not a signatory of the Cleito treaty, but still falls under GB's tonnage and other restrictions. Given that Australia has been counted seperately for some time, I believe Canada would be working towards a similar degree of independance. Questions I have about that, is would there be a matter of Canadian pride an issue here, or would they be content to continue having GB making their decisions for them, despite Australia's status? Also, would Canada have to wait for the next Cleito conferance to negotiate such a move?

From what I can tell, Renown has not had her historical mid 20's refit, so she and Repulse are in similar condition. Hermes, as historical, has had no major work done. By now I think the shortcomings in all three ships would be readily appearant, and plans to rebuild / replace them would start circulating. R&R, as historical, I believe are worth modernizing. I'm not sure what could be done with Hermes, but I'm suspecting rebuilding her into a more capable light carrier wouldn't be feasible.

The Chester class cruisers I already discussed in the ship design forum, and general consensus is to scrap/sell them ASAP, and aquire replacements, rather than rebuild them and/or retain them as training ships.
I also have the three Diana class CLs, which are relatively modern (1925, as I recall), seem small and undergunned(6 x 5.5" guns) compared to other CLs out there.

The remainder of Canada's fleet consists of 15 WWI era S class Destroyers, and the Admiralty Destroyer Leader Stuart.

My first thoughts is to start expanding and developing industrial capacity, while negotiations and other factors go on IC in regards to getting Canada into the Cleito Treaty as a seperate entity, while studying plans for R&R's eventual rebuilds, and working on a new cruiser programme as first priority, with Destroyer replacement further down the line, and last consideration given to Hermes rebuild / replacement

Most of that seems quite reasonable.

There's a pretty clear precedent set by how Australia entered the CT: the Brits lose the tonnage they donated to the RCN from their allocations, and Canada can choose Indian or Greek limits without having to go through the (potentially painful) negotiations that Australia went through to get her special limits. If, however, it's worth it to Canada to try for something special, then a meeting of the Treaty signatories could (I suppose) be convened, Germany would have no problem with that.

I suspect Canada would see no need for limits any different from Greek or Indian limits, given manpower levels of the period the fleet they have now, they could only moderately be improved with a few newer replacement vessels, mainly for the DD's.

Relations with the U.S. should be quite good, considering the bulk of foriegn imports would come from its Southern neighbour.

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Originally posted by thesmilingassassin
I suspect Canada would see no need for limits any different from Greek or Indian limits, given manpower levels of the period the fleet they have now, they could only moderately be improved with a few newer replacement vessels, mainly for the DD's.

Relations with the U.S. should be quite good, considering the bulk of foriegn imports would come from its Southern neighbour.

My position on Canada (hopefully I can be creative enough with some news posts to document it), is with the semi-independance of Australia, and having two coastlines to defend, Canada would see a need/desire for parity with the fellow commonwealth member. Manpower may be a problem at the moment, but that can be changed. Treaty limits, once set, can not.

The only flaw with the above, is the lack of specific enemy(s) to be countering. But I'm not aware of any specific threats to Australia that wouldn't also threaten Canada (albiet, at a reduced level). Buuuut then Canada has both coastlines to protect, and even with the Mexican / Panama canals, Canadian ocean transit is longer than for the American fleets, something to consider.

(Unless someone wants to come up with some crazy plans for a Northwest Passage...)

But consider Canada setting it's goal for Australian limits a matter of pride, of nothing else. After all, it's nice to have goals.

The closest thing to a potential enemy I can see is Nordmark given its proximity to Cananda's east coast, but I've seen nothing to suggest relations between the two would be any worse than "fair to good".

That being said they would likely be the fleet you would be countering with your own building programs and Japan to a much lesser extent.

I could see minor assets going to the west coast, including the Chester class CL's (untill they scrap) with the bulk of your fleet staying on the east coast.

As for Canada negotiating its limits to mirror Australian limits I suppose we could quietly negitiate in out of charactor discussions and assume that the limits were included in the recent treaty talks. We are only 6 months out of those talks anyway.

Quoted

Originally posted by thesmilingassassin
The closest thing to a potential enemy I can see is Nordmark given its proximity to Cananda's east coast, but I've seen nothing to suggest relations between the two would be any worse than "fair to good".

That being said they would likely be the fleet you would be countering with your own building programs and Japan to a much lesser extent.

I could see minor assets going to the west coast, including the Chester class CL's (untill they scrap) with the bulk of your fleet staying on the east coast.

As for Canada negotiating its limits to mirror Australian limits I suppose we could quietly negitiate in out of charactor discussions and assume that the limits were included in the recent treaty talks. We are only 6 months out of those talks anyway.

That would be much appreciated.

Currently, the bulk of the Canadian navy is participating in the USN excersizes (They need training as much as anyone else, and they're not that far away. Plus gives the fleet an opportunity to get a good look at anyone else participating, etc, etc.). When they return, I plan on establishing a Pacific squadron.

I'm posting the Q1 infrastructure report (along with current Order of Battle) in a minute, so let me know if I've done anything excessively stupid. :x

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The closest thing to a potential enemy I can see is Nordmark given its proximity to Cananda's east coast, but I've seen nothing to suggest relations between the two would be any worse than "fair to good".

Hmmm, with 2 Gota Lejon BC's parked off your coast in Vinland. Relations are probably as Wes said 'fair to good' Will try to work out my OOB so I can tell you exactly what is based in Newfoundland

Would nordmark really post something that close? That would certainly make relations uneasy!

Someone will have to explain to me how Nordmarck ended up with Newfoundland at some point...

They are currently there for rapid response to problems in the South Atlantic, the New OOB will transfer at least one to the home fleet

I would gather that the Nords landed in Newfoundland as historically by the Vikings, and faired slightly better against the native Beothuk inhabitants.

The first conflicts between the Nords and native peoples likely occurred around 1006 (as histroically assumed) when parties of Nordish settlers attempted to establish permanent settlements along the coast of Newfoundland.

According to Norse sagas, the native Beothuk (called skraelings or skraelingars by the Norse) responded so ferociously that the newcomers eventually withdrew and apparently gave up their original intentions to settle. Obviously that didn't happen here.

I expect that the Nords fought off the skraelingars. & settled in force. On subjects like this though I'm really feeling in the dark as my knowledge of Nordmarks history is still limited

The good thing is you just got a name for one of your ships, the skraelingar . If you can come up with some of the other names of tribes within your territory's you can come up with enough names for a class of ships.

Possible enemies for Canada: Nordmark, Japan, Russia, the US (though that would be primarily a land conflict), plus any enemies of GB that Canada gets drawn in against. The Nords are closest, but both Japan and Russia are possible threats to the west coast of Canada.

The bit of the Nordmarkian Navy on your doorstep

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Vinland Force (HQ-Oscarsvern Naval Base, Leivsborg)

1st CDS Squadren

CDS-Bomarsund
Vinland

5th Cruiser Squadren

CL-Tromsø
Victoriahamn
Halden
Kouvoula
CML-Vidar

3rd Destroyer Flottila

DD25 7 to 12

3rd Escort Flottila

DD15 15-21

3rd Torpedo boat Flottila

TB16 1 to 8

3rd Submarine Division

Sub27 7 to 8

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Possible enemies for Canada: Nordmark, Japan, Russia, the US (though that would be primarily a land conflict), plus any enemies of GB that Canada gets drawn in against. The Nords are closest, but both Japan and Russia are possible threats to the west coast of Canada.

The Japanese are probably the most dangerous. Nothing more fearsome than an army of camera-armed tourists!!

Shinra, I think you're on a good course to start out. Trade protection via cruisers and destroyers is a reasonable objective. Building up your drydock capacity on the west coast is strategically sound, even if I think you do lack any credible threats there. You'll still have the operational capacity there if you need it, and so will the UK.

The Northwest Passage is pretty much a non-starter. At this point in time, the passage rarely opens up in its entirety, and even then only for a few weeks or even days. However, with the Nordmarchians holding the northernmost islands now, you might find that ice-strengthened patrol craft are not a bad thing, and in the long term, some kind of depot at a place like Iqaluit or Arctic Bay could be useful.

You're welcome to PM me for side conversations on all things Canadian.

I'd think the threats are slightly more credible than historic at this time: the possibility exists that Japan and Russia could come to an agreement and move against Alaska and western Canada, where no such possibility reasonably existed in the historical 1930s. Also, with SATSUMA fairly strong to Japan's south, there's less need or interest in Japan going that way. (Of course, the most likely outlet for any hypothetical Japanese-Russian alliance is on poor China, but them's the breaks.)

A suggestion for Canada's designers and shipwrights might be to "Canadianize" the new British I class cruiser with 5.5" guns and put the weight savings into armor plate. The base hull is a good seaboat, extremely necessary for Canadian vessels, and by the time any Canadian ships were built there should be data on any peculiarities of the design so they could be fixed before launching. Doing this would give Canada a heavier light cruiser than they currently have, and one that's compatible with existing Canadian ships and almost entirely compatible with British ones.

I'd really like to move the 5.5" guns to destroyers, but as I read the treaty, that's not an option. The Chesters are more or less gone after the carribean excersizes, and that only leaves the three Diana class CLs. Standardizing CL guns at 5.5" instead of the treaty maximum of 6" doesn't seem like a wise decision. So that leaves two choices with the Diana class; Accept the logistics problems, or attempt to regun them. Disposing of them isn't really an option, as they're only 5 years old.