A hypothetical 1950 navy built from surplus ships

With a blank cheque in 1950, which questionable-looking ships and systems could a new Italy-sized navy buy for the greatest future payoff?

The nominations include British carriers, Swedish and Daring-class destroyers, Amphion-class submarines, and Warspite and Enterprise as speculative preservation purchases; compatibility and later adaptation complicate the apparent bargains.

The exercise imagines a newly founded country building a navy comparable in scale to Italy's with an unrestricted budget. British light fleet carriers, unfinished cruiser hulls, Swedish destroyers, Darings, and Amphion-class submarines are among the proposed purchases. Their appeal is access to wartime design lessons without necessarily accepting ships worn out by wartime service. An Implacable conversion is proposed in which the two hangars become one larger space and deck-edge lifts are added, although this remains a suggested reconstruction rather than a demonstrated conversion. Colossus-class and other 1942 light fleet carriers provide an alternative associated with cheap hulls and subsequent operation of early jets. Mixing British, American, French, and Swedish equipment raises a separate logistics problem. The playful preservation proposals are to acquire Warspite and Enterprise and eventually return them as museum ships for diplomatic goodwill.