Portal:Netherlands/Selected article/8

Design 1047 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's 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 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 though an escort screen composed of cruisers and destroyers. It was hoped that they would be able to act as a fleet in being capable of delaying, altering, or ending plans for an invasion of the East Indies because they would be able to deal a severe blow to an assembled invasion force.

After a recommendation from high-ranking Dutch naval officers that the Koninklijke Marine 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. A preliminary plan by Dutch designers was completed on 11 July 1939, but as they had not previously designed a modern capital ship the design was missing many of the post-First World War advances in warship technology; in particular, the armor protection was totally outmoded. As the only information available on modern designs came from public literature and editions of Jane's Fighting Ships, the Dutch turned to Germany, which agreed to release plans and drawings based upon their Scharnhorst class in return for a guarantee that all needed equipment would be ordered from German firms. With this assistance a final design was completed by February 1940, but a visit to Italy prompted a rethink of the internal subdivision within the ships to incorporate a rough Pugliese system. This led to a set of drawings dated 19 April 1940, which are the last known design produced prior to Germany's invasion and occupation of the Netherlands.