Konigsreich von Namaqua AU

Well I guess I probably should at least put in some backstory and context to my dumb little AU, so here goes....

...and, ummm...considering how I'm dealing with a history of a people who in actual world history essentially faced a genuine holocaust, I'm open to making any modifications to my AU history to avoid offending sensibilities. Hopefully this is ok, as I'm trying to mind national dignity here....

Late Pre-Dreadnoughts and Early Dreadnoughts of Namaqua

When the native Herero and Namaqua people overthrew their German colonizers in the last quarter of the 19th century, it was felt that having at least a strong regional navy would ward off further colonization efforts by Central European powers; additionally it was felt a strong military would keep the South African lands united under the Kingdom's banner and instil native pride that would cyclically feed back towards a stronger kingdom and people against aggression from both Europe and closer to home. Consequently the Kingdom of Namaqua embarked on widespread ocean-going naval building programs similar to what was happening in Japan, Russia, the United States and various powers in South America. The British saw the Kingdom as a potential ally against rival colonization efforts and perhaps as an opportunity to convince a native power to support their own African colonies (they were particularly hoping the Kingdom would remember the British abandoning their own colonization efforts in the region and lending aid to the Namaqua and Herero to eject the Germans). Far more importantly, however, it was seen as simply an opportunity to sell arms to a nation thought non-aggressive to British interests. Thus many of the warships from this expansion period were built by or patterned after British vessels. The Kingdom also sought to aggressively build their own vessels, including ships-of-the-line, but in the early 20th century it was widely recognized that the Kingdom's front-line vessels were still lagging behind the world standard.

One of the last of such British-designed ships-of-the-line was ordered on what was then believed to be the state-of-the-art Lord Nelson hull. Modifications for the Kingdom included a redo of the bridge to include a much expanded citadel (complete with rangefinder) and the deletion of two wing turrets to save weight and as they were thought awkward and superfluous anyway. Armament was entirely native-built and designed (though also derived from Armstrong blueprints) in native-built turret housings. Otherwise the design, christened Khomastadt (as the German language was still very much ingrained into Namaqua culture) was largely identical to its British sisters.

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However, by the time KvN [/i]Khomastadt[/i] was commissioned, the ship was already woefully obsolete with the advent of HMS Dreadnought. The design proved somewhat less than satisfactory as well, the navy wishing for a faster vessel. At first what was essentially an enlarged Lord Nelson was studied, but the design evolved to include additional Triple Expansion Engines and other significant improvements. Two ships of the Prinzessin Kara - adhering to the primary tradition of battleships named for matriarchal royalty - were commissioned. Further vessels were planned but were cancelled as these ships were seen as barely a step forwards, and perhaps more than a few steps backwards.

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The next, and as it turned out final, pre-Dreadnought design was essentially a vastly enlarged Prinzessin Kara hull in order to fit turbine engines. The Admiralty had bet that a particularly fast ship would allow a vessel to close quickly and allow for a medium-caliber battery to remain relevant in engaging enemy ships-of-the-line. A very high speed of 23-25 knots became a driving design stipulation, and while the Prinzessin Triela class ships were indeed notably fast vessels, they nonetheless had the dubious distinction of being pre-dreadnoughts that were being commissioned as Dreadnought herself started looking obsolete.

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Though underarmed and out of date by the time WWI broke out, the high speed of these ships nonetheless proved useful. This became plainly evident during the Battle of the Falklands when Prinzessin Triela left HMS Canopus in the dust and successfully engaged the German cruisers. This became the sole engagement of Kingdom ships-of-the-line involving significant enemy combatants during the entire war (and even so involving only a single second-rate vessel). This later gave rise to an idea to try to squeeze some additional utility out of these hulls - Prinzessin Amelia and Prinzessin Kaitalin were rebuilt to reduce weight (principally by removing their wing turrets) and became ersatz battlecruisers. A light wooden bridge was also built to completely enclose the bridge around the citadel, and the moderately-armored battery control tower which had been a feature of Namaqua ships of this period was removed, also to save weight but in light of having been seen as a failed experiment (though the general design is said to have evolved into the intermediate war-style citadel superstructure common to all battleships since).

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The would-be last unit of the class, Prinzessin Sofia, was instead re-ordered as the Kingdom's first true dreadnought. Renamed Kaiserin Sofia to emphasize her groundbreaking status, she was joined by Namaqualand and it was believed that Kingdom had finally entered into the superpower era. Unfortunately, KvN Namaqualand launched around the same time as the first super-dreadnoughts - it seemed that the Kingdom would perpetually lag behind the major powers, but Kaiserin Sofia and Namaqualand nonetheless proved to be powerful assets even with a reduction back to a 21 knot speed.

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