OP Weserübung 1940

[Wolf]

[There is another aspect about the Swedish iron ore. The Germans weren't really dependant on taking this down the Norwegian coast from Narvik.

From what I have read you are right about the iron ore.

British leaders probably somewhat overestimated the German dependence of Swedish high grade iron ore, but I have found little that diminishes the importance of the iron ore supply/supply routhes with the invasion of Norway. Although I'm interested if this is a "Swedish perspective", or if it's common in other contries (?)

My Danish "historian friend" claims that the iron ore question was of limited importance to Weserübung and that the only thing that mattered was the Kriegsmarine's wish to establish bases. For Phylo_Roadking's sake I'd like to stress that the statement in the previous sentence is something I don't belive this myself - it's just a claim a Danish person on the internet made. I actually belive the question of iron ore plays a central place in both sides interest in Norway.

[phylo_roadking]

Anyway, at the time the invasion was already in progress

It's not really an "anyway" for it didn't factor in - remember, the British didn't realise that until it was too late They spotted but interpreted the KM movements, particularly the heavy surface units acting as a covering force for the invasion flotillas, as a fleet action against the minelaying flotillas...

As for "...do ENOUGH damage to hugely impact Narvik's capacity to throughput for the rest of the war!..". From where do you have this information, please? I mean to have seen a source stating that the port of Narvik was up to German needs within a year or so. I shall look for it. I believe I have it from the official Norwegian military operations books.

Fred, John T and Jon G IIRC provided figures from reputable sources, first in one of the WIs that devolved into a discussion of the Norwegian iron and steel idustry, and then in a few others. I was quite suprised at the time too... but on further research I discovered that not only did the Allies destroy a lot of railway line within reach of Narvik and a major rail bridge on the Kiruna line just outside Narvik...the latter a quite large and time-consuming capital project to replace...but as well as the IIRC six ore frieghters sunk right beside the "Iron Quay", the special quay built before the war for bulk-loading straight from rail cars (a couple of the wrecks were moved, but not all of them IIRC)...the Iron Quay itself was dynamited.

In the bottom of the picture can be seen the iron ore loading piers. After the fighting in 1940 35 sunk or half-sunk vessels were laying around the outer and inner port. Among them the two Norwegian coastal "panzer" vessels Eidsvold and Norge.

That's the modern facilities...(Is that actually an airstrip over to the left of the pic???)

The old Iron Quay in peaceful, pre-April 1940 days...



Here's the latest version of the overall annual Swedish export figures from the current "Neutral Buffer" WI...
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1766411

Swedish iron ore as a % of total German supply: http://www.wwiiarchives.net/servlet/act ... /149/257/0

1940: 28.5%
1941: 17.3%
1942: 15.7%
1943: 18.2%
1944: 13.8%

See the drop from 1940 to 1941...and maintained throughout the war?

[phylo_roadking]

Any info on how effective British subs were against German merchants plying the same routes?

What's good for the goose...

I'm not sure they were even patrolling the Leads Most RN sub patrol routes I've seen for the period for patrolling/observing the lower North Sea and the exit from the Baltic And of course....if German traffic kept to the Norwegian and Swedish Three Mile limits....they couldn't attack them!

British ore ships HAD to leave the Three Mile Limit by definition - German ore ships didn't.

[Kingfish]

Swedish iron ore as a % of total German supply: http://www.wwiiarchives.net/servlet/act ... /149/257/0

1940: 28.5%
1941: 17.3%
1942: 15.7%
1943: 18.2%
1944: 13.8%

See the drop from 1940 to 1941...and maintained throughout the war?

Wasn't this drop due in part to Germany having access to French resources?

[phylo_roadking]

So when you get down to it - it's STILL about pre-empting a British breach of Neutrality.

Irrelevant - unless you factor in why the British establishing themselves in Norways was bad for Germany.

NOT irrelevant; the "why" has to be enough of a "why" to manifest as an actual willingness to breach Norway's neutrality. That's an irreversible POLITICAL step - and one that would have impinged greatly on the Allies' standing in the U.S....particularly Washington - where they HAD to remain on the President's Exception List to the Neutrality Acts to be able to buy arms and war materiel from the United States

[phylo_roadking]

Wasn't this drop due in part to Germany having access to French resources?

French ore had the same issues as British domestic - it required pre-sintering and thus resulted in more expensive end product Somewhere on this forum are the figures specifically for Narvik's throughput - the plummet is literally that....and remained down at said levels until the end of the war.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 8#p1449610

After the fall of France, the major advantage of Swedish ore where that it was resource effective, half the quantity of coal to melt it, half the demand on transportation and manpower, Plus that Swedish shipping and manpower where used for the Iron ore also reducing the strain on the Reich. And still around a quarter of all German Iron production.
According to Fritz, Martin. German Steel and Swedish Iron Ore 1939-1945; Göteborg, 1974

There are also some other interesting comments about French ore vs Swedish ore in the third page of this thread...http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 6&t=164538

[phylo_roadking]

....Vikdun Quisling's visit of Berlin and his willingness to provide intelligence about Norwegian defences should be studied from that perspective

This one I would like you very much to elaborate on....

Well....he HAD been Norwegian defence minister for two years in the late 1930's IIRC...

...and yet he didn't seem able to tell the Germans that the Narvik batteries weren't functioning....and the Oscarborg fortress' torpedo tubes were!

So if he DID supply intelligence it wasn't much use!

[phylo_roadking]

Fred...

Here's some of the earlier figures I mentioned - in regards to Narvik...rest when I manage to find them...

Shipments from Narvik in thousands of tons of ore
Previous Year's Shipments in brackets
1939
Sept 165 [462] 36%
Oct 227 [418] 54%
Nov 249 [418] 60%
Dec 294 [464] 63%
1940
Jan 511 [609] 84%
Feb 290 [587] 49%
March 376 [724] 52%
April 168 [687] 24%

(The figure in red is the percentage of overall Swedish exports to Germany that Narvik represented)

See how the events of April 1940 caused throughout to drop fast?

Here's the whole thread - unfortunately, Jon G has removed the table that demonstrated the drop in throughput from Narvik for the remaining war years But the rest of the thread is very revealing http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 6&t=164538

[fredleander]

...and yet he didn't seem able to tell the Germans that the Narvik batteries weren't functioning....and the Oscarborg fortress' torpedo tubes were!

So if he DID supply intelligence it wasn't much use!

I ask you because I have not seen that exact subject discussed in Norway. Do you have anything substantial on he supplying the Germans with military information or is it only something you think he did.

Fred

[fredleander]

Fred...

Here's some of the earlier figures I mentioned - in regards to Narvik...rest when I manage to find them...

The decrease started before April 1940. I have seen those (and other) tables and they also show that export to Germany over other Swedish ports increased before April 1940.

Fred

[phylo_roadking]

I ask you because I have not seen that exact subject discussed in Norway. Do you have anything substantial on he supplying the Germans with military information or is it only something you think he did

No, I'm hinting very gently in a semi-comedic way that he most probably didn't...because -

1/ Surely the whole point of a Neutrality Watch is showing belligerents that you're ONLY militarily strong enough to police your own national territory, and not be a potential belligerent yourself??? There's very very little he could have told them that they wouldn't have known already...except "administrative" details like the Oscarborg's torpedo tubes etc..

2/ if he HAD told them anything of interest....then I would guess that the disposition of something like Oscarborg would have been RIGHT up there at the head of the list??? That's the sort of detail a former defence minister would have known....but not necessarily gleanable from a newspaper

3/ His info wouldn't have been that out of date; yes, the Norwegians had raised a few Emergency Budgets to buy new equipment - fighters from the U.S., MTBs from the British...but they were IIRC quite open about this in both the Storting debates and the Norwegian Press?

So I've never seen anything that he could have told them...acted on by them

To me that means either -

A/ He didn't, or...

B/ they didn't take much notice!

...and to tease the logic out to its final posit - can you see them ignoring anything he had to say IF he had said it? I can't...

...and yet there were serious oversights and gaps in their knowledge; so no, he IMHO didn't.

[fredleander]

As to what Luleå port could handle/not handle this setup in percentage shows the actual traffic of the various iron ore ports. Traffic out of Luleå doubled in 1940.

Distribution of Iron Ore Shipments Between Scandinavian Ports

Year Narvik Luleå Oxelösund Others

1938 54 21 16 9
1939 44 27 18 11
1940 13 53 17 17
1941 8 49 22 21
1942 13 43 21 21
1943 19 43 20 18
1944 24 31 22 23

[fredleander]

No, I'm hinting very gently in a semi-comedic way that he most probably didn't...because

I read you more like you stated that Quisling purposely supplied the Germans with information on Norwegian military matters (secrets).

Fred

[phylo_roadking]

The decrease started before April 1940. I have seen those (and other) tables and they also show that export to Germany over other Swedish ports increased before April 1940.

Increased overall or increased as a percentage of the trade?

However - here's a thought; I wonder if there's such a thing available as numbers of sailings of German ore ships per month from Narvik since the start of the war? Compared with monthly sailings before war broke out? With tens of thousands of tons of German merchant shipping sitting rusting in ports around the world, unable to get home...I wonder if there's a correlation between the start of the war and the apparent decline in throughput via Narvik to Germany?

Distribution of Iron Ore Shipments Between Scandinavian Ports

Year Narvik Luleå Oxelösund Others

1938 54 21 16 9
1939 44 27 18 11
1940 13 53 17 17
1941 8 49 22 21
1942 13 43 21 21
1943 19 43 20 18
1944 24 31 22 23

Traffic out of Luleå doubled in 1940.

Yes - because it HAD to.

I read you more like you stated that Quisling purposedly supplied the Germans with (supposedly) information on Norwegian military matters (secrets).

Well....he HAD been Norwegian defence minister for two years in the late 1930's IIRC...

...and yet he didn't seem able to tell the Germans that the Narvik batteries weren't functioning....and the Oscarborg fortress' torpedo tubes were!

So if he DID supply intelligence it wasn't much use!

No - I'm saying that EITHER he supplied intelligence and they ignored it and lost a heavy cruiser ....or he didn't.

Occam's Razor says the latter. Can you REALLY see them attempting something like the dash to Oslo the way they did IF they had information that the Oscarborg Fortress was more functional than they thought? I can't.

Let's face it - WESERUBUNG was an operation mounted right on the edge of viability; look how the interception of a tanker and a supply ship snookered Dietl's whole operation Can you really see the planning staff having intelligence from Quisling and NOT using it to ensure success? Therefore they didn't...because he didn't.

Yes, you can lay a lot at his door...but I don't think that.

[Wolf]

So when you get down to it - it's STILL about pre-empting a British breach of Neutrality.

Irrelevant - unless you factor in why the British establishing themselves in Norways was bad for Germany.

NOT irrelevant; the "why" has to be enough of a "why" to manifest as an actual willingness to breach Norway's neutrality. That's an irreversible POLITICAL step - and one that would have impinged greatly on the Allies' standing in the U.S....particularly Washington - where they HAD to remain on the President's Exception List to the Neutrality Acts to be able to buy arms and war materiel from the United States

:roll:

It is an undeniable fact that Nazi Germany - and not the allies - invaded Norway. Obviously Nazi Germany found enough of a "why" to launch the invasion.