Re: (Fwd) Re: PAU fleet

----- Original Message -----
From: <laserlight@quixnet.net>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2002 9:41 PM
Subject: RE: (Fwd) Re: PAU fleet

> [Tomb] True, but OTOH, we're already assuming nations with a
> significant colonial ocean going capability and star navies. Let me
> give you an example: Canada doesn't build anything larger than a DD
> now, but if you gave us a cruiser, we could man it. <snip>
> >So your case study applies when giving bang-sticks to the
aboriginies,
but
> giving a starship to an already star-capable people who have some
> institutional experience (or know how to learn from others
> experiences) will eventually result in increased capabilities for
> them.
>
> Actually, there have been quite a few FFs, DDs and up that rusted away
at
> the docks of Africans and SAmerican countries who could operate some
ships
> but couldn't or wouldn't maintain and repair what they had/were given.

An analogy favourable to the PAU Navy would be the IJN in the
Russo-Japanese
War of 1904- The IJN had bought top of the line, new build warships,
especially from the UK and Italy. These were well maintained and very
competently operated.  If anything, there was a tendency in the
battleship
era for foreign purchasers such as Japan to get _improved_ versions of
current RN designs.

Interestingly, the IJN did this twice- the First Navy Expansion Bill of
1882
provided for the acquisition of 48 warships over 8 years, and the
simultaneous development of shipyards and related industries. Officers
were
to be trained in Britain and technical expertise was to be obtained from
France, as the IJN was influenced by the French "Jeune Ecole" and
planned to
build a cruiser and torpedo boat fleet.

The point is that a navy can be significant and run major units without
being able to build them. The IJN devised and executed a very practical
programme of naval expansion _and development_, with sufficient
flexibility
to modify the programme in the light of changed circumstances, i.e. the
cruiser and torpedo boat fleet being supplemented by British battleships
from the 1890's.

I would think the PAU might be conducting a similar process. Their
Admiralty
can see the need for heavy fleet units, before their shipyards have
sufficient experience to build them. They purchase such units abroad for
the
moment, and plan their own construction for the future.

Rob Paul