Parts Salvage and wreckers... And Greece...

[miketr]

Looking over the collection of stuff donated to the Greeks we have...

1 PDN, 2 AC, 1 large PC, 1 small PC and 11 TB's.  Its way to large of a fleet for them even if we assume more than a few people come form the Ottoman Navy.  So the question is what to keep and what to scrap?

1 of the AC's is in need of refit so it is an obvious looser but it could be pared with the other AC.  At the same time while the PDN has been refit within the past year or so she is too large to fit in the dry dock.

So first of all of the big ships which one(s) do people think greece should keep.  2nd is the vangarding rules have be removed.  How much would it cost to land the guns and set them up as coastal defense batteries.

Michael 

[The Rock Doctor]

Vanguarding stuff should be there; my bad.

[Guinness]

IMHO: The Greeks will first and foremost have a manpower problem, especially in senior NCOs and Officers, so the larger ships will almost surely by nearly inoperable almost all the time. I think maybe the wise thing to do would be to scrap or sell all three, and maybe the large PC, and use the proceeds to build or purchase more modern torpedo and mine warfare craft.

[P3D]

Greeks have maritime experience, unlike, say, Bavaria. Actually I am a bit surprised that despite making up a large part of Ottoman population, there was no mutiny in the Navy at all.  Or replacing Greek crews with reliable ones did not cause any trouble at all.

So there should be a lot of experienced ratings available, even officers in some positions (e.g. engineers). Command experience from merchant captains who most prolly served in naval reserves.

And they can get a limited number of officers on loan from Iberia.

[The Rock Doctor]

Valid point about mutinies and all, but it never occurred to me, and nobody suggested it at the time, so the Ottomans got a free pass.

I'd retain the BB as an official fleet flagship that, nonetheless, really doesn't do anything besides occasional flag-showing tours.  Scrap the AC requiring a refit, use the other as a training ship, and employ the smaller stuff as the true workhorses of the fleet.

[miketr]

I thought about it but felt writting a story where greek sailors blow up a ship or two wouldn't fly with people and once I went down that road I never thought to ask the Mods about it.  From a historic point of view up to the Greek Revolt of 1821 the Greeks were in effect the core of the Ottoman Navy.  We can hand wave it away by assuming the Turks put special effort into training non Greeks so they wouldn't be like 50% of the manpower of the Ottoman Navy maybe just 20% or even less.

I assume the Greeks will be able to man several ships but it will be tight for them but they will have holes in the officer corps.

Michael