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Design 1047, also known as Project 1047,〔Noot (1980), p. 257〕 was a series of plans for a class of Dutch battlecruisers prior to the Second World War. The ships were intended to counter a perceived threat posed by Imperial Japanese aggression to the Dutch colonies in the East Indies. Dutch intelligence believed that the Imperial Japanese Navy would deploy its capital ships (aircraft carriers and battleships) against their counterparts of the United States Navy and the British Royal Navy, leaving heavy and light cruisers, along with seaplane carriers, as the largest ships available for an advance into the East Indies. As such, the 1047s were shaped by the need to be able to fight their way through a fleet composed of these ships and smaller destroyers. It was hoped that this capability would allow the battlecruisers to act as a fleet in being. After a recommendation from high-ranking Dutch naval officers that the ''Koninklijke Marine'' (Royal Netherlands Navy) be bolstered so any attacker would have to "use such a large part of his military potential that there would be an unacceptable weakening of his capabilities in other theaters", the Minister of Defense ordered the Navy to prepare designs for a two or three-member class of battlecruisers. As they had not previously designed a modern capital ship, and the only information available on modern designs came from public literature and editions of ''Jane's Fighting Ships'', the Dutch turned to Germany. This initially bore no results, as the two sides were unable to come to terms. During this time, a preliminary plan was drawn up without foreign assistance; completed on 11 July 1939, it was missing many of the post-First World War advances in warship technology. In particular, the armor protection was totally outmoded. Germany and the Netherlands were eventually able to reach an agreement where Germany would release plans and drawings based upon their ideas for a battlecruiser, in return for a guarantee that all needed equipment would be ordered from German firms. With their assistance (mainly through NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw), a rough design was formulated by February 1940. A visit to Italy prompted a rethink of the internal layout, which led to a set of drawings dated 19 April 1940. This is the last known design produced prior to Germany's invasion and occupation of the Netherlands. Final plans for the ships were never completed, and the ships were never constructed. ==Background== The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 marked a period of increasing belligerence from the Japanese Empire, and as the decade progressed the Dutch grew concerned about the security of their East Indies colonies.〔〔Worth (2002), p. 218〕 The islands, which included Java, Sumatra, Borneo and part of New Guinea, were enormously important both politically and strategically to the Dutch, who had lived and traded there for more than three centuries. Over 500,000 settlers had moved from the Netherlands to this "second homeland",〔Morison (1948), pp. 281–282〕 and the East Indies possessed abundant valuable resources, the most important of which were the rubber plantations and oilfields;〔Morison (1948), p. 280〕 the islands were the fourth-largest exporters of oil in the world, behind the United States, Iran, and Romania.〔〔The statistics given are for 1935. The top five oil exporters in this year were, in order, the United States, with 6,958 kt, Persia (Iran), with 6,860 kt, Romania, with 6,221 kt, the Dutch East Indies, with 5,139 kt, and the Soviet Union, with 3,369 kt. See: (The Way to Pearl Harbor: US vs Japan ), accessed 27 February 2009. Full citation given below.〕 The ''Koninklijke Marine'' had only one seagoing armored ship stationed in the East Indies, the coastal-defense ship (ex-). As this ship was considered to be "of little remaining combat value", three light cruisers (, and ), a few destroyers, and a large submarine fleet were charged with the main naval defense of the islands.〔Noot(1980),p 244〕 The Dutch believed that if war broke out, Japan's capital ships would be preoccupied with the battleships of the United States Navy and the British Royal Navy, meaning that the defenses of the East Indies would need to cope only with Japan's cruisers. However, the ships were more powerful than their Dutch equivalents and Japan would also have the advantage of numbers. It was estimated that by 1944, should no new vessels be ordered, the five light cruisers of the ''Koninklijke Marine'' (two of the , which were laid down prior to the First World War, , and two of the ) could be facing 18 heavy and 27 light Japanese cruisers.〔〔Gardiner and Chesneau (1980), pp. 174, 187–191, 387–389〕〔The last , , was not completed until 30 November 1944; 44 cruisers could have been assembled to attack the East Indies in early 1943 if need be. This count also includes two Chinese light cruisers that were captured in 1937 and a planned hermaphrodite cruiser–seaplane ship (although due to the war, she was completed with a normal catapult and two planes). See and Gardiner and Chesneau (1980), pp. 191–192〕 These factors forced the ''Koninklijke Marine'' to bolster this force, and so the construction of three "super cruisers" capable of overpowering cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy was contemplated. The Washington Naval Treaty and London Naval Treaty limited new cruisers of their signatory nations to not more than a 10,000-ton displacement and guns, but as a relatively minor naval power the Netherlands had not been party to the treaties and was not bound by their restrictions. According to Dutch naval intelligence, the Japanese cruisers did not participate in exercises with the main fleet of battleships and fleet carriers, instead operating with seaplane carriers, so it was assumed that the battlecruisers would not have to face overwhelming carrier-based air strikes. Moreover, the presence of these powerful ships—whose larger guns could easily out-range any escorting cruisers or destroyers—would give the Dutch a fleet in being in the East Indies that could delay or end plans for an amphibious assault for fear that the invasion would be disrupted or the attacking fleet destroyed.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Design 1047 battlecruiser」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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