April 4th, 1940. German invasion force for Narvik.

[kfbr392]

It seems to me the bottom line is:
Likely any other German naval unit would have ended up on the bottom of the fjords or oceans as well, maybe even on the way up north, which would have been even worse.


I thus created a new What if:
What if: April 1940. No German forces sent to Narvik
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=174004

[John T]

So that isn't any specific data regarding Minelaying outside Ofotfjord then ?

Apart from what we already know from naval-history.net, that after the Scharnhorst/Gneisenau encouter, Renown detached four of her destroyer group to return to Vestfjord and specifically guard/operate in the minefield there

Where did you find the text
"specifically guard/operate in the minefield " ?

All I can find is this

On orders from the Admiralty, the destroyers of the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla, HARDY (Captain B. A. W. Warburton-Lee, D 2), HOTSPUR, HAVOCK and HUNTER proceeded up Vestfjord on Operation TN towards Narvik leaving the destroyers of the 20th Destroyer Flotilla to patrol the minefield.

Do you have any other source that specifically states "operate in the minefield " ?

Cheers
/John T.

[AddressUnknown]

I visited my granny the other day and quess what- the ship in the painting in her living room is SS Blythmoor( appears to be painted in 1933).
I took a picture of it( sorry for the poor quality):
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo29 ... N00808.jpg


Is this the same ship that was sunked during the attack?


Cheers,
Addy.

[schwarzermai]

916 motorized artillery battery. 4 x 15cm cannon.
936 motorized artillery battery. 4 x 15cm cannon.

hello

any idea of the model of czech canons in those batteries?

15cm Kanone (t) (model??)

thanks Uwe

[Carl Schwamberger]

916 motorized artillery battery. 4 x 15cm cannon.
936 motorized artillery battery. 4 x 15cm cannon.

hello

any idea of the model of czech canons in those batteries?

15cm Kanone (t) (model??)

thanks Uwe

Spent 20 mintes with my copy of Hogg 'German Artillery of WWII' and found nothing refering to Cezch or Skoda 15cm guns or howitzers in use with the Germans in 1940, or any other year. Wiki has a brief article on the Skoda "K" models, which claims a few of the K-4 for motorized use were built in 1937-38... and that production under German management continued with the weapon designated the 15 cm schwere Feldhaubitze 37(t) or sFH 37(t). It was suposed to have been widely used on the eastern front.

Odd that Hogg has nothing on this weapon. There are five entries for Cezch origin beute cannon, and a dozen others for German designed Skoda built cannon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoda_K-series

[schwarzermai]

hello Karl, thanks for your help.

starting in January 1940 three units (II./2, 737, I./77) converted to each 12x s.F.H. 37 (t) - so a total of 36 were in german use (this sum was not increased substantial (dont know why, there were a lot more avaible but they were not used)
so s.F.H. 37 (t) was not in Norway.

Uwe

[Alexderome]

Exactly. Look at the details of the Battle of Drobak Sound - both the Oslofjord Fortress and the Oscarborg Fortress fired on the oncoming Ggerman vessels; historically, the unknown-to-the-Germans torpedo battery in the Oscarborg Fortress took out the Blucher, the lead ship of the convoy...but before that -

The Oscarborg 28cm battery fired twice and hit Blucher each time, doing considerable damage; imagine the effect if THOSE hits had each been on separate destroyers Probably scratch two destroyers. The fortress' secondary batteries, the Husik and Kopas 15cm and 57mm guns hit Blucher with thirteen 15 cm rounds and around thirty 57 mm shells. Blucher was in a terrible state BEFORE the Norwegians fired torpedoes at her - the Blücher's steering system was disabled and the cruiser's crew was to steer her using the engines and propeller to avoid running aground. The fire fighting system on the Blücher was also knocked out by shell fragments from the two Norwegian batteries, making attempts to control the fires aboard the ship and rescue the many wounded much more difficult...while one of the 28cm hits had penetrated the side of the ship and exploded inside a magazine containing cans of oil, smoke dispensers, incendiary bombs, aircraft bombs for the cruiser's Arado Ar 196 reconnaissance seaplanes and depth charges, and the other had knocked out the electricity central for the ship's main guns, rendering them unable to return fire After that...only two of the three Oscarborg torpedo tubes were fired at the intruder....with BOTH fish hitting her!

That's a suprising number of hits the untrained and semi-trained Norwegian gun crews achieved...and a 100% hit rate with torpedoes that had been test-fired over 200 times and noone knew for sure they'd work! Imagine that performance and damage scattered through a convoy of destroyers!

As it was - OTL, the convoy DID turn round! It was a pre-emptive attempt to sieze the king and government - and failed. Both parties were able to evacuate from Oslo. So...if the operation "failed" from ONE ship in the convoy being hit and sunk - what if many had been? The Germans might have called off the entire Oslo operation...

Which was the first gun at Oscarborg to shot the first round : Gun 2 (Moses) or gun 3 (Aron) ?