The SteelNavy.Com Message Board: If needed, the USA will buy Greenland.

Does anybody here actually think the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark will trade shots for Greenland? Really, Congress will vote to go to war and the Danes will send gunboats across the Nth Atlantic, polar or otherwise?

The US will make the Greenlanders an offer they can't refuse, all 50K or so of them and from what I can gather they no longer want Danish rule, anyway. A suzerainty type arrangement with the USA with a million apiece thrown in as a sweetener, maybe much more, as the best or most likely inevitable option would probably be accepted. At this point many would rather independence, but with their tiny pop it is not even close to being self sustainable so the country must have someone to fall back on.

The Danes will no doubt also be extensively compensated with all sorts of social, economic and military favoritism and should come to terms with the reality that its big overseas island does want to now go it alone, and do its best to facilitate.

Previous Message

I was thinking about the number of polar-capable surface warships.

The Danish Navy has currently:
7 armed patrol ships with ice-breaking capabilities (Thetis and Knud Rasmussen class, both classes designed to be easily upgraded by bolting on additional weapons on Stanflex modules), new ones (more heavily armed) to replace the Thetis class are ordered
5 frigates designed for arctic service in mind (Absalon and Iver Huitfeld class), new ones to replace the Iver Huitfeld class will be soon ordered

The comparison to the much larger US Navy is interesting:
0 armed patrol ships with ice-breaking capabilities (also 0 ordered)
0 surface fighting ships designed for the service in the Arctic in mind (also 0 ordered)

And to the largest navy (in regard of number of ships), the Chinese one (PLAN):
0 armed patrol ships with ice-breaking capabilities (also 0 ordered)
0 surface fighting ships designed for the service in the Arctic in mind (also 0 ordered)

With "armed" I refer to ships more heavily armed than ships with some machine guns on board (every ship can ship some machine guns).

The Danish navy is small, but its ship are designed to be used around Greenland and are either based there or regularly deployed to Greenland. The current programs are aimed to improve these capabilities, both the in regard of patrolling with armed vessels, but also the fighting ability.