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Chapter IX: The Ships
To help gain experience as well as speed up the program, the destroyers Sleipner, the enlarged leader, and Alesund, the first of five of her class, would be built in British yards. The seaplane tender Loki was too large for the skilled yards, and too specialized for the yards that built larger merchant ships, so she too would be built in British yards. That still left a lot of ships to be built in Norwegian yards, and the jobs created by the expansion and the need for workers at the yards made the politicians that had gotten the bill through Storting more popular.
Sleipner, laid down in 1932, was based off the British Codrington, but with a turning circle that much more closely resembled that of a normal destroyer, some minor tweaks, and high pressure Thornycroft boilers that gave her a top speed on trials of 37 knots, though it was lower in service. Norway didn’t have a large armaments industry, and therefore had to order the guns and torpedoes from other countries. A committee was formed on this, and decided to use guns from the Swedish weapons firm of Bofors, from which the Royal Norwegian Navy had been purchasing weapons for decades. Torpedoes and depth charges, however, would be purchased from the British. Sleipner was equipped with five 12cm Bofors Model 1924C guns in single mounts, with a shield protecting the mount’s front. The guns could elevate to 45 degrees, and fire approximately 10 rounds per minute. Two quad banks of Mark IX torpedoes were shipped, and two racks of 12 depth charges to sink the contacts that the ASDIC found were provided. A Model 1934 Bofors 40mm L/60 gun was mounted on each side of the aft funnel, rounding out a modern armament.
The Alesund class was based off the British C class, but like their leader, were equipped with high pressure boilers unlike the British destroyers. Four of the 12cm Bofors guns mounted on their leader were aboard in an ABXY layout. Two quad banks for Mark IX torpedoes sat amidships, and the two AA guns were mounted between the funnels instead of abaft the aft stack. Most ships attained 36 knots on trials though, again, service speeds were lower. Two racks of 12 depth charges sat on the stern. If the ships lost the charges, Y gun, and all torpedoes, 64 mines could be brought aboard, and the ships would then be fast minelayers.
The submarines were essentially sisters to the Swordfish class in the Royal Navy. These boats had six bow 53.3cm torpedo tubes each, and were well-handling vessels, especially when submerged. The two B type submarines were given refits to keep them around for a few more years.
The minelayers were armed with four of the same 12cm weapons that the destroyers shipped, in addition to five 40mm Bofors AA weapons. They could carry nearly 300 mines, and achieved 24 knots on trials. The lead ship was named Olaf Tryggvason. Froya, essentially a tiny Tryggvason, was given a pair of Bofors AA guns, and landed her torpedoes, allowing her mine complement to be increased to just under 200. The two Glommen class, built during the Great War for service in Oslofjord, sacrificed one of their low velocity 7.62cm guns for a Bofors AA gun.
Loki was based on the Yugoslavian seaplane tender Zmaj. Her purpose was to provide a mobile base for the seaplanes. While there were slips for boats in most fjords, Loki would provide better repair facilities than some boatyard. The ship was given an old 7.62cm gun from Norge on the bow for defending against other ships. The gun was in a high-elevation mount. Three twin Bofors mountings, one on the stern, one on each side of the ship, meant that she could defend herself well enough from air attack for a ship.
The subchasers were simple enough ships. They resembled the American 110-foot ships from the First World War, but were larger, with a full displacement of 105 tons instead of 85. They had a low velocity 7.62cm gun on the bow, a 12.7mm Browning machine gun on the stern, and a load of depth charges ready. The main purpose for these ships was to secure entrances to fjords, and do escort work in coastal waters, though they could, unlike most craft their size, sail in the open ocean as long as it wasn’t too stormy. In peacetime, these eight vessels served as patrol ships.
The MTB’s certainly weren’t giants like the British MGB’s or American PT boats that would commission in the coming decade, but they could serve the role of torpedoing anything that entered their fjord very well. The MTB’s closely resembled the 20 ton MAS424, but were armed with a Browning 12.7 on the bow instead of a Breda 13.2 on the stern, and like the boat they were based on, some small depth charges on the stern. The British were beginning to retire aircraft and older submarines armed with the Mark VIII 45cm torpedo, and a number of these torpedoes were bought. Each MTB had one torpedo tube per side, and one reload per tube, allowing them to stay in action against big ships longer since they could reload and attack again. The ex-merchant vessel Snar was bought, given derricks and mountings to carry and launch up to 4 of the MTB’s. A 6-pounder was mounted on the bow, with another on the stern, and a single Bofors gun jutted up from the superstructure. The MTB’s weren’t super seaworthy (most weren't’), but could navigate fjords. The main purpose of Snar was to transfer MTB squadrons between the North and the south, because of the long distance (for an MTB) and rough seas.
The trawlers supporting the coastal artillery each carried a 6-pounder on the bow, and either sweeps or minelaying equipment depending on the task currently at hand. They also served as patrol ships when needed.
The three larger fishery protection vessels, Nordkapp, Senja, and Fridtjof Nansen had alterations to allow them to be swiftly converted to minelayers, increasing the number of minelayers from five to eight, not including the trawlers attending the coastal batteries.
Finally, mobilization plans were drawn up, allowing the reserves to be quickly brought to active duty. Trawlers would be requisitioned, armed with a 7.62cm gun, 6-pounder, or 3-pounder, and given sweeps, depth charges, or a few mines. If completed, the ships of the program would make invading Norway a much more difficult task than it had been since the early 1900’s.
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