German Destroyers at Narvik

[phylo_roadking]

My guess is that, precisely, the meteorological conditions which could be expected in early april were taken into account in the planning - and ruled out the use of the K-class cruisers for the farthest target owing to their structural hull weakness.
You really do not want to loose your landing force because the cruiser carrying them broke in two in a gale.

But remember - a destroyer turned back because high seas stoved in her plating...

Something else to remember is - 1940 (and '41, '42 and into '43) saw a La Nina event, with the Jet Stream moving south and the so-called "Polar Spiral" moving cold weather further south and for longer than normal (the bad snows of the winter of 1939 into 1940? ), hence the 8 weeks'-late Spring thaws in Norway in 1940....and the same in 1941 delaying Barbarossa. I haven't ever seen sea or weather reports for the North Sea for April 1940 - but given that the weather was unseasonably bad on land, I can't see it being anything wonderful at sea!

[mescal]

But remember - a destroyer turned back because high seas stoved in her plating...

Yes, but a destroyer turning back (or sinking) leads to a 10% loss rate on the invasion contingent.
Whereas the loss of one cruiser out of a more restricted group would have amounted to a 25% or 33% loss rate.

And if the German destroyers had some problems of topheaviness and stability they were far better than the K-class.

Actually these cruisers (well, Köln, because the two other did not have a very long track record) did never leave the sheltered waters of the German Bay or the Baltic.
It looks as if OKM did not see its light cruisers as more than coastal warships.

[phylo_roadking]

Actually these cruisers (well, Köln, because the two other did not have a very long track record) did never leave the sheltered waters of the German Bay or the Baltic.
It looks as if OKM did not see its light cruisers as more than coastal warships.

Well, that's all they had been used for for the last twenty years

Yes, but a destroyer turning back (or sinking) leads to a 10% loss rate on the invasion contingent.
Whereas the loss of one cruiser out of a more restricted group would have amounted to a 25% or 33% loss rate

This brings me onto another issue - as I've been doing more checking on the Crete comparisons...it might not be a simple case of a cruiser being able to carry twice or three times as much as a destroyer. At Crete, some of the RN cruisers couldn't carry that much more than the destroyers...

I think that you'd need to do a lot more research into the German cruisers to be able to say with any certainly how much they could carry; they could have been untrimmable no matter what they carried where, for instance - or not physically able to accomodate that many men or stores without carrying far more of them on deck than was safe to do so.

[phylo_roadking]

Actually these cruisers (well, Köln, because the two other did not have a very long track record) did never leave the sheltered waters of the German Bay or the Baltic

Actually, just had a thought - this should read "Actually these cruisers (well, Köln, because the two other did not have a very long track record) did never leave the sheltered waters of the German Bay or the Baltic during WWII" - for at least one reached the Pacific in peacetime!

Which one of the K-Class was repaired at San Diego beause of stress damage?

EDIT: just found the answer myself; Karlsruhe put in at San Diego naval base for major repairs during her training cruise of 1936, after a battering during a tropical storm. And all three had been involved in the non-intervention patrols off Spain during the Spanish Civil War...

[mescal]

Yes sure, I only considered ww2.

It's during the SCW patrols that the structural problems were fully diagnosed - and the K-class withdrawn from said patrols and blue-water commitments IIRC.

[John T]

I think that you'd need to do a lot more research into the German cruisers to be able to say with any certainly how much they could carry; they could have been untrimmable no matter what they carried where, for instance - or not physically able to accomodate that many men or stores without carrying far more of them on deck than was safe to do so.

Köln carried 640 men and Königsberg 735 when attacking Bergen and the Kristiansand group with Karlsruhe, Tsingtau and three Torpedobooten carried in total 1070 men.

According to Geir Haarr, the German invasion of Norway.

Cheers
/John

[phylo_roadking]

Köln carried 640 men and Königsberg 735 when attacking Bergen and the Kristiansand group with Karlsruhe

On the 29th of May, 1941, during the evacuation from Heraklion, HMS Hotspur carried 900 men above and below decks...but her sister ship Hereward only carried 450 below decks...

...whereas the cruiser HMS Orion could only accomdate 1,090 persons without arms or equipment (including 13 stretcher cases and four women!) with every 'tween-deck space and spare foot of accomodation crowded - so crowded that when the ship was bombed 262 were killed and over 300 injured in the confined spaces.

In size comparison -
Orion was 554.9 ft (169.1 m) long compared to the Hotpsur's 323 ft (98.5 m)...
but Konigsberg was 174 m long to the 1936-class destroyers at Narvik which were 123.4m long

So - either the K-class had a huge amount of open space in them to carry that much more than the destroyers at Narvik ...or they simply carried a larger percentage of their human load on deck for the shorter trip???

[Kingfish]

They did not make the journey at top speed - the DDs did not have the range to go to Narvik from Germany @30 knots.

Which squashes the theory that top speed was the reason for assigning Narvik to the DDs.

[Kingfish]

How many loaded ore carriers made it out AFTER the British mined the Vestfjord on the 7th?

Can't say for sure, but according to Wiki the 'H' class RN destroyers bagged a considerable number during the foray on April 10th.

In any event, my point was that the harbor was certainly capable of accommodating a heavily loaded ship, be they moored parallel to the quay as in your photos or broadside as with the ore carriers.

[phylo_roadking]

In any event, my point was that the harbor was certainly capable of accommodating a heavily loaded ship, be they moored parallel to the quay as in your photos or broadside as with the ore carriers

Well, if you look at the second of the pics, you'll see how shallow the water was there - look at the wreck just off the end of one of them As for mooring them broadside elsewhere - the "Iron Quay" wasn't suitable for disembarking men, it was an overhead railpoint for gravity-loading iron ore....



The conventional quays the Germans DID use are off to the side of the picture to the right.

Next issue for the invaders would be actually manouvering a ship as large as the K-Class cruisers to a mooring there even IF the depth was suitable - would they need to take and force the locals to use Narvik's tugs? There's another potential point-of-failure.

Can't say for sure, but according to Wiki the 'H' class RN destroyers bagged a considerable number during the foray on April 10th

Again as discussed earlier, the Basin at Narvik was pretty crowded -

Four Norwegian steamers were anchored; the 4,285 long tons (4,354 t) Cate B, the 1,712 long tons (1,739 t) Eldrid, the 1,758 long tons (1,786 t) Haalegg and the 4,306 long tons (4,375 t) Saphir

Four foreign Neutral ships were present; a 951 long tons (966 t) Dutch steamer, the Bernisse, and the three Swedish steamships Boden of 4,264 long tons (4,332 t), Oxelosund of 5,613 long tons (5,703 t) and Strassa of 5,603 long tons (5,693 t).

Five british ships were in the harbour; the 6,582 long tons (6,688 t) Blythmoor, the 5,141 long tons (5,223 t) Mersington Court, the 4,304 long tons (4,373 t) North Cornwall, the 5,378 long tons (5,464 t) Riverton, and the 4,887 long tons (4,965 t) Romanby.

Ten German merchantmen; the 6,388 long tons (6,491 t) Aachen, the 5,398 long tons (5,485 t) Altona, the 4,902 long tons (4,981 t) Bockenheim, the 5,386 long tons (5,472 t) Hein Hoyer, the 4,879 long tons (4,957 t) Martha Henrich Fisser, the 8,096 long tons (8,226 t) Neuenfels, the 5,806 long tons (5,899 t) Odin , the 7,849 long tons (7,975 t) Lippe, the 4,339 long tons (4,409 t) Frielinghaus, and 5,881 long tons (5,975 t) Planet.

And the Jan Wellem.

That's a lot - and the one thing I've never seen is a map of how they were distributed that morning; it's possible one or more might have obscured the passage to the quays for a larger ship than the destoyers.

[phylo_roadking]

Regarding the weather on the 9th-10th of April, from Derry -

By this time the five destroyers had passed Tranöy again on their way in, under weather conditions so appalling that they only sighted land once and that when they were about to run aground. The speed of approach along the Ofotfjord was therefore very slow, stern lights being in use to keep formation, but the poor visibility also contributed to the completeness of the surprise. Our ships were not spotted by the German submarines stationed in the outer fjord, which had been misled by sighting them the previous evening sailing in the opposite direction to fill in time; and the one destroyer on patrol had returned to harbour without replacement ten minutes before the British flotilla made its attack.

...or as the Meterological Office would say - grotty And according to Derry, the Vestfjord was "storm-bound" on the 8th also...

The eight destroyers, struggling through heavy seas, had duly joined him off the Skomvaer Light (about 70 miles to the west of Bodö) at 5:15 PM. Then, after weighing the advisability of entering the storm bound Vestfjord, he moved out to sea for a time instead, with the hope that he might intercept the squadron which had been sighted by the flying boat WNW of Trondheim. While thus employed he received definite Admiralty orders ' to concentrate on preventing any German force proceeding to Narvik'; but the weather remained extremely severe and Admiral Whitworth felt obliged to keep his nine destroyers close together and to hold his course more to the northward than he would otherwise have done. The Repulse and her little squadron were ordered to join him, but did not arrive until 2 PM next day. In all the circumstances it is not surprising that he failed in his mission to intercept the ten German destroyers, which parted company with their escort off the Vestfjord about eight o'clock that night and set their course for Narvik unmolested through the waters from which the minefield patrol had so recently withdrawn

In other words, the K-class cruisers would have been in big trouble trying to negotiate THAT!

There was a "temporary" improvement that night - it ratcheted down to "snow squalls", enough to allow the Renown/Repulse, Scharnhorst/Gneisenau gun action in between them, but still with a very heavy sea on the morning of the 9th.

[Orwell1984]

That's a lot - and the one thing I've never seen is a map of how they were distributed that morning; it's possible one or more might have obscured the passage to the quays for a larger ship than the destoyers.

Peter Dickens' book Narvik:Battles in the Fjords (part of the Sea Battles Closeup Series by Ian Allan/NIP also re-issued by NIP) contains a map on page 59 titled "Violation of Narvik Harbour 0430 April 10,1940" which shows placement of merchant vessels in the harbour. Unfortunately not all the vessel's locations are marked but Jan Wellem and Blythmoor are marked.
The map gives the impression there was not a lot of maneuvering room left in harbour with the vessels moored as they were.

[Kingfish]

Next issue for the invaders would be actually manouvering a ship as large as the K-Class cruisers to a mooring there even IF the depth was suitable - would they need to take and force the locals to use Narvik's tugs? There's another potential point-of-failure.

But wasn't that risk already taken into account anyway at Bergen and Kristiansand?

This may help shed some light:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLAPVtHE9CU

Apparently the Germans used commandeered harbor vessels as lighters to get the troops off the K cruisers.

[phylo_roadking]

But wasn't that risk already taken into account anyway at Bergen and Kristiansand?...

...Apparently the Germans used commandeered harbor vessels as lighters to get the troops off the K cruisers

Yes, but it takes time - time to commandeer them and find crews, then more time to tranship all the troops and stores - when at Narvik at least the KM had been planning on as short a stay as humanly possible to prevent them getting bottled up there. With the RN on the prowl, the operations at Narvik meant 50% of the KM's entire destroyer force and screen for its capital ships was off the gameboard for a day at least...

And as events played out that's EXACTLY what happened; Warburton-Lee in effect bottled them up, then went in after them. If the German replenishment plans had gone as, well, planned - the two forces could as easily have passed in the bad weather in the Vestfjord as much as running up against each other.

And if they'd just decided to use the port's tugs and clear a way to the quays - I wonder what would have happened if one of or more of the vessels in the way had been British?

[Kingfish]

Yes, but it takes time - time to commandeer them and find crews, then more time to tranship all the troops and stores - when at Narvik at least the KM had been planning on as short a stay as humanly possible to prevent them getting bottled up there. With the RN on the prowl, the operations at Narvik meant 50% of the KM's entire destroyer force and screen for its capital ships was off the gameboard for a day at least...

Understood, but I wonder if *this* was the deciding factor in sending the DDs as opposed to the capital ships.
We already determined that speed wasn't it, and the combined load out wasn't that much larger than what was sent to Bergen.

Was it because the DDs could dock directly at the quay?