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Chapter XLVII: Ships and Cheap Weapons
February-March 1941
Horten
The final designs to build replacements for the Navy’s seagoing vessels were complete. Two destroyers, Gyller and Alesund, would be built on the two slips at the Naval Shipyards in Horten. They were based off Sleipner, but were larger and more modern, the former’s design dating to the early 1930’s. Carrying four Bofors 12cm guns identical to those of their four relatives in 60 degree mountings, two quintuple banks of 53.3cm Norwegian torpedoes, a liberal allocation of depth charges (or mines), two twin 4cm Bofors anti-aircraft guns in place of No. 3 Gun behind the single funnel, another feature where they differed from their predecessors, and finally a half dozen 2cm Oerlikons throughout the ship, they were optimized for modern combat, weighing 2000 tons full load as well as reaching 36.5 and 36.25 knots on trials in November and December 1942, respectively.
The British sent the Norwegians copies of their designs for the T and U class submarines, as well as assistance in building the vessels, which would be altered to take Norwegian torpedoes and their deck guns replaced with 4cm mounts. Two U class vessels were ordered from Frederikstad, which had built C and D class subs in the 30’s, as the E class, with future orders probable.
Four Otra class minesweepers were ordered from various small yards to help keep Norwegian waters less full of mines, while a half dozen corvettes of an improved design compared to that of the British Flowers were begun to help fight the submarines that lingered in Norwegian waters. Many trawlers were converted into minesweepers or improvised escorts.
The four surviving destroyers had their anti-aircraft machine guns removed, and a quartet of 2cm guns added to a pair of 4cm. The submarines lost their 7.6cm deck guns in favor of 4cm anti-aircraft weapons. The fact that Norway shared a border with Sweden, the manufacturer of the Bofors weapons, greatly helped her ability to equip her forces with Bofors guns.
As Norway began to build up the Navy’s offensive arsenal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act on 3 February, allowing the Allies to receive weapons and other supplies for little to no money, and Norway was no exception, or, well, it was, in that it received disproportionately large amounts of aid.
The Navy received a pair of old destroyers, the air services’ orders were sped up and future purchases given a discount, and the Army was sent old US Army supplies, which were mainly used for training new conscripted men. The biggest help from the US, however, was not charging the Norwegians money for their supplies. In this way, Norway was able to fight well without crippling its finances.
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). His preference might be to go sit on the porch of a fishing shack on a lake up on the Hardangervidda, but duty calls....
