This is a timeline in which many of the things that could have gone bad in Weserübung do go bad, and in wich the Norweigans have more luck and a bit more foresight. It also features Sweden being much more interventionist, for reasons that will be explained.
The Altmark boarding had gone very bad. Trying to escape the closing HMS Cossack, the Altmark had run aground in Jøssingfjord and the boarding party from the British destroyer met heavy machine and submachine gun fire as they boarded the ship. The fighting inside the German vessel lasted for several hours as the British sailors tried to force their way deeper into the ship and their desperate German enemies held them back with well-prepared machine-gun positions inside the narrow corridors of the vessel.
The Norweigan naval commander closest by, Captain Skjølden of the destroyer Garm, known among collegues as a hot-head, brought together what Norweigan naval forces that were in the area, ships from the 2. Sjøforsvarsdistrikt, foremost the old destroyers Garm and Troll from the 1. Jagerdivisjon in Stavanger, but also ships from 1. Sjøforsvarsdistrikt, the 3. Jagerdivisjon and the 2. Torpedobåtdivisjon from Kristiansand, bringing the light but modern destroyers Odin and Gyller and the old torpedo boats Skarv and Teist (the latter two would not arrive until nightfall, when the matter had already been settled due to their lower speed).
Threatening to torpedo both vessels unless fighting ceased, Skjølden managed to force the boarding party from HMS Cossack to withdraw from Altmark, to the glee of the Germans who had fought so hard to keep the British crew from freeing the prisoners. Their spite was to be short-lived as the Norweigans boarded the ship to find out what was so important that German and British sailors fought so vicously over it. Upon freeing the British sailors, Skjølden, enraged by German attempts to delay the search and British demands to turn over sailors, the German ship and the German crew to them, declared both ships interned as military forces of warring parties in neutral country.
The Germans had little ability to resists, but the HMS Cossack tried to make for open water and would not stop until the Norweigans scored a direct hit on her bow with one of the 10cm guns of Gyller, causing light damage and no fatalities, but showing the Brits that the Norweigans were serious. There has been much debate wether the Norweigans were attmeptiong a second warning shot off the British bow, but miscalculated the rapid acceleration of the British destroyer and hit, or they actually meant to hit. As HMS Cossack faced two old and two modern (albeit light) destroyers and Skarv and Teist were finally showing up at the mouth of the fjord, and a Norweigan He-115 from Kristiansand cirkled menacingly above, she accepted internment, her commander trusting British diplomacy to set her free again.
The Altmark boarding had gone very bad. Trying to escape the closing HMS Cossack, the Altmark had run aground in Jøssingfjord and the boarding party from the British destroyer met heavy machine and submachine gun fire as they boarded the ship. The fighting inside the German vessel lasted for several hours as the British sailors tried to force their way deeper into the ship and their desperate German enemies held them back with well-prepared machine-gun positions inside the narrow corridors of the vessel.
The Norweigan naval commander closest by, Captain Skjølden of the destroyer Garm, known among collegues as a hot-head, brought together what Norweigan naval forces that were in the area, ships from the 2. Sjøforsvarsdistrikt, foremost the old destroyers Garm and Troll from the 1. Jagerdivisjon in Stavanger, but also ships from 1. Sjøforsvarsdistrikt, the 3. Jagerdivisjon and the 2. Torpedobåtdivisjon from Kristiansand, bringing the light but modern destroyers Odin and Gyller and the old torpedo boats Skarv and Teist (the latter two would not arrive until nightfall, when the matter had already been settled due to their lower speed).
Threatening to torpedo both vessels unless fighting ceased, Skjølden managed to force the boarding party from HMS Cossack to withdraw from Altmark, to the glee of the Germans who had fought so hard to keep the British crew from freeing the prisoners. Their spite was to be short-lived as the Norweigans boarded the ship to find out what was so important that German and British sailors fought so vicously over it. Upon freeing the British sailors, Skjølden, enraged by German attempts to delay the search and British demands to turn over sailors, the German ship and the German crew to them, declared both ships interned as military forces of warring parties in neutral country.
The Germans had little ability to resists, but the HMS Cossack tried to make for open water and would not stop until the Norweigans scored a direct hit on her bow with one of the 10cm guns of Gyller, causing light damage and no fatalities, but showing the Brits that the Norweigans were serious. There has been much debate wether the Norweigans were attmeptiong a second warning shot off the British bow, but miscalculated the rapid acceleration of the British destroyer and hit, or they actually meant to hit. As HMS Cossack faced two old and two modern (albeit light) destroyers and Skarv and Teist were finally showing up at the mouth of the fjord, and a Norweigan He-115 from Kristiansand cirkled menacingly above, she accepted internment, her commander trusting British diplomacy to set her free again.
