Det som går ned må komme opp-An Alternate Royal Norwegian Navy TL
- Thread starter CV(N)-6
- Start date
It went from the surrender of Kristiansand to the rounding up of the last pockets of resistance, when there were truly no German belligerents left in Norway.
I gave Chapter LIII, post 976, a Like because this is pretty much exactly how I do think it would shake out...
....except it ought to be Sept 28-Oct 3 1940, not 1941. I've gone over why before.
Arguably, autumn 1940 is too early because with winter coming on, a mid-winter campaign is too difficult. Perhaps the necessary RN sea support, enabled by reasonable concentration of Allied aircraft, with Bergen and Oslo quite close enough given the ranges of the kinds of aircraft needed, pinning down the occupied air fields and pushing Jutland based Luftwaffe away from the coast to permit the naval elements to interdict supply U-boats and pound the land defenses, is not forthcoming that autumn. Perhaps aircraft in sufficient numbers and high enough quality are not yet fully available given Hitler and Goering's notions of Blitzing Britain--but such an argument saying aircraft were limited in supply in the immediate days of the April invasion, and then the huge distraction of Fall Gelb, become less and less reasonable the more time elapses. With Norway cleared of invaders, it might have been reasonable to put her defenses on a second tier back burner of priority. With, after the successes of Fall Gelb and the fall of France, Norway the only place on the map north of the Mediterranean where Allied and Axis forces faced each other across a contested land frontier, this rings ever more hollow. Whatever it takes to clear the peninsula of its occupation should emerge as a top Allied priority.
Now we haven't yet much discussed the question of night fighters. Without very effective night fighters, all weather capability in general, the air war gets reset every sundown, and perhaps that is a major reason the Allies cannot push the Luftwaffe south of the coast to bring in their naval superiority to seal the beachhead's doom.
In daylight hours, I have no doubt that even forced to be mainly based out of Bergen and Oslo, such aircraft as Hurricanes and Spitfires could overwhelm their German opposite numbers out of Jutland, opening the way for daylight attacks by bombers and attack planes. But then at night, they are playing blind man's bluff and any Naval units off the southern shore might be vulnerable to air strikes, though that is liable to be a comedy of errors too--but a few lucky hits might be enough to make persisting in holding out the subs impossible. Bad day weather has a similar effect; ships become vulnerable though the attacking planes have a lot of grief to contend with too.
So the liberation of the coast might reasonably have to wait on Allied development of all weather fighter capability--it is not necessary to develop the ability to attack at night, but the point is to hold the line against Luftwaffe intrusions hitting reset on the battle lines every night and every stormy day. I know that as late as the Battle of Britain the British were still trying to rely on aircraft with powerful Aldiss searchlights installed to combat Luftwaffe night raiders. But these were followed by heavy fighters and light attack planes being equipped with first generation air to air radar, and once that was done, night fighters ceased to be a farce and become something serious.
Now I have not bothered to look up the timeline of these developments but I am pretty darn confident that long before September 1941, some quite serviceable radar equipped night fighters had gone up on both sides. By the time they are operational in Britain, the Battle of Britain is over and the British can very reasonably shift some of their RAF night fighter units to Bergen, and using some to patrol the Scotland-Bergen line and guarantee no Luftwaffe strikes against the destroyer and minelayers bashing the U-boats down on that line, as well as thus securing the lifeline from north Scotland to Norway's ports from Bergen on north, additional units could sweep south; the Germans too are impeded by night operational conditions, but their foothold air base on the coast is ill equipped to host the large aircraft stuffed with temperamental first generation radar equipment which, by the end of 1940, Bergen at any rate ought to be able to care for quite handily. Larger planes--the early generation night fighters being generally at least twin engine heavy fighters and as often or more powerful engined attack planes; crews larger than a single pilot were needed to manage and watch the flaky new radar equipment and foes could not put up air superiority day fighters to take advantage of their slower and less agile flight characteristics, but big planes inherently have the advantage of long range and heavy armament. 200 miles out and then back again is not a hardship for a Blenheim or Beaufighter; pressing on 20 more or so to create the sea cordon is not difficult either. With radar equipped night fighters like these on the alert for any Luftwaffe assets attempting to sneak in under cover of darkness, with RAF and Norwegian day fighters ready to take off before dawn (knowing their home airspace well, with all modern conveniences lavished on crucial Bergen, knowing their takeoff and flight south in predawn darkness is anyway free of enemy bogies) they can be quite ready to meet and mix with any Luftwaffe also jumping into battle at the crack of dawn, and their night fighter buddies can then go home for a day's rest. Though I think the Allied air forces will learn to keep some day mission radar buses battle-adjacent to improve vigilance and vector fighters to foes. Primitive AWACS if you will.
Perhaps by the time 24 hour fighter cover is technically feasible, it is the dead of winter and inadvisable to stretch out the forces in a difficult risky winter attack. But come March, April at the latest, the intervening months should have been a time of buildup and practice and proficiency improvement, and the air forces along with the Navies and army should all fall on the Germans like a ton of bricks.
I still suspect that by sheer surging with the entire Norwegian Army having nothing else to occupy its mind, the Germans could in fact have been cleared before October 1940 was well under way. But granting the argument that without night fighters available the better option was Sitzkrieg--I can't see why that should be allowed to just sit until the late summer and into autumn.
Now if all the Allies knew with infallible foresight that Hitler would attack the USSR in mid-summer, without first arranging a truce with the Allies, then there might be an argument to say "wait until he is deeply committed on the Eastern Front, and cannot afford to yank out a bunch of troops and supplies to reinforce his Norwegian hold, and attack then." But barring ASB certainty on this point, procrastination might gain the Allies such an edge that they minimize their own casualties--but time is almost equally on Hitler's side. Letting it sit gives Hitler the opportunity to change his mind re the Soviet attack, or anyway judge he had better secure the south Norway holdings and break out. Lacking ASB foreknowledge of advancing technology, the Germans might manage some kind of wonder weapon--say a vastly superior new aerial radar set that allows the Luftwaffe to be the ones to wipe the Allies from south Norwegian skies at night, bomb hell out of the Bergen and Oslo bases under cover of darkness, locate any secondary fields and swamp them with paratroops...they don't know in advance what the limits of German technology might be. Meanwhile Norwegian citizens are under Axis rule, subject to arbitrary commands, arbitrary arrests and possible shipment via U-boat to death camps, anything a creative Gestapo or SS mind can dream up.
Clearing Norway as soon as damn possible is a major Allied priority. There is no great value in arguing that it is somehow better they be engaged on that front in late September as some kind of parody of a second front for Stalin's gratification. Stalin, and the Soviet peoples in general, would be far better off if the occupation had been cleared before Barbarossa and the Norwegian army thus in reserve in its near total numbers for deployment elsewhere. With the German occupation ended, Norway itself is far more secure, any and all Allied bases there are secure, its contribution to Allied strength can be projected anywhere the Norwegians agree is most effective with its expeditionary soldiers knowing their homes are safe anyway. It solidifies Sweden's security and favors their leaning pro-Ally, it is the best assurance to the Finns they won't be screwed if they don't fall in line behind Hitler. It lets the Norwegian Navy and Air Force concentrate on securing their own coast, allowing them to operate from numerous very nearby and secure bases, and sealing off the northern passage against U-boat penetration, which might then free up more Norwegian potential for projection elsewhere.
And I don't suppose I even need to mention that the earlier such a victory is won, the better for both Norwegian and Allied morale in general, and the worse for Axis. However the Axis commands might retroactively spin the Norwegian debacle as irrelevant or some kind of successful ruse or something, it is a memento mori for the lot of them, from the lowest corporal or camp guard to Hitler himself.
So if circumstances conspire to prevent this clearing of Norwegian soil before the winter of 1940 closes on them, I am pretty sure they'd set themselves a deadline of getting it done before the Germans can celebrate a single year's anniversary of their April invasion. Perhaps attacking in late March or early April is too early to have mustered the forces needed to guarantee that, but surely by the arrival of that date in April, the Germans will be harried and deeply besieged, on their last foot and knowing it.
Now having said all this, I hope some good reasons are put forth explaining why the Allies let that deadline blow past them and sat putting chess pieces into place all spring and into summer, nor did they take Hitler's rash decision to attack the Russians, nor the date on which Stalin formally confirmed the USSR is henceforth Allied for the duration as their signal either, but waited all the damn way into September and risking another winter giving diehard Germans another reprieve. By and large most of the decisions by the ATL Allies in this TL prove to be rational; this one needs a damn good explanation though. Otherwise it is a huge gaping logic hole in an otherwise superb work.
.
....except it ought to be Sept 28-Oct 3 1940, not 1941. I've gone over why before.
Arguably, autumn 1940 is too early because with winter coming on, a mid-winter campaign is too difficult. Perhaps the necessary RN sea support, enabled by reasonable concentration of Allied aircraft, with Bergen and Oslo quite close enough given the ranges of the kinds of aircraft needed, pinning down the occupied air fields and pushing Jutland based Luftwaffe away from the coast to permit the naval elements to interdict supply U-boats and pound the land defenses, is not forthcoming that autumn. Perhaps aircraft in sufficient numbers and high enough quality are not yet fully available given Hitler and Goering's notions of Blitzing Britain--but such an argument saying aircraft were limited in supply in the immediate days of the April invasion, and then the huge distraction of Fall Gelb, become less and less reasonable the more time elapses. With Norway cleared of invaders, it might have been reasonable to put her defenses on a second tier back burner of priority. With, after the successes of Fall Gelb and the fall of France, Norway the only place on the map north of the Mediterranean where Allied and Axis forces faced each other across a contested land frontier, this rings ever more hollow. Whatever it takes to clear the peninsula of its occupation should emerge as a top Allied priority.
Now we haven't yet much discussed the question of night fighters. Without very effective night fighters, all weather capability in general, the air war gets reset every sundown, and perhaps that is a major reason the Allies cannot push the Luftwaffe south of the coast to bring in their naval superiority to seal the beachhead's doom.
In daylight hours, I have no doubt that even forced to be mainly based out of Bergen and Oslo, such aircraft as Hurricanes and Spitfires could overwhelm their German opposite numbers out of Jutland, opening the way for daylight attacks by bombers and attack planes. But then at night, they are playing blind man's bluff and any Naval units off the southern shore might be vulnerable to air strikes, though that is liable to be a comedy of errors too--but a few lucky hits might be enough to make persisting in holding out the subs impossible. Bad day weather has a similar effect; ships become vulnerable though the attacking planes have a lot of grief to contend with too.
So the liberation of the coast might reasonably have to wait on Allied development of all weather fighter capability--it is not necessary to develop the ability to attack at night, but the point is to hold the line against Luftwaffe intrusions hitting reset on the battle lines every night and every stormy day. I know that as late as the Battle of Britain the British were still trying to rely on aircraft with powerful Aldiss searchlights installed to combat Luftwaffe night raiders. But these were followed by heavy fighters and light attack planes being equipped with first generation air to air radar, and once that was done, night fighters ceased to be a farce and become something serious.
Now I have not bothered to look up the timeline of these developments but I am pretty darn confident that long before September 1941, some quite serviceable radar equipped night fighters had gone up on both sides. By the time they are operational in Britain, the Battle of Britain is over and the British can very reasonably shift some of their RAF night fighter units to Bergen, and using some to patrol the Scotland-Bergen line and guarantee no Luftwaffe strikes against the destroyer and minelayers bashing the U-boats down on that line, as well as thus securing the lifeline from north Scotland to Norway's ports from Bergen on north, additional units could sweep south; the Germans too are impeded by night operational conditions, but their foothold air base on the coast is ill equipped to host the large aircraft stuffed with temperamental first generation radar equipment which, by the end of 1940, Bergen at any rate ought to be able to care for quite handily. Larger planes--the early generation night fighters being generally at least twin engine heavy fighters and as often or more powerful engined attack planes; crews larger than a single pilot were needed to manage and watch the flaky new radar equipment and foes could not put up air superiority day fighters to take advantage of their slower and less agile flight characteristics, but big planes inherently have the advantage of long range and heavy armament. 200 miles out and then back again is not a hardship for a Blenheim or Beaufighter; pressing on 20 more or so to create the sea cordon is not difficult either. With radar equipped night fighters like these on the alert for any Luftwaffe assets attempting to sneak in under cover of darkness, with RAF and Norwegian day fighters ready to take off before dawn (knowing their home airspace well, with all modern conveniences lavished on crucial Bergen, knowing their takeoff and flight south in predawn darkness is anyway free of enemy bogies) they can be quite ready to meet and mix with any Luftwaffe also jumping into battle at the crack of dawn, and their night fighter buddies can then go home for a day's rest. Though I think the Allied air forces will learn to keep some day mission radar buses battle-adjacent to improve vigilance and vector fighters to foes. Primitive AWACS if you will.
Perhaps by the time 24 hour fighter cover is technically feasible, it is the dead of winter and inadvisable to stretch out the forces in a difficult risky winter attack. But come March, April at the latest, the intervening months should have been a time of buildup and practice and proficiency improvement, and the air forces along with the Navies and army should all fall on the Germans like a ton of bricks.
I still suspect that by sheer surging with the entire Norwegian Army having nothing else to occupy its mind, the Germans could in fact have been cleared before October 1940 was well under way. But granting the argument that without night fighters available the better option was Sitzkrieg--I can't see why that should be allowed to just sit until the late summer and into autumn.
Now if all the Allies knew with infallible foresight that Hitler would attack the USSR in mid-summer, without first arranging a truce with the Allies, then there might be an argument to say "wait until he is deeply committed on the Eastern Front, and cannot afford to yank out a bunch of troops and supplies to reinforce his Norwegian hold, and attack then." But barring ASB certainty on this point, procrastination might gain the Allies such an edge that they minimize their own casualties--but time is almost equally on Hitler's side. Letting it sit gives Hitler the opportunity to change his mind re the Soviet attack, or anyway judge he had better secure the south Norway holdings and break out. Lacking ASB foreknowledge of advancing technology, the Germans might manage some kind of wonder weapon--say a vastly superior new aerial radar set that allows the Luftwaffe to be the ones to wipe the Allies from south Norwegian skies at night, bomb hell out of the Bergen and Oslo bases under cover of darkness, locate any secondary fields and swamp them with paratroops...they don't know in advance what the limits of German technology might be. Meanwhile Norwegian citizens are under Axis rule, subject to arbitrary commands, arbitrary arrests and possible shipment via U-boat to death camps, anything a creative Gestapo or SS mind can dream up.
Clearing Norway as soon as damn possible is a major Allied priority. There is no great value in arguing that it is somehow better they be engaged on that front in late September as some kind of parody of a second front for Stalin's gratification. Stalin, and the Soviet peoples in general, would be far better off if the occupation had been cleared before Barbarossa and the Norwegian army thus in reserve in its near total numbers for deployment elsewhere. With the German occupation ended, Norway itself is far more secure, any and all Allied bases there are secure, its contribution to Allied strength can be projected anywhere the Norwegians agree is most effective with its expeditionary soldiers knowing their homes are safe anyway. It solidifies Sweden's security and favors their leaning pro-Ally, it is the best assurance to the Finns they won't be screwed if they don't fall in line behind Hitler. It lets the Norwegian Navy and Air Force concentrate on securing their own coast, allowing them to operate from numerous very nearby and secure bases, and sealing off the northern passage against U-boat penetration, which might then free up more Norwegian potential for projection elsewhere.
And I don't suppose I even need to mention that the earlier such a victory is won, the better for both Norwegian and Allied morale in general, and the worse for Axis. However the Axis commands might retroactively spin the Norwegian debacle as irrelevant or some kind of successful ruse or something, it is a memento mori for the lot of them, from the lowest corporal or camp guard to Hitler himself.
So if circumstances conspire to prevent this clearing of Norwegian soil before the winter of 1940 closes on them, I am pretty sure they'd set themselves a deadline of getting it done before the Germans can celebrate a single year's anniversary of their April invasion. Perhaps attacking in late March or early April is too early to have mustered the forces needed to guarantee that, but surely by the arrival of that date in April, the Germans will be harried and deeply besieged, on their last foot and knowing it.
Now having said all this, I hope some good reasons are put forth explaining why the Allies let that deadline blow past them and sat putting chess pieces into place all spring and into summer, nor did they take Hitler's rash decision to attack the Russians, nor the date on which Stalin formally confirmed the USSR is henceforth Allied for the duration as their signal either, but waited all the damn way into September and risking another winter giving diehard Germans another reprieve. By and large most of the decisions by the ATL Allies in this TL prove to be rational; this one needs a damn good explanation though. Otherwise it is a huge gaping logic hole in an otherwise superb work.
.
Shevek,
You certainly are right, I let the Kristiansand campaign sit for a bit too long. I do believe that retaking it in 1940 is hard because the Allies just got beat in France and now have Italy to fight as well, albeit with more resources than OTL. My thinking is the RN and MN would go the the Med and beat the shit out of the RM, by the time they have a moment it’s fall/winter so they have to wait. I should have started the whole build-up for the landings sooner, but when I started that, set in July-August I also knew I couldn’t snap my fingers and Norway has amphib assault capability, as I’m trying to write a believable timeline, and I also felt like a bunch of retconning wasn’t desirable, so I made the invasion later instead of the above two options.
You certainly are right, I let the Kristiansand campaign sit for a bit too long. I do believe that retaking it in 1940 is hard because the Allies just got beat in France and now have Italy to fight as well, albeit with more resources than OTL. My thinking is the RN and MN would go the the Med and beat the shit out of the RM, by the time they have a moment it’s fall/winter so they have to wait. I should have started the whole build-up for the landings sooner, but when I started that, set in July-August I also knew I couldn’t snap my fingers and Norway has amphib assault capability, as I’m trying to write a believable timeline, and I also felt like a bunch of retconning wasn’t desirable, so I made the invasion later instead of the above two options.
Yes, since the Germans don't have the logistics to support a force in Southern Norway for long. OTL, they used captured fuel to support their advance , they were able to run convoys without surface threats and part of their logistic get through Sweden via railways. ITTL, the Allies are playing at home, like in Britain.
The problem is that Germany doesn't have the logistical capacities to support a small strip of land in Norway. They don't have the navy to escort ships through the Allied blockade and the Luftwaffe can't run that much air transports without loosing too much to attrition and allied fighters. It leaves running submarines to give some sort of life line. And even U-boots will be vulnerable to allied light naval forces and air power harassing Kristiansand.
Due to the shoe string campaign in April 40, the German forces in the area came without that much munitions and supplies. They captured some supplies during the invasion but nothing which will make them hold for one and half year.
My take is that the Allies will be able to maintain one cruiser squadron in the area to intercept any possible German convoy. As said, once the Battle of Britain is won, air assets will flow to Norway to secure, at least, air superiority in day time (with the help of a radar equipped CLAA ?). Since they can use the Oslo-Kristiansand railway for supplies, the Allies, if they find a flat track of land, can construct a fighter base in a few months during the summer 40.
You can expect regular Allied air raids, at least once a day and probably twice. While those raids won't be big, 12 to 20 light bombers, the German opposition will be light since the Fighters will need to come from Denmark and the AA guns will be limited to what the Germans captured or came with. Plus, there will be very limited ammunition. In addition, air raids by medium bombers will possibly come directly from the UK, limiting the logistical problems for the Allies in Norway. You can also expect some naval bombardments at night as the Allies will also try to catch the U-boots on the surface.
I expect that the Norwegians will develop a logistical network around the German perimeter using their fishing fleet. Those supply depots will able them to support company sized forces at several points of the German perimeter, forcing small scale engagements (and ammunition expenses) while the Allies build up, specially since there is a railway from Oslo to Kristansand.
The Kristiansand pocket is garrisoned by a few thousand troops who don’t do much, supplied by air when possible and by U-Boats so long as they can make the trip. There are a handful of Ju 88’s along with a dozen Bf 109’s, but other than that there isn’t a ton to supply. The shipments are mostly food, a bit of ammo, and fuel for the current aircraft, as well as extra fuel to support more aircraft in the event they are needed. The low capability of supplying the area is why the Germans didn’t launch an air offensive from it, and why the Allies didn’t have it as number one on their list-they know it’s not getting enough supplies, so it’s not a massive priority, heck, a year of blockade weakens the area, perhaps even forcing it to surrender. At this point in 1941, the Allies aren’t freaking out from France falling anymore, and have some breathing room, so RN carriers can be spared for fighter cover during the day, and the attack is being launched.
pretty nice to see Norway celebrating their hard fought victory, very curious to see what museum ship that ends up being potentially.
I left the museum ships a bit vague on purpose, but I know a few that I’m considering, they will probably be mentioned in one of the closing chapters, though it’ll be a while before we get there
Driftless
Donor
There's still plenty of war ahead too. That can have an impact on what ships are around for the finish.
Chapter LIV
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Chapter LIV: A Trip to Denmark
14 October, 1941
The quartet of recently completed torpedo boats sliced through the Skagerrak, searchlights and burning vessels illuminating the sky behind them. Normally, the Germans would have sent convoys through the Kiel Canal, but they were building a large line of fortifications around the Jutland Peninsula, which required some heavy objects to be emplaced that were most easily moved by sea in ships that were easy targets. The Germans believed that the Norwegians couldn’t attack their construction convoys by sea without using destroyers, and their naval patrols showed it, as on any given night, a handful of minesweepers swept offshore, while a few S-Boats were kept ready to sortie.
Of course, range was a problem for the Norwegian vessels. Despite sacrificing their torpedo reloads for extra fuel, this mission was still pushing the torpedo boats’ endurance. They would meet the carrier Snar, escorted by a CAP and several boats, 75 nautical miles south of Oslofjord where they had left her. This wasn’t optimal, but it was all the Norwegians had for carriers. Appreciable consideration was being given to converting Svalbard and Jan Mayen to fast carriers once a couple more corvettes worked up, which would alleviate the situation somewhat.
The Norwegians weren’t just launching torpedo boat raids at the juicy target across the Skagerrak. So far, four Anglo-Norwegian special forces raids had been launched from submarines offshore. Two had been a complete success, hindering German construction efforts in the area for weeks, if not months. One had done some damage, but had to retreat under the threat of a large garrison, and one simply hadn’t returned. Beaufighters flying from southern air bases bombed German positions at night, including Aalborg, though that was a difficult and costly target.
The British had also sent two squadrons of green crews in Wellingtons to Oslo, which had been reported up the German chain of command via photo reconnaissance all the way up to the Fuhrer, who ordered more fighters sent to Denmark to protect the Reich from the northern threat. The bombers joined the night fighters in hitting Denmark in the dark. It was thanks to these efforts that the Northern Wall, as the section of fortifications in Denmark was known, began to go severely over budget. The large concentration of fighters and fuel in Denmark would have been a godsend on the Eastern Front, which was going well but having major logistics issues.
On 1 November, Svalbard and Jan Mayen were officially approved for conversion into torpedo boat carriers. They would sacrifice their remaining torpedo tubes for a pair of davits and cranes to haul, launch, and recover two boats. The fact that the destroyers weren’t slow, vulnerable ex-freighters meant that they would be able to bring the torpedo boats in much closer than usual and recover them much sooner, thus reducing the risk of losing boats to breakdowns, while also allowing the reload torpedoes to be shipped once again. The Navy would get the two new Gyller class in approximately a year to replace the old ships, though new corvettes were taking up most of the slack.
Oslo, 7 November
The proposed destroyers would be the fleet’s largest vessels since the old coast defenders were in commission. Displacing 2650 tons standard and 3600 full, they would be some of the best of their type if completed. Mounting three twin Bofors 12cm guns fresh off the drawing board in turrets capable of elevating them to 85 degrees, two quintuple torpedo banks, one quad, two twin, and two single 4cm guns, eight 2cm weapons, more depth charges than the Gyllers, and provisions for a forward throwing ASW weapon, these ships, designed for 36.5 knots, would be formidable opponents for any destroyer, submarine, or aircraft unfortunate enough to cross paths with them.
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Chapter LIV: A Trip to Denmark
14 October, 1941
The quartet of recently completed torpedo boats sliced through the Skagerrak, searchlights and burning vessels illuminating the sky behind them. Normally, the Germans would have sent convoys through the Kiel Canal, but they were building a large line of fortifications around the Jutland Peninsula, which required some heavy objects to be emplaced that were most easily moved by sea in ships that were easy targets. The Germans believed that the Norwegians couldn’t attack their construction convoys by sea without using destroyers, and their naval patrols showed it, as on any given night, a handful of minesweepers swept offshore, while a few S-Boats were kept ready to sortie.
Of course, range was a problem for the Norwegian vessels. Despite sacrificing their torpedo reloads for extra fuel, this mission was still pushing the torpedo boats’ endurance. They would meet the carrier Snar, escorted by a CAP and several boats, 75 nautical miles south of Oslofjord where they had left her. This wasn’t optimal, but it was all the Norwegians had for carriers. Appreciable consideration was being given to converting Svalbard and Jan Mayen to fast carriers once a couple more corvettes worked up, which would alleviate the situation somewhat.
The Norwegians weren’t just launching torpedo boat raids at the juicy target across the Skagerrak. So far, four Anglo-Norwegian special forces raids had been launched from submarines offshore. Two had been a complete success, hindering German construction efforts in the area for weeks, if not months. One had done some damage, but had to retreat under the threat of a large garrison, and one simply hadn’t returned. Beaufighters flying from southern air bases bombed German positions at night, including Aalborg, though that was a difficult and costly target.
The British had also sent two squadrons of green crews in Wellingtons to Oslo, which had been reported up the German chain of command via photo reconnaissance all the way up to the Fuhrer, who ordered more fighters sent to Denmark to protect the Reich from the northern threat. The bombers joined the night fighters in hitting Denmark in the dark. It was thanks to these efforts that the Northern Wall, as the section of fortifications in Denmark was known, began to go severely over budget. The large concentration of fighters and fuel in Denmark would have been a godsend on the Eastern Front, which was going well but having major logistics issues.
On 1 November, Svalbard and Jan Mayen were officially approved for conversion into torpedo boat carriers. They would sacrifice their remaining torpedo tubes for a pair of davits and cranes to haul, launch, and recover two boats. The fact that the destroyers weren’t slow, vulnerable ex-freighters meant that they would be able to bring the torpedo boats in much closer than usual and recover them much sooner, thus reducing the risk of losing boats to breakdowns, while also allowing the reload torpedoes to be shipped once again. The Navy would get the two new Gyller class in approximately a year to replace the old ships, though new corvettes were taking up most of the slack.
Oslo, 7 November
The proposed destroyers would be the fleet’s largest vessels since the old coast defenders were in commission. Displacing 2650 tons standard and 3600 full, they would be some of the best of their type if completed. Mounting three twin Bofors 12cm guns fresh off the drawing board in turrets capable of elevating them to 85 degrees, two quintuple torpedo banks, one quad, two twin, and two single 4cm guns, eight 2cm weapons, more depth charges than the Gyllers, and provisions for a forward throwing ASW weapon, these ships, designed for 36.5 knots, would be formidable opponents for any destroyer, submarine, or aircraft unfortunate enough to cross paths with them.
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WHOA NELLIE!!!!!! basically a Gearing class destroyer in 1941!!!!! (I hope the USN is paying attention!!!!)
Converting the 4 pipers to PT boat carriers makes a lot of sense
This is 1941, they are still on the drawing boards and won’t complete until late in the war if they are built
Damn those are some very beefy destroyers, it’ll be interesting to see if they are modified heavily during construction.
RN Battle class is also 1941 designed...... its not that far from standard by this time just that nobody but USN has the free construction to get them built fast.....
Do you think Norway would show the design to the USN? As far as the RN Battle's, considering how the Battle of the Atlantic is going, what's the odds of seeing them sooner.
As far as the Gearings are concerned, I go back to an earlier position where I think there won't be a need for as many Destroyer Escorts and free up production capacity...
I was confused by mention of Snar as a "carrier," wondering if Norwegian flattops are already in operation, but of course Snar is a torpedo boat "carrier," a tender might be a better term except that probably understates how well armed and armored it is, despite being a merchant ship conversion.
This seems a rational war plan at this point, now that the clearance of the southern coastal lodgment of German forces has finally happened. Now is the time for Norwegian based force to concentrate on harassing the Axis defenses of Denmark.
I suggest that the rational deployment of Norwegian ground force at this time is mainly to keep the army in being as a potential threat for a feared landing in Denmark for Hitler to worry about. Not actually do this, as it would be more difficult than attempting to land in France, whereas it will be a long time before western Allied force builds up to a level where such a landing can have reasonable prospects of surviving and being developed into effective land war against the Reich.
But OTL Hitler had the willies that the Allies would land in Norway, and bottled up a whole lot of force in Norway where it did him little good (beyond interdicting the shipping routes to the Soviet White Sea ports, which was to be sure a severe blow against Allied power in itself--but he hardly needed all the ground troops he had stationed there to do that; those were to deter and parry the landing. And indeed Allied plans certainly kept that contingency at least on the back burner, Churchill was quite keen for a Narvik return. Now I think landing in Jutland and still worse, the Danish islands to the east, is objectively harder to do despite the nerfing of German sea power here. But Hitler will fear it, so keeping the pressure up there is a good idea, if it doesn't cost too much.
Cold bloodedly, Norway does not require any aircraft carriers of any scale. My wishful thinking wants them to have them since I am an aviation fan, but there is really no need for it.
The RN is handling the roles where such ships are assets and its carriers can be brought in should any battle plans based in Norway require any. Now that I believe the FAA is using "Martlets," that is Grumman Wildcats, for their main CAP/air superiority fighters, they are going to be a lot more effective, well able to parry the best German landplanes. But Goering still has a lot of these to throw at ships intruding too close. Whereas the range of even the smaller and more high-strung fighter types of late 1941 vintage should be quite adequate for Norway to base all hers on her southeast shores, plus a fringe of patrols, these not needing to be highest performance, to assist the general antisub campaign and keep watch--I suppose Norwegian made models, landplanes and sea planes, are fine for that purpose. Any really top notch planes Norway gets, from whatever source, plus RAF/ FAA deployments, should operate out of land bases, mostly southeast of Oslofjord on the Swedish border and some reinforcing cover along the liberated southern shore. Bergen is now the center of east coast operations to control the strait between Norway and Scotland I guess.
The Norwegian Navy then exists in part to maintain ASW operations, and to be a fleet component in being for the hypothetical Norway-Denmark landing invasion. The air distances are such no carriers are needed for either role, beyond those the RN deploys.
I might suggest a third role--I have to wonder how seasonal the northern Arctic route to Soviet White Sea ports is, how much loss OTL above and beyond, or prior to as it were, Luftwaffe and KM predations was due to extreme bad weather. The shipping has very little to fear from Axis raiding now, no more than a rare U-boat making its long indirect way up to the lanes despite the gauntlet of ASW to stop them--but terrible winter storms may still be a problem.
So perhaps, given that OTL requirements to replace U-boat sunk tonnage are much reduced plus a greater share of the Norwegian merchant marine, essentially all of it, takes up more cargo capacity slack--could funding be diverted to develop ships that are extra durable and more nearly unsinkable in the worst Arctic storm conditions?
Coast Guard search and rescue vessels of this kind can thus backstop convoys that are risked in the worst weather. The Norwegian Navy might rotate its crews through such less glorious but immensely valuable service. I'd think the USN, or rather the US Coast Guard contingents transferred to Naval control during wartime, might share an interest in practicing and perfecting the methods and equipment involved, with an eye toward improved navigation in rough weather postwar. So I am envisioning USN sharing this duty out of north Norwegian ports in winter; postwar Norwegian proficiency can keep the north route economically competitive if postwar relations involving heavier Soviet trade are involved.
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All this is prior to the USA entering the war of course; I see no reason, despite the obviously greater strength of British and French forces available for the Pacific, for Japanese war plans to be derailed. Their whole concept of war was based on different logic than the Allies used to prevail OTL, based largely on the presumption that less morally vigorous liberal powers would cower before Japanese boldness and withdraw from the punishment, and seek terms. It was not closely calculated on tonnage equations but on a deeper, political level. Therefore they won't be deterred even if Allied reserves are substantially larger; they were mainly reckoning with knocking the USA out of effective immediate power in the Pacific and figure that if the USN is effectively nonexistent in their ocean, they can mop up whatever other forces sit in their way.
The major divergence is they don't have Hitler being able to order Vichy to command the Indochina colonial authorities to invite them in. But I don't think the additional delay that having to invade and take Indochina by main force will deter them either--they were after all confident they could invade and take the Philippines from the USA, why not Indochina from France too? It slows them down but hardly stops them, as they reckon things.
So I expect Pearl Harbor more or less on schedule, nor will it worry the Japanese that Hitler cannot interdict the lend-lease route to Soviet White Sea ports; again their idea that the Soviets are doomed is based on deep political and moral world views, not details of strategy and logistics.
But even after Pearl Harbor it will be some time before US force going all in can be brought to bear; it mostly has to be built up from near nothing at this point. The USN can put some serious force forward immediately but of course they are distracted by the need to reinforce in the Pacific and by the actual need, whether American admirals will admit to it out the gate ITTL (as they did not OTL) to patrol the American coasts and convoy merchant tonnage against U-boats. While I argue that the overall attrition from U-boats between North America and Britain (and hence Norwegian ports too) should be far less than OTL here, due to restricting U-boats passing northeast of Britain, as OTL the conquest of France gives the Germans pretty free access to the South Atlantic, and unless American Naval authorities think differently than OTL, the American coasts will suffer the "Second Happy Time" of attrition much as OTL, limited mainly by Hitler's egregious emotional decision to cut back on U-boat operations as well as surface navy, which has been partially reversed already--with France in hand I think we should assume the hole in German U-boat numbers versus OTL is mainly represented by the absence of those that went north along the Norway coast OTL, and those that went west across the southern routes are pretty much as OTL. I fear the US admiralty will have the same haughty short sightedness that brushes off their coastal patrol duties as inglorious. The alternative is that if the USN takes up that task earlier and better, even fewer American ships are available for Atlantic adventures in the earlier months.
Meanwhile the massive air forces already budgeted are under construction and originally of course far short of the delirious levels reached by USAAF and Navy/Marines OTL. The Army is little augmented beyond its interwar levels comparable to that of Bulgaria.
US entry might or might not then mean that some USN ships join the regional blockade duties--even then it won't be USN flattops of any size, not in the contested waters near the Reich anyway. British carriers were armored-deck, intended for mixing into combat where enemy forces had major land based air forces to harry them with. USN carrier philosophy was that the air group they carried was their armor as well as striking force, that carriers would therefore not come under enemy bombardment at all. They sacrificed armor versus air strikes (not I believe against torpedoes) to maximize their air group numbers and thus the ability to preempt any rival carrier strikes--on the high seas far from shore bases, doctrine being preoccupied by scheming against Japan in the Pacific. It would therefore be quite foolish to bring USN carriers into range of Axis coastal patrols! And if any carriers are needed in operations out of Norway threatening Denmark and northwest Germany, that is where they are needed, not far offshore.
So any USN presence would probably be destroyers, subs and other smaller craft, possibly some cruisers, and in a major operation, perhaps some battleships, under Fleet Air Arm cover wherever British or Norwegian based land planes would not serve as well. And I don't see it as a priority, unless either at some point the Allies want to do the northwest invasion for real, or more likely, make Hitler believe that dark day is at hand in a feint. Perhaps we can foresee some operation mixing Norwegian and USN capital ships, that is, battleships, as a ruse distracting from Overlord landing in Normandy. So that's several years off!
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The author has been most gracious about the question of why liberating the south Norway coast waited until autumn 1941. I'd like to offer a sketch scenario explaining this, to compensate for my harping on the implausibility of such a long delay:
1) it is indeed not implausible that the operation might fail to have Allied priority into late autumn 1940. As noted the complete kit of combat units, such as effective night fighters, was often not even in inventory; any late year developments of new aircraft types (the main material requirement I think) would take time to be deployed in numbers, and of course in spring, summer and fall 1940 the Allies, reduced at this point to British, Norwegian and refugee forces, had quite a few major distractions from Norway! Holding Bergen and Oslo was OK for the moment once Hitler's navies went mostly to the bottom and assuming Allied interdiction of the sea/air routes to the German south Norway holdings kept the supply lines constricted; if this could be done with minimal diversion, the British had pressing issues elsewhere to attend to.
2) Winter is a terrible time to prosecute a tough operation, especially in a place like Norway, whereas this told against the Germans too. Plans for a final push should have been made, as I suggest, for spring time, with the political/morale factor of aiming to finish the job before the anniversary of the German invasion in April the previous year. Well and good.
But suppose exactly such plans were made? I can see the Norwegians being of two minds as well as the British; on one hand, patriotism and morale weigh in favor of quickest final action in Norway, and the British really ought to be thinking that the sooner Norway is settled the better for them. But Norway has small forces, a costly campaign will cut badly into their manpower and hurt them for a generation or more to come; the British have many distractions. It is the Norwegians who are proactive in dreaming up a clever scheme I fortunately do not have to imagine myself since it does not happen! It relies heavily on misdirection and secrecy, and is tailored to be more appealing to the British by tying down their contribution for the least time and minimizing it. They sell it to command, and the plan is mustered, in great secrecy....
...then it is discovered that some Norwegian Quisling has spilled the beans to the Germans who are visibly preparing! This, in my offered mental backstory, actually leads to Allied counterintelligence thoroughly clamping down on Norwegian pro-Axis spy rings; they are few and unpopular and in fact the trail left by this caper lets them discover and neutralize most leaks. But they have no way of knowing for sure how successful they were. This puts the kibosh on the offensive; portions go forward as a diversion which does prove costly to the Germans, much more so than to the Allies, but the German bastion largely holds in place. Trying to rethink the plan is something the Norwegians, and to an extent the British, keep reworking over the spring and summer but lots of distractions in other theaters keep the British kicking the can down the road.
3) Hitler settles the matter by launching Barbarossa. Now the Allies know the Axis forces are going to be committed and tied down, so they buckle down to plan something clever (the plan the author has in mind) in earnest, but still they keep postponing as various fires elsewhere need quick action. But the British accept that the matter should be settled soon and before winter closes in and meanwhile this buys time for more buildup and more advanced kit to be developed, tested and deployed in numbers so that night fighters for instance are available in large quantities with practiced crews. The need to ship (British) aid to the Soviets via the White Sea raises the priority of securing Norway fully, and the western allies privately agree that either the German overstretch will make this a low cost operation for the Allies, or if it runs into hitches stretching it out, they can plausibly represent themselves as acting in good faith on Stalin's demands for a "second front" since the Germans would have to be diverting major resources to hold the Allies up much.
4) this brings us to thread canon, a late September-October offensive and mop up, followed by Norway being able to consolidate its forces on a completely liberated basis and belated but effective morale boost for the Allies and a serious black eye for Hitler and his minions, who are also discovering that the Soviet "Rotten Structure" is not collapsing quite as fast and thoroughly as Hitler assured them it would. Versus OTL, Norway has the supply route to the Soviet White Sea ports covered, which cannot help the mood of the front commanders at all! At this point, they might think there is damn little the British can do to much help the Russians, but when the USA comes in their best hope is to finish the job of breaking the Soviets by summer '42. If that fails, and they have not at least cut off both of the Black Sea and White Sea routes, they are in for an attrition war much like the Great War and that must be chilling indeed.
Canon posts have already pretty well closed the door on Finland joining the Axis attack; the Finns might regret it if the Werhmacht can do well enough against Leningrad to threaten to turn on the unhelpful Finns, but OTOH the Finns proved tough against the Soviets and I have harped on how they might be supplied via Sweden and Norwegian Atlantic ports--this would bring the Swedes close to violating neutrality but not legally over the line, whereas the Germans would be foolish to push points driving the Swedes over the line to the Allied camp as the Norwegians no doubt are wishing they would do anyway. The Swedes would be fools to jump in if they don't have to; it behooves Hitler not to make them have to.
So, the Soviets do not have to tie down much force on the Finnish borders, they can concentrate down southward without worrying too much about the Germans zigzagging over Finnish borders; as with Sweden Hitler's best prospect is Finland staying legally neutral. If he can win in Russia as he assumes he must eventually, he can make the Finns regret their neutrality later. But given that the Soviets held Leningrad, sort of, OTL despite the Finns going all in against them I think we can assume that front goes somewhat better for the Soviets than OTL, and that the completely secure (barring bad weather anyway) northern route of sea supply with essentially no losses puts them into a better position every month. Indeed as I have suggested, the Allies have the option, should both Western and Soviet factions agree, to send in troops via the White Sea to fight alongside the Red Army units on Soviet territory.
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Overall, the role of Norwegian land forces as mentioned is to keep Hitler guessing as to an early strike in his northwest. The drawback of this is, it will be years before the Western allies can seriously contemplate trying that, and in fact not until other invasion routes such as Normandy are equally or more attractive. Thus, the Norwegian forces, which were indeed hotly engaged in 1940, and then, with some containment/skirmishing action, again undertook a major campaign in autumn '41, are going to be sitting on their hands until 1944 or so. This is not great!
I propose that the Norwegians agree to a scheme of rotating their forces so perhaps a third at any given time are committed to expeditionary actions on distant fronts. Say we have an 18 month time frame before the Allies expect Norway to be seriously engaged again (once some beachhead against Festung Europa is opened up, surely Norway will commit much of its force to that invasion; they have scores to settle with the Reich invaders after all). So say each month, about 1/18 of the standing, fully trained forces are dispatched off to North Africa or wherever else, to be included on these distant fronts. After a given month's draft has served six months or so, they are replaced by the next month's draft rotating in, and rotated home to Norway. Thus, about 1/3 of total Norwegian forces will be employed, once the preoccupation with clearing southern Norway is settled, all over the Western Allied fronts, which might ITTL also include some forces on the Eastern Front. This visibly shows the flag of Norway as an active, all in Ally, and keeps Norwegian troops seasoned and up to date in evolving tactics and strategy, yet gives the surviving veterans of campaigns ample time to train up those in reserve at home. By the time 18 months have passed, all Norwegian soldiers will have seen combat somewhere on the Allied fronts.
Now if a full third of Norway's army is out of the country in 1942, Hitler might think the possible threat of a northwest invasion has become remote--but if the other Allies rotate an equal or greater number of forces into Norway, the threat is if anything worsened in his perception! Yet, the Norwegians, while indeed hosting a large number of "overpaid, oversexed and Over Here!" Tommies and Yankee GIs, these are outnumbered two to one by their own boys at home. The Allies stationed in Norway are in fact enjoying a bit of recuperation, since Norway is pretty secure and in fact there is no plan to surge them south (until a much later date, and when that date arrives, they are likeliest to go a different route than the one Hitler is obsessed with, their way opened by others making the first landing) in reality, being stationed there is rotation out of the front lines into training and R&R.
OTL, this was largely the case for the troops Hitler maintained there--the occupation was harsh, especially in the far north, as the Germans picked Norwegian resources clean. But the troops, those who were not active maintaining the German aerial and submarine threat off to the north, had little to do but be intimidating and try to parry Resistance activity. The difference is that the forces in Norway here are both welcome, being mostly actual Norwegians (unless the Allies propose to more than match the numbers of Norwegians withdrawn for distant combat, or use more than a third of the Norwegian Army, as seems they likely will gradually as fronts open up in Africa, Italy, perhaps some ATL fronts such as assisting the Soviets in the east directly or Britain's favored Balkans ventures) and the Allies have the supplies and logistics to keep everyone, active duty forces and civilians alike, well fed and so forth. Little impedes the import of whatever Norway might need from overseas, the direct routes there from America are the relatively safe northerly ones. (Getting stuff from the tropics is harder as U-boats are likely to be as pesky as OTL in lower latitudes of the Atlantic but there are relatively more Allied naval forces to clamp down on them too). And there is nothing impeding the rapid deployment of forces based in Norway elsewhere--should direct troop support of the Soviets be favored, they have fairly easy sailing out of Trondheim or an even shorter run out of the inferior port of Narvik, or the option of quite rapid air deployment north of Sweden and Finland to north Soviet ports and airfields. Shifting troops and materiel to the UK is quite short to nearby Scottish ports, or to better major ports farther south assuming air cover and ASW patrols have that route adequately cleared, thence south via British rail or air transport. Early in the war, air travel is pretty marginal, but OTL the airlift capability of the Allies, based largely on American production of Gooney Bird variants, their four engined big brothers and such alternatives as the Curtiss Commando, became tremendous; it was never as cost-effective as rail or sealift of course, but extravagant investment in planes, pilots, airfields (not that the two engine utility planes needed much of an elaborate airfield, the four engine jobs were a different story I suppose) and petroleum logistics meant quite extravagant expenditures were often well worth it, for rapid shifting of troops and parallel channels to saturated rail systems and ports. By the time the Norwegians want to sortie out in major force rather than piecemeal, a whole lot of them might be moving very fast by air! Not in any great comfort, but troopships or trains are not all that posh either and the short times involved must make them pretty attractive, except for those simply terrified to be flying (and to be sure, possibly shot at by Axis raiders if expedience demands cutting it a bit close to their ranges. IIRC, DC -3 variants had little holes cut in the centers of the windows on either side of their cabins, for the troops to put their rifles through to try to assist defensive fire. I've never heard of ferried troops bringing down any Luftwaffe or Japanese attackers that way, but it might have happened I suppose. Mainly it would be a boost of morale for the otherwise helpless passengers to think they were fighting back I guess.
The Allies generally practiced rotating troops in and out of combat this way when they could, and used the respite period for the seasoned veterans to train fresher recruits and update experienced but out of touch troops coming off their own respites on the latest front developments. As the war progressed they were better and better able to indulge this cost-effective luxury while the Axis, even when their gung ho mentality permitted such prudential thoughts to cross their minds, were less and less able to do it.
Norway might in fact be able to contribute more ongoing manpower to the fronts, one third was just my best guess at a decent minimum that would have the lot of them reasonably well seasoned with current combat tactics when the time comes to commit them en masse.
This seems a rational war plan at this point, now that the clearance of the southern coastal lodgment of German forces has finally happened. Now is the time for Norwegian based force to concentrate on harassing the Axis defenses of Denmark.
I suggest that the rational deployment of Norwegian ground force at this time is mainly to keep the army in being as a potential threat for a feared landing in Denmark for Hitler to worry about. Not actually do this, as it would be more difficult than attempting to land in France, whereas it will be a long time before western Allied force builds up to a level where such a landing can have reasonable prospects of surviving and being developed into effective land war against the Reich.
But OTL Hitler had the willies that the Allies would land in Norway, and bottled up a whole lot of force in Norway where it did him little good (beyond interdicting the shipping routes to the Soviet White Sea ports, which was to be sure a severe blow against Allied power in itself--but he hardly needed all the ground troops he had stationed there to do that; those were to deter and parry the landing. And indeed Allied plans certainly kept that contingency at least on the back burner, Churchill was quite keen for a Narvik return. Now I think landing in Jutland and still worse, the Danish islands to the east, is objectively harder to do despite the nerfing of German sea power here. But Hitler will fear it, so keeping the pressure up there is a good idea, if it doesn't cost too much.
Cold bloodedly, Norway does not require any aircraft carriers of any scale. My wishful thinking wants them to have them since I am an aviation fan, but there is really no need for it.
The RN is handling the roles where such ships are assets and its carriers can be brought in should any battle plans based in Norway require any. Now that I believe the FAA is using "Martlets," that is Grumman Wildcats, for their main CAP/air superiority fighters, they are going to be a lot more effective, well able to parry the best German landplanes. But Goering still has a lot of these to throw at ships intruding too close. Whereas the range of even the smaller and more high-strung fighter types of late 1941 vintage should be quite adequate for Norway to base all hers on her southeast shores, plus a fringe of patrols, these not needing to be highest performance, to assist the general antisub campaign and keep watch--I suppose Norwegian made models, landplanes and sea planes, are fine for that purpose. Any really top notch planes Norway gets, from whatever source, plus RAF/ FAA deployments, should operate out of land bases, mostly southeast of Oslofjord on the Swedish border and some reinforcing cover along the liberated southern shore. Bergen is now the center of east coast operations to control the strait between Norway and Scotland I guess.
The Norwegian Navy then exists in part to maintain ASW operations, and to be a fleet component in being for the hypothetical Norway-Denmark landing invasion. The air distances are such no carriers are needed for either role, beyond those the RN deploys.
I might suggest a third role--I have to wonder how seasonal the northern Arctic route to Soviet White Sea ports is, how much loss OTL above and beyond, or prior to as it were, Luftwaffe and KM predations was due to extreme bad weather. The shipping has very little to fear from Axis raiding now, no more than a rare U-boat making its long indirect way up to the lanes despite the gauntlet of ASW to stop them--but terrible winter storms may still be a problem.
So perhaps, given that OTL requirements to replace U-boat sunk tonnage are much reduced plus a greater share of the Norwegian merchant marine, essentially all of it, takes up more cargo capacity slack--could funding be diverted to develop ships that are extra durable and more nearly unsinkable in the worst Arctic storm conditions?
Coast Guard search and rescue vessels of this kind can thus backstop convoys that are risked in the worst weather. The Norwegian Navy might rotate its crews through such less glorious but immensely valuable service. I'd think the USN, or rather the US Coast Guard contingents transferred to Naval control during wartime, might share an interest in practicing and perfecting the methods and equipment involved, with an eye toward improved navigation in rough weather postwar. So I am envisioning USN sharing this duty out of north Norwegian ports in winter; postwar Norwegian proficiency can keep the north route economically competitive if postwar relations involving heavier Soviet trade are involved.
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All this is prior to the USA entering the war of course; I see no reason, despite the obviously greater strength of British and French forces available for the Pacific, for Japanese war plans to be derailed. Their whole concept of war was based on different logic than the Allies used to prevail OTL, based largely on the presumption that less morally vigorous liberal powers would cower before Japanese boldness and withdraw from the punishment, and seek terms. It was not closely calculated on tonnage equations but on a deeper, political level. Therefore they won't be deterred even if Allied reserves are substantially larger; they were mainly reckoning with knocking the USA out of effective immediate power in the Pacific and figure that if the USN is effectively nonexistent in their ocean, they can mop up whatever other forces sit in their way.
The major divergence is they don't have Hitler being able to order Vichy to command the Indochina colonial authorities to invite them in. But I don't think the additional delay that having to invade and take Indochina by main force will deter them either--they were after all confident they could invade and take the Philippines from the USA, why not Indochina from France too? It slows them down but hardly stops them, as they reckon things.
So I expect Pearl Harbor more or less on schedule, nor will it worry the Japanese that Hitler cannot interdict the lend-lease route to Soviet White Sea ports; again their idea that the Soviets are doomed is based on deep political and moral world views, not details of strategy and logistics.
But even after Pearl Harbor it will be some time before US force going all in can be brought to bear; it mostly has to be built up from near nothing at this point. The USN can put some serious force forward immediately but of course they are distracted by the need to reinforce in the Pacific and by the actual need, whether American admirals will admit to it out the gate ITTL (as they did not OTL) to patrol the American coasts and convoy merchant tonnage against U-boats. While I argue that the overall attrition from U-boats between North America and Britain (and hence Norwegian ports too) should be far less than OTL here, due to restricting U-boats passing northeast of Britain, as OTL the conquest of France gives the Germans pretty free access to the South Atlantic, and unless American Naval authorities think differently than OTL, the American coasts will suffer the "Second Happy Time" of attrition much as OTL, limited mainly by Hitler's egregious emotional decision to cut back on U-boat operations as well as surface navy, which has been partially reversed already--with France in hand I think we should assume the hole in German U-boat numbers versus OTL is mainly represented by the absence of those that went north along the Norway coast OTL, and those that went west across the southern routes are pretty much as OTL. I fear the US admiralty will have the same haughty short sightedness that brushes off their coastal patrol duties as inglorious. The alternative is that if the USN takes up that task earlier and better, even fewer American ships are available for Atlantic adventures in the earlier months.
Meanwhile the massive air forces already budgeted are under construction and originally of course far short of the delirious levels reached by USAAF and Navy/Marines OTL. The Army is little augmented beyond its interwar levels comparable to that of Bulgaria.
US entry might or might not then mean that some USN ships join the regional blockade duties--even then it won't be USN flattops of any size, not in the contested waters near the Reich anyway. British carriers were armored-deck, intended for mixing into combat where enemy forces had major land based air forces to harry them with. USN carrier philosophy was that the air group they carried was their armor as well as striking force, that carriers would therefore not come under enemy bombardment at all. They sacrificed armor versus air strikes (not I believe against torpedoes) to maximize their air group numbers and thus the ability to preempt any rival carrier strikes--on the high seas far from shore bases, doctrine being preoccupied by scheming against Japan in the Pacific. It would therefore be quite foolish to bring USN carriers into range of Axis coastal patrols! And if any carriers are needed in operations out of Norway threatening Denmark and northwest Germany, that is where they are needed, not far offshore.
So any USN presence would probably be destroyers, subs and other smaller craft, possibly some cruisers, and in a major operation, perhaps some battleships, under Fleet Air Arm cover wherever British or Norwegian based land planes would not serve as well. And I don't see it as a priority, unless either at some point the Allies want to do the northwest invasion for real, or more likely, make Hitler believe that dark day is at hand in a feint. Perhaps we can foresee some operation mixing Norwegian and USN capital ships, that is, battleships, as a ruse distracting from Overlord landing in Normandy. So that's several years off!
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The author has been most gracious about the question of why liberating the south Norway coast waited until autumn 1941. I'd like to offer a sketch scenario explaining this, to compensate for my harping on the implausibility of such a long delay:
1) it is indeed not implausible that the operation might fail to have Allied priority into late autumn 1940. As noted the complete kit of combat units, such as effective night fighters, was often not even in inventory; any late year developments of new aircraft types (the main material requirement I think) would take time to be deployed in numbers, and of course in spring, summer and fall 1940 the Allies, reduced at this point to British, Norwegian and refugee forces, had quite a few major distractions from Norway! Holding Bergen and Oslo was OK for the moment once Hitler's navies went mostly to the bottom and assuming Allied interdiction of the sea/air routes to the German south Norway holdings kept the supply lines constricted; if this could be done with minimal diversion, the British had pressing issues elsewhere to attend to.
2) Winter is a terrible time to prosecute a tough operation, especially in a place like Norway, whereas this told against the Germans too. Plans for a final push should have been made, as I suggest, for spring time, with the political/morale factor of aiming to finish the job before the anniversary of the German invasion in April the previous year. Well and good.
But suppose exactly such plans were made? I can see the Norwegians being of two minds as well as the British; on one hand, patriotism and morale weigh in favor of quickest final action in Norway, and the British really ought to be thinking that the sooner Norway is settled the better for them. But Norway has small forces, a costly campaign will cut badly into their manpower and hurt them for a generation or more to come; the British have many distractions. It is the Norwegians who are proactive in dreaming up a clever scheme I fortunately do not have to imagine myself since it does not happen! It relies heavily on misdirection and secrecy, and is tailored to be more appealing to the British by tying down their contribution for the least time and minimizing it. They sell it to command, and the plan is mustered, in great secrecy....
...then it is discovered that some Norwegian Quisling has spilled the beans to the Germans who are visibly preparing! This, in my offered mental backstory, actually leads to Allied counterintelligence thoroughly clamping down on Norwegian pro-Axis spy rings; they are few and unpopular and in fact the trail left by this caper lets them discover and neutralize most leaks. But they have no way of knowing for sure how successful they were. This puts the kibosh on the offensive; portions go forward as a diversion which does prove costly to the Germans, much more so than to the Allies, but the German bastion largely holds in place. Trying to rethink the plan is something the Norwegians, and to an extent the British, keep reworking over the spring and summer but lots of distractions in other theaters keep the British kicking the can down the road.
3) Hitler settles the matter by launching Barbarossa. Now the Allies know the Axis forces are going to be committed and tied down, so they buckle down to plan something clever (the plan the author has in mind) in earnest, but still they keep postponing as various fires elsewhere need quick action. But the British accept that the matter should be settled soon and before winter closes in and meanwhile this buys time for more buildup and more advanced kit to be developed, tested and deployed in numbers so that night fighters for instance are available in large quantities with practiced crews. The need to ship (British) aid to the Soviets via the White Sea raises the priority of securing Norway fully, and the western allies privately agree that either the German overstretch will make this a low cost operation for the Allies, or if it runs into hitches stretching it out, they can plausibly represent themselves as acting in good faith on Stalin's demands for a "second front" since the Germans would have to be diverting major resources to hold the Allies up much.
4) this brings us to thread canon, a late September-October offensive and mop up, followed by Norway being able to consolidate its forces on a completely liberated basis and belated but effective morale boost for the Allies and a serious black eye for Hitler and his minions, who are also discovering that the Soviet "Rotten Structure" is not collapsing quite as fast and thoroughly as Hitler assured them it would. Versus OTL, Norway has the supply route to the Soviet White Sea ports covered, which cannot help the mood of the front commanders at all! At this point, they might think there is damn little the British can do to much help the Russians, but when the USA comes in their best hope is to finish the job of breaking the Soviets by summer '42. If that fails, and they have not at least cut off both of the Black Sea and White Sea routes, they are in for an attrition war much like the Great War and that must be chilling indeed.
Canon posts have already pretty well closed the door on Finland joining the Axis attack; the Finns might regret it if the Werhmacht can do well enough against Leningrad to threaten to turn on the unhelpful Finns, but OTOH the Finns proved tough against the Soviets and I have harped on how they might be supplied via Sweden and Norwegian Atlantic ports--this would bring the Swedes close to violating neutrality but not legally over the line, whereas the Germans would be foolish to push points driving the Swedes over the line to the Allied camp as the Norwegians no doubt are wishing they would do anyway. The Swedes would be fools to jump in if they don't have to; it behooves Hitler not to make them have to.
So, the Soviets do not have to tie down much force on the Finnish borders, they can concentrate down southward without worrying too much about the Germans zigzagging over Finnish borders; as with Sweden Hitler's best prospect is Finland staying legally neutral. If he can win in Russia as he assumes he must eventually, he can make the Finns regret their neutrality later. But given that the Soviets held Leningrad, sort of, OTL despite the Finns going all in against them I think we can assume that front goes somewhat better for the Soviets than OTL, and that the completely secure (barring bad weather anyway) northern route of sea supply with essentially no losses puts them into a better position every month. Indeed as I have suggested, the Allies have the option, should both Western and Soviet factions agree, to send in troops via the White Sea to fight alongside the Red Army units on Soviet territory.
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Overall, the role of Norwegian land forces as mentioned is to keep Hitler guessing as to an early strike in his northwest. The drawback of this is, it will be years before the Western allies can seriously contemplate trying that, and in fact not until other invasion routes such as Normandy are equally or more attractive. Thus, the Norwegian forces, which were indeed hotly engaged in 1940, and then, with some containment/skirmishing action, again undertook a major campaign in autumn '41, are going to be sitting on their hands until 1944 or so. This is not great!
I propose that the Norwegians agree to a scheme of rotating their forces so perhaps a third at any given time are committed to expeditionary actions on distant fronts. Say we have an 18 month time frame before the Allies expect Norway to be seriously engaged again (once some beachhead against Festung Europa is opened up, surely Norway will commit much of its force to that invasion; they have scores to settle with the Reich invaders after all). So say each month, about 1/18 of the standing, fully trained forces are dispatched off to North Africa or wherever else, to be included on these distant fronts. After a given month's draft has served six months or so, they are replaced by the next month's draft rotating in, and rotated home to Norway. Thus, about 1/3 of total Norwegian forces will be employed, once the preoccupation with clearing southern Norway is settled, all over the Western Allied fronts, which might ITTL also include some forces on the Eastern Front. This visibly shows the flag of Norway as an active, all in Ally, and keeps Norwegian troops seasoned and up to date in evolving tactics and strategy, yet gives the surviving veterans of campaigns ample time to train up those in reserve at home. By the time 18 months have passed, all Norwegian soldiers will have seen combat somewhere on the Allied fronts.
Now if a full third of Norway's army is out of the country in 1942, Hitler might think the possible threat of a northwest invasion has become remote--but if the other Allies rotate an equal or greater number of forces into Norway, the threat is if anything worsened in his perception! Yet, the Norwegians, while indeed hosting a large number of "overpaid, oversexed and Over Here!" Tommies and Yankee GIs, these are outnumbered two to one by their own boys at home. The Allies stationed in Norway are in fact enjoying a bit of recuperation, since Norway is pretty secure and in fact there is no plan to surge them south (until a much later date, and when that date arrives, they are likeliest to go a different route than the one Hitler is obsessed with, their way opened by others making the first landing) in reality, being stationed there is rotation out of the front lines into training and R&R.
OTL, this was largely the case for the troops Hitler maintained there--the occupation was harsh, especially in the far north, as the Germans picked Norwegian resources clean. But the troops, those who were not active maintaining the German aerial and submarine threat off to the north, had little to do but be intimidating and try to parry Resistance activity. The difference is that the forces in Norway here are both welcome, being mostly actual Norwegians (unless the Allies propose to more than match the numbers of Norwegians withdrawn for distant combat, or use more than a third of the Norwegian Army, as seems they likely will gradually as fronts open up in Africa, Italy, perhaps some ATL fronts such as assisting the Soviets in the east directly or Britain's favored Balkans ventures) and the Allies have the supplies and logistics to keep everyone, active duty forces and civilians alike, well fed and so forth. Little impedes the import of whatever Norway might need from overseas, the direct routes there from America are the relatively safe northerly ones. (Getting stuff from the tropics is harder as U-boats are likely to be as pesky as OTL in lower latitudes of the Atlantic but there are relatively more Allied naval forces to clamp down on them too). And there is nothing impeding the rapid deployment of forces based in Norway elsewhere--should direct troop support of the Soviets be favored, they have fairly easy sailing out of Trondheim or an even shorter run out of the inferior port of Narvik, or the option of quite rapid air deployment north of Sweden and Finland to north Soviet ports and airfields. Shifting troops and materiel to the UK is quite short to nearby Scottish ports, or to better major ports farther south assuming air cover and ASW patrols have that route adequately cleared, thence south via British rail or air transport. Early in the war, air travel is pretty marginal, but OTL the airlift capability of the Allies, based largely on American production of Gooney Bird variants, their four engined big brothers and such alternatives as the Curtiss Commando, became tremendous; it was never as cost-effective as rail or sealift of course, but extravagant investment in planes, pilots, airfields (not that the two engine utility planes needed much of an elaborate airfield, the four engine jobs were a different story I suppose) and petroleum logistics meant quite extravagant expenditures were often well worth it, for rapid shifting of troops and parallel channels to saturated rail systems and ports. By the time the Norwegians want to sortie out in major force rather than piecemeal, a whole lot of them might be moving very fast by air! Not in any great comfort, but troopships or trains are not all that posh either and the short times involved must make them pretty attractive, except for those simply terrified to be flying (and to be sure, possibly shot at by Axis raiders if expedience demands cutting it a bit close to their ranges. IIRC, DC -3 variants had little holes cut in the centers of the windows on either side of their cabins, for the troops to put their rifles through to try to assist defensive fire. I've never heard of ferried troops bringing down any Luftwaffe or Japanese attackers that way, but it might have happened I suppose. Mainly it would be a boost of morale for the otherwise helpless passengers to think they were fighting back I guess.
The Allies generally practiced rotating troops in and out of combat this way when they could, and used the respite period for the seasoned veterans to train fresher recruits and update experienced but out of touch troops coming off their own respites on the latest front developments. As the war progressed they were better and better able to indulge this cost-effective luxury while the Axis, even when their gung ho mentality permitted such prudential thoughts to cross their minds, were less and less able to do it.
Norway might in fact be able to contribute more ongoing manpower to the fronts, one third was just my best guess at a decent minimum that would have the lot of them reasonably well seasoned with current combat tactics when the time comes to commit them en masse.