Shipbucket

I heard through the gravepine that apparantly the Pensacola and Salt Lake City could have been sold, to Sweden of all countries. I decided to do some digging, and yep, it's true. The Italians also considered selling a pair of cruisers to Sweden. The Swede commission like the speed of the Italian cruisers, but favoured the American cruisers due to their firepower and still nippy speed.

The story goes that a Swedish delegation went straight to President Roosevelt and asked for the purchase of two US cruisers, since the Swedish Navy would rather buy used ships rather than build new ones. FDR then went to a book-shelf, took out a book with a picture of the Pensacola class and said; "These will do nicely." It even went so far as the senate where a vote against won by a single vote, some saying: "The navy keeps asking for money for new ships every year, and now you want to sell some of them!" In the end nothing came of it, neither would Sweden get any cruisers from Italy due to the slight inconvinience that was WW2. Sweden would eventually build the Tre Kronor and Göta Lejon which would serve both Sweden and and the Chilean navy for a long time. Still, it's fun to wonder what the Pensacola class would look like in Swedish service.

I took the liberty to replace some US systems with more relevant Swedish equipment, such as 25mm and 40mm AA light and medium guns, 105mm DP guns replacing the US 127mm guns, the Hawker Osprey replacing the SOC Seagull.

Awesome work!

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

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