Military to civilian ship conversion

Roguevictory wrote:Didn't the British bomb much of the French fleet to prevent the Germans from taking the ships into service? If so what happened to any of the ships that survived and didn't join the Free French forces? For that matter what happened to the ships of other nations Germany overwhelmed that survived the invasions?

Germany captured a number of Italian ships and submarines after they switched sides and either manned them with complete German crews or mix of German and Italian crews.

RedBaron wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I'm not sure if any major navy has put a captured or surrendered ship into their active service since the age of sail.

#GraysonSpaceNavy

Sorry I wasn't clear enough that I was talking about actual Earth Navies, not the fictional Honorverse ones. (Though Sigs pointed out some examples I'd been unaware of)

But in the Honorverse, yes Grayson did put captured ships into service. Arguably they weren't a major navy when they refitted the captured SDs - but they clearly were when they took the "Elysian Space Navy" as the initial core of the Protector's Own.

Roguevictory wrote:Didn't the British bomb much of the French fleet to prevent the Germans from taking the ships into service? If so what happened to any of the ships that survived and didn't join the Free French forces? For that matter what happened to the ships of other nations Germany overwhelmed that survived the invasions?

The British did bombard and bomb the French Algerian naval base at Mers-el-Kébir, and the port at Dakar, in 1940 out of fears that Vichy France would either operate in conjunction with the German Kriegsmarine or turn their warships over to Germany.

That's a little bit of a different scenario since Germany would have controlled the French factories and shipyards that produce and maintain the ships - you don't have quite the orphaned tech issue. And if the Vichy navy is operating them you don't even have the cross-training concerns.

As to their fates, the French ships in France were later (1942) scuttled by the Vichy French Navy when Germany attempted to seize them in violation of the Armistice terms. Some of the ones that remained in Africa, notably the incomplete battleship Jean Bart, were attacked again by British and US forces as part of Operation Torch - the invasion of North Africa.

I'm not sure if Germany overran anybody quickly enough to capture their naval ships. I believe most of the Royal Netherlands Navy escaped; parts of it were later lost attempting to defend the Dutch East Indies against the Japanese navy.

Belgium didn't have much of a Navy, but I believe many of their small craft escaped to Britain. Much of the Polish Navy also escaped to Britain. So I'm not sure if Germany got their hands on anybody else's significant warships (maybe some of the Italian ones when Italy signed a separate Armistice with the Allies?
But in general, if a warship isn't in drydock or down for major engine maintenance (or disabled by your attack), it's pretty hard for an air/land attack to keep the victim from simply sailing it away...

Jonathan_S wrote:

RedBaron" [quote="Jonathan_S wrote:I'm not sure if any major navy has put a captured or surrendered ship into their active service since the age of sail.

#GraysonSpaceNavy

Sorry I wasn't clear enough that I was talking about actual Earth Navies, not the fictional Honorverse ones. (Though Sigs pointed out some examples I'd been unaware of)

But in the Honorverse, yes Grayson did put captured ships into service. Arguably they weren't a major navy when they refitted the captured SDs - but they clearly were when they took the "Elysian Space Navy" as the initial core of the Protector's Own.

Roguevictory wrote:Didn't the British bomb much of the French fleet to prevent the Germans from taking the ships into service? If so what happened to any of the ships that survived and didn't join the Free French forces? For that matter what happened to the ships of other nations Germany overwhelmed that survived the invasions?

The British did bombard and bomb the French Algerian naval base at Mers-el-Kébir, and the port at Dakar, in 1940 out of fears that Vichy France would either operate in conjunction with the German Kriegsmarine or turn their warships over to Germany.

That's a little bit of a different scenario since Germany would have controlled the French factories and shipyards that produce and maintain the ships - you don't have quite the orphaned tech issue. And if the Vichy navy is operating them you don't even have the cross-training concerns.

As to their fates, the French ships in France were later (1942) scuttled by the Vichy French Navy when Germany attempted to seize them in violation of the Armistice terms. Some of the ones that remained in Africa, notably the incomplete battleship Jean Bart, were attacked again by British and US forces as part of Operation Torch - the invasion of North Africa.

I'm not sure if Germany overran anybody quickly enough to capture their naval ships. I believe most of the Royal Netherlands Navy escaped; parts of it were later lost attempting to defend the Dutch East Indies against the Japanese navy.

Belgium didn't have much of a Navy, but I believe many of their small craft escaped to Britain. Much of the Polish Navy also escaped to Britain. So I'm not sure if Germany got their hands on anybody else's significant warships (maybe some of the Italian ones when Italy signed a separate Armistice with the Allies?
But in general, if a warship isn't in drydock or down for major engine maintenance (or disabled by your attack), it's pretty hard for an air/land attack to keep the victim from simply sailing it away...[/quote]


Actually during WWII both the German and Japanese navies commissioned captured warships into their navies. IIRC the Kriegs Marine captured 2 Dutch 1 French 1 Norwegian 2 Danish and 2 or 3 Greek ships none were bigger than a destroyer. The IJN also captured a few ships and put them into service IIRC 2 British destroyers captured in Hong Kong 1 U.S. Navy Destroyer USS Stewart captured on Java. Japan also commissioned 2 Chinese light cruisers and a few other ships, mostly Yangtze River gunboats.

I just found an interesting WW2 warship to cargo conversion. 33 WWI Destroyers were converted to High Speed Assault Transports (APDs), and 93 DEs of 2 designs were modified during construction for the same reason.

Each lost ~1/3 their design speed and 1/2 their armament to carry a Company of army troops (162 or 200 men) and landing craft.

APDs were intended to deliver small units such as Marine Raiders, Underwater Demolition Teams and United States Army Rangers onto hostile shores under fire; used heavily in the Guadalcanal campaign, they allowed troops to be moved and landed quickly with integrated fire support in contested areas.

Ironically, some of these DE conversions were modified BUCKLEY class DEs.

Theemile wrote:I just found an interesting WW2 warship to cargo conversion. 33 WWI Destroyers were converted to High Speed Assault Transports (APDs), and 93 DEs of 2 designs were modified during construction for the same reason.

Each lost ~1/3 their design speed and 1/2 their armament to carry a Company of army troops (162 or 200 men) and landing craft.

APDs were intended to deliver small units such as Marine Raiders, Underwater Demolition Teams and United States Army Rangers onto hostile shores under fire; used heavily in the Guadalcanal campaign, they allowed troops to be moved and landed quickly with integrated fire support in contested areas.

Ironically, some of these DE conversions were modified BUCKLEY class DEs.

I posted about the APD's in another post.

The APD's were fairly effective but because of lack of endurance and troop cramping they were most often used like you said for raidings and end arounds in the Solomons New Guinea and Philippians.

FYI their was no real difference in the various sub classes of the Buckley and Evarts class destroyer escorts except for engines. IIRC each sub class had different engine plants one was standard steam turbine next was diesel, diesel electric and turbine electric.

saber964 wrote:

Theemile wrote:I just found an interesting WW2 warship to cargo conversion. 33 WWI Destroyers were converted to High Speed Assault Transports (APDs), and 93 DEs of 2 designs were modified during construction for the same reason.

Each lost ~1/3 their design speed and 1/2 their armament to carry a Company of army troops (162 or 200 men) and landing craft.

APDs were intended to deliver small units such as Marine Raiders, Underwater Demolition Teams and United States Army Rangers onto hostile shores under fire; used heavily in the Guadalcanal campaign, they allowed troops to be moved and landed quickly with integrated fire support in contested areas.

Ironically, some of these DE conversions were modified BUCKLEY class DEs.

I posted about the APD's in another post.

The APD's were fairly effective but because of lack of endurance and troop cramping they were most often used like you said for raidings and end arounds in the Solomons New Guinea and Philippians.

And that's the important point. 1/3 of speed lost, 1/2 the armament lost, low endurance, cramped conditions. They filled an important niche, But Overall a compromised concept.

No major navy has recommissioned enemy major combatants (cruisers+) since the japanese commissioned several russian pre-dreanoughts following Tsushima.

Even then the general consensus is that this was more of a pride and rubbing the russians noses in it as they were inerior to the existing Japanese pre-dreads let alone the newer Japanese dreadnought construction.

There were a couple of German subs commissioned by the allies in WW2 but these are not major combatants at this time.

Silverwall wrote:No major navy has recommissioned enemy major combatants (cruisers+) since the japanese commissioned several russian pre-dreanoughts following Tsushima.

Even then the general consensus is that this was more of a pride and rubbing the russians noses in it as they were inerior to the existing Japanese pre-dreads let alone the newer Japanese dreadnought construction.

There were a couple of German subs commissioned by the allies in WW2 but these are not major combatants at this time.

How many major combatants were taken mostly intact post Tsushima though? Is it a matter of not wishing to recommission captured hulls or a matter of not having them?

Roguevictory wrote:

Silverwall wrote:No major navy has recommissioned enemy major combatants (cruisers+) since the japanese commissioned several russian pre-dreanoughts following Tsushima.

Even then the general consensus is that this was more of a pride and rubbing the russians noses in it as they were inerior to the existing Japanese pre-dreads let alone the newer Japanese dreadnought construction.

There were a couple of German subs commissioned by the allies in WW2 but these are not major combatants at this time.

How many major combatants were taken mostly intact post Tsushima though? Is it a matter of not wishing to recommission captured hulls or a matter of not having them?

Quite a lot at the end of WW1. The entire German navy was surrendered... and then scuttled by its crews. Most of the surviving ships were distributed to the various victors, but due to a combination of flooding damage, reverse-engineering tests, gunnery practice and post-war economic situation, none of them lasted long.

IIRC, the French and Italians each wanted a quarter of the surrendered ships.

munroburton wrote:Quite a lot at the end of WW1. The entire German navy was surrendered... and then scuttled by its crews. Most of the surviving ships were distributed to the various victors, but due to a combination of flooding damage, reverse-engineering tests, gunnery practice and post-war economic situation, none of them lasted long.

IIRC, the French and Italians each wanted a quarter of the surrendered ships.

And at the end of WWII there were some more major ships that were surrendered. But at least the US had a surplus of ships so they just did a comparative evaluation of the designs of the surrendered ships and then disposed of them (weapons tests, atomic weapons tests, museums, or scrapping)

But after boarding actions became impractical it was far more rare to capture reasonably repairable major ships during wartime. And after the end of the war there often wasn't the urgency to get every hull in the water - so the downsides of operating unsupported equipment outweigh the need for hulls in the water ASAP.