Norway was secured April 10, Iceland op goes April 20. Few subs, air para drop on airfield, & Ocean liner, ( as was prepared in real war ), beating Brits by 20 days. Couple heavy units based on availability.They were after all, right there in Norway. & few U-boats might drop crews on predetermined locations on east coast to set up airstrips. & 1-2 ships to Bay of Hunafloi, U-boats guarding entrance.

Norway op not affected, ships prepared in advance should Norway fall.


"Look again at the map, I'm not saying distances from Iceland to the end of the route, London, Dublin, Belfast, Sligo, whatever, I am saying from Iceland to the nearest point of the route which is the top stretch of the bow in my map. Much closer than your thousands."


Looked at the map, very close to 1000, ( & for clarification, I did not state "thousands" ), Not near your calculations. North of Ireland would be closer to Iceland than your line. Have a look at the map here, make a line from Iceland to bottom of England, ( which is where ships went, & you'll see it is farther than the 865 to Belfast ). & why would the convoys go into the center of Ireland that your line shows? Canada is lower than Ireland in Latitude, so naturally the line would go under Ireland, as opposed to into it.

http://www.goobz.net/map/europe.htm#


As for weather, here is the view of a bike enthusiast who rode round the island.

The riding and weather along the north coast has been incredible -- 70ﮠand sunny with light or favorable winds.

He also mentioned bad weather did occur, but didn't usually last long. & beef farming seemed the biggest occupation. Germans would likely eat beef with the fish.

[ 27. October 2006, 10:33 PM: Message edited by: chromeboomerang ]

"If you are going to build a runway in that place you need to carry large (I mean large, remember I am in the construction business) construction plant to crush rock and move it about to build say a 800m x 40m strip. For a strip there I'd figure you would need to move say 96,000 m3 (250,000 tons) of lava. A Caterpillar D7 weighs 15 tons (and that's small for the task), you'll need several, plus scrapers, graders, etc. Be prepared to ship in several heavy machines,"

Or as was done in Russia & west front late war,& nearly every theater of the war. find a smooth flat place & avoid all that. Remember, survey teams were sent in 38. Did you notice the flat smooth garden in the photo?

JU 52. http://www.eagle19.freeserve.co.uk/aircraft.htm
It was also capable of landing on uneven or unpaved airstrips and its slow landing speed allowed it to land on short improvised runways.


"Look at the German losses in shipping along the Norwegian coast.

Catalinas Mossies and MTB's of the RN dominated the Norwegian coast. Why else did the coastal shipping only travel by night."


Look at where these occurred, south Norwegian waters. I have a book written by a Norwegian saboteur, that's where these events ocurred, not up in northern half of Norway, Trondheim etc which is the route & waters we are discussing.

Since this is a "what-if" I'll narrate what I propose happens to the Germans:

The operation calls for a battalion of paratroopers and a battalion of infantry to occupy the island. Additional headquarters, engineering, supply, and other troops are sent along. A battery of 10.5cm field guns and two sections of 3.7cm AT guns are included.
Outside of some horses and motorcycles the unit is without transport.
The air unit flys out of Norway in three groups of approxmately 20 Ju 52 each. These are maxed on fuel and have auxiliary tanks. The pilots are instructed to land where they can as the round trip is impractical (it is definitely more than 800 miles).
The liner leaves Bremen on the 15th with the balance of the force. A single destroyer is provided as escort. This is all the KM can scrape up, particularly after the Narvik disaster just 2 days prior. Due to the short legs of the destroyer both steam at 12 knots for Iceland.
The transports enroute fly near enough to the cruiser Dosetshire to be detected on her Type 79 air search radar. The Furious is told of the detection and launches 6 Skuas to intercept. The first group is soon intercepted and loses 8 transports before the British break off their attacks. The remaining 12 continue on but, 4 are now badly off course having become lost and scattered in the melee.
The second and third groups suffer somewhat lighter casualties but they too have several transports that are seperated and now on their own.
The Ju 52s now begin to arrive over Iceland. About half the original force makes the drop. Of the transports some manage to land in fields or other locations safely; the rest suffer damage or crash on landing leaving less than 10 flyable aircraft out of the original 30.
The liner with her escort runs into the Reknown and several RN destroyers and both the liner and escort are sunk on the 15th as the RN is still at sea and in the process of returning to Scapa Flow.
The half battalion of paras on Iceland are instructed to dig in and await reinforcement. The Luftwaffe cannot spare any additional transports as these are now needed for the invasion of France. A solitary flying boat or two makes a run to deliver a small amount of critically needed supplies while the island is scoured for fuel to get the few operational Ju 52 off the ground.
Admiral Räder very reluctantly provides several U-boats to resupply the tiny garrison on Iceland. This gives the British almost a month of respite from attacks in the Atlantic as a result.
Due to the invasion of France, the British have to put off a planned operation to retake Iceland in early May. The small German garrison lacks the capacity to build a runway, settling for a semi-improved strip that might land a light aircraft occasionally. It is certainly not suitable for a massive airlift. The lack of avgas on Iceland makes aerial resupply largely impossible. The occasional U-boat deilvers a few supplies. But, the garrison is largely cut off.
The best the British can temporarily do is put a engineer battalion on the Faroe Islands along with a garrison. These troops soon have an airfield up and running. The Germans on Iceland now are being occasionally bombed and strafed by Bomber Command and Coastal Command aircraft along with daily survellance. U-Boats are reluctant to pull in except at night and will rarely stay long for fear of being attacked.
By July 1940 the US is now patrolling off Iceland too. U-boat visits are becoming rare. Air supply is also an unusual occurance as many flights are being intercepted by beaufighters flying out of the Shetlands and Faroes.
In late September the British show up with a battlegroup including a battleship, several cruisers and destroyers along with a carrier. They proceed to land from 8 large transports a reinforced infantry brigade including a squadron of valentine tanks.
Within days the German garrison is reduced to reminants holding out in various remote locations. These few remaining hold outs surrender within a couple of weeks. Iceland is no longer in German hands.

"The small German garrison lacks the capacity to build a runway,"

One did exist at Reykjavik. & odds of intercepting Ocean liner small, as British ships headed south & not near Trondheim. U-tankers would have fuel supply problem for aircraft largely tackled.


"They proceed to land from 8 large transports"

Did Lst's have the range? to go to Iceland? If not these transports would have to run into Reykjavik harbor & be torpedoed on the way in, or attacked by a/c before getting near, not to mention ground troops in the harbor to deal with & whatever large guns the Germans would have no doubt carried on the liner & emplaced at the harbor entrance.

If an airstrip did exist, then it must have been truly minimal. Both Morison (History of United States Naval Operations in World War II vol I, The Battle of the Atlantic) and Building the Navy's Bases in World War II, vol I and II state that when the US military (Marines and Navy initially) took over Iceland they had to build both bases and airfields from scratch.
If, indeed, this is the case as seems likely then a battalion or two of infantry with nothing but hand tools is certainly not going to build an airfield any time soon after landing, if at all.
As for U-boat resupply, you might note that no transport type boats were available in April 1940 so either Type VII or XI boats, both of which are very unsuited for this work, would have to be used.

As for British landings, the do not need LSTs. They could have brought their troops in large transport ships and used LCAs to land the initial waves of infantry. The cruisers, destroyers and battleships would have provided fire support. Once a harbor was secured the heavy equipment could be landed.
Since such an operation against such a small and poorly equipped German force would have not taken that long there is little threat from U-boats in the first few days. If the Germans did have some field artillery or other small guns ashore they would have been quickly silenced by naval gunfire in any case just as virtually happened in every case of amphibious assault by the Allies throughout WW 2.
As for interception, given a 5 to 7 day at sea time for the liner, and British coastal command reconnissance of the period it is very unlikely it would have escaped notice. If anything, escaping notice and slipping through is definitely the exception not the rule at the time for German surface ships.
Since the British also would have had the ability to easily conduct surveillance and reconnissance of Iceland from the Shetlands and Faroes it is also very unlikely that the Germans could have managed much in the way of surprises for their landing force.

On the whole, I think the burden of proof that the Germans could take and hold Iceland falls with those holding that such an operation could be successful not with the Allied responses. Without a far more detailed and convencing arguement I would have to say that so far such proof has not been forthcoming.

"By July 1940 the US is now patrolling off Iceland too. U-boat visits are becoming rare. Air supply is also an unusual occurance as many flights are being intercepted by beaufighters flying out of the Shetlands and Faroes."


Distance is too great. They would not catch aircraft flying out of Trondheim area. & radar doen't go that far anyway, so detection would be very rare occurrance.

As for US, doubtful & improbable they would go to war with Germany over Iceland, they didn't over France or Norway. 1940 the US war very much of the let's stay out of it mentality.


"If the Germans did have some field artillery or other small guns ashore they would have been quickly silenced by naval gunfire in any case just as virtually happened in every case of amphibious assault by the Allies throughout WW 2."

Only if they could get close enough & weren't sunk on the way in. Remember how many cruisers went down at Crete, similiar fate would await British ships as they approached Iceland.


"As for interception, given a 5 to 7 day at sea time for the liner, and British coastal command reconnissance of the period it is very unlikely it would have escaped notice."


Entirely innacurate, as Atlantis & other German ships passed through unmolested & undetected. AS did Admiral Hipper & Orion. Altmark made it through from Atlantic to Norway before German occupation, but during war.

After the scuttling of the Admiral Graf Spee , the Altmark returns home with over 300 POWs. In Norwegian waters,

5 February 1941: Scharnhorst and Gneisenau enter the Atlantic through the Denmark Strait, and refuel from tanker Schlettstadt some 150 miles south of Cape Farewell.

http://www.warsailors.com/raidervictims/orion.html Apr. 6-1940 under the command of Kurt Weyher and ended up right in the middle of the battle for Norway with warships going to and fro in every direction in the North Sea (Orion was disguised as the Dutch Beemsterdijk at the time, but once passed the Arctic Circle she became the Russian Soviet). She returned to Germany in Aug.-1941 after having captured 8 Allied ships, as well as 2 together with Komet. She had proven to be unsuited as an auxiliary cruiser and was not sent out again.

That's 2 trips through, one out, one back in.


"The fact is lots of
German vessels were able to slip through this patrol via the Denmark strait
or around the northern coast of Iceland, as at some points there were no
British ships there patrolling!"

[ 28. October 2006, 02:42 AM: Message edited by: chromeboomerang ]

Reykjavík Airport. There were actually 2 airstrips. 1st flight 1919. Make that 3, "therefore they had to fly empty to a nearby field at Korpulfsstadir to pick up passengers and cargo."


[edit] History
The first flight from the airport area was September 3, 1919 with the take off of an Avro 504, the first aeroplane in Iceland [1]. Until 1937 there were experiments with airline operations in Vatnsmýri but with the foundation of Iceland's first airline, Flugfélag Íslands in Akureyri in 1938, operations began in the area and in March 1940 scheduled flights started taking off when Flugfélag Íslands moved its hub from Akureyri to Reykjavík.

As for food & horses..
http://www.bondi.is/landbunadur/wgbi...ic_agriculture

Iceland is primarily a food-producing country. For centuries, the country's basic industries have been agriculture, fishing and fish processing.and Iceland is self-sufficient in the production of meat, dairy products, eggs and to a large extent also in the production of certain vegetables.

By 1940, 32% of the employable population worked in agriculture.

The Icelandic horse is rather small, its height usually being about 140 cm. It is sturdy and hardworking and has greater endurance than its foreign cousins.

As in Russia, the horse would be put to work making up for some of the lack of motorized transport.

I'm sure the free history lesson was absolutely fascinating.

Chromeboomerang, I gave you the best possible estimate that can be based on a photo same as I would give one of my clients, and you reply with a garden? I feel professionally insulted.

It's impossible to have a serious conversation if you play the eel and try to squeeze through every crack every time. Grow up and then show up. I'm not going to waste my time playing games here. Fare well.

__________________

http://www.worldisround.com/articles/70782/photo3.html

https://www.midcoast.com/~nlund/iceland.html

I also mentioned the fact that dirtrunways were used in every theater of the war. Grow up & show up? is that considered serious intellectual chat?

The equipment you mentioned was not used with frequency in makeshift runways. Let's be serious shall we? The farmers who cleared that field & made it flat certainly didn't have all that equipment then did they? & the point of the photo was to show large flat treeless areas, I'm sure there are thousands more that didn't have any craters. Do I have to post 50 more photos? C'mon.


& what you are talking about is commercial construction where an inspector comes out with his tape measure & perhaps a sextant to make sure it's up to spec & all that. Totally different activity to scratching out an airstrip during wartime. It just has to be work well enough to have a/c land without breaking landing gear etc. That's it. Your comparison is largely apples & oranges.


Couple other thoughts, Orion could be used to place mines outside Reykjavik harbor, & there would be fuel at the 3 airstrips, at least at Reykjavik airport, have to have some fuel on hand, how else would the Icelanders get their planes up?


& availability of British warships also has to be considered. The British navy was very busy & scattered about the globe in North Africa, Gibralter, Malta, Singapore, convoys duties across atlantic, chasing Graf Spee or other raiders, & home defense & BOB.

Would they have spare ships? likely need a carrier to deal with Reykjavik airport.

Not taking the position that they didn't, rather just posing the question.

[ 28. October 2006, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: chromeboomerang ]

Distance data. Reykjavik to trondheim is 978 miles, subtract 305, you 673 miles to east coast. Bergen 911 miles, minus 305, one gets 606 miles. Give or take a few, not exact,( But Reykjavik is very close to western end of Iceland ), well there it is.

The Geography of Iceland
Iceland is one of the largest islands in the North Atlantic, lies between latitude 63°24´N and 66°33´N and between longitude 13°30´W and 24°32´W. Iceland has a total area of 103.000 sq km, or 39.756 sq. miles. From north to south the greatest distance is about 300 km or 185 miles, from west to east about 500 km or 305 miles.

http://www.worldisround.com/articles/70782/photo3.html

[ 28. October 2006, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: chromeboomerang ]

The Germans could have done it, but they didn't. Every expert said that MacArthur could not land at Inchon. He did.The winners of any war are those who make things happen, even if they are not deemed realistic by 'experts'.

__________________
Lord, let me be the person my dog thinks I am.

Yep, here's what the German army thought about Norway.

Trondheim and Narvik offered the best sites, but on the questions of whether they could or should be acquired the estimates were almost entirely negative. When the Chief of Staff, Naval Staff, broached the question to the Chief of Staff, Army, he was told that difficult terrain, poor communications, and long supply lines placed almost insurmountable obstacles in the way of a military operation to secure the bases and that, if it was attempted, the entire war industry would have to be devoted to Army requirements. This would bring the submarine program to a halt, thereby making it impossible to exploit the bases.

Sound familiar?


& allies didn't really have airborne troops organized in 1940, only Germans did, making seaborne assault on Iceland the only option. & the only instance I can think of where allies may have ran ships straight into a defended harbor would have been in operation torch in Africa 42. Not that it couldn't be done, rather that it doesn't seem as though it was done very often.

Norway secured on the 10th of April [img]tongue.gif[/img]

When did Narvik fall?
Southern Norway capitulated when?
Where did the Claymore raid happen?
Why did the majority of raids happen in the southern part of Norway?

How are the germans going to transport engeneering equipment to Iceland?

Chrome...
This thread is silly. It remind me of Erasmus Montanus. The country lad that went to the Uni. in Copenhagen to study. He came back as a top disputer, but dumb as dirt. 'Can you fly? No. Neither can a Rock. That means that you are a rock.'

You need to study the real essence of WW2 warfare. Getting there is one thing, staying there is another. This was the Achilles heel of German operations in WW2. The campaign in France was releived by german transports beeing able to refuel on petrol stations. The Germans were utter crap in logistics in areas that did not have the western europe infrastructure.

The Pendulum in the desert. Rommel was an exeptional divisional commander. A good corps commander, and downright dangerous to the Wehrmacht as an Army commander. Expecting to propell his army forward by raiding allied supply dumps. Ignoring the Luftwaffes need for runways. I find Rommel to be symptomatic of the Germans performance overall in WW2. The Army was imbued with quick campaigns, (blitzkrieg meaning what?) the prospect of slogging it out over a protracted time was not appealing.

So yes the Germans could invade Iceland, but they lacked the means of supporting it. The Kriegsmarine would have been eaten up trying to supply it. Airlift is out of the question given the RN carriers, and the limited cargo capability of Auntie-Ju.

The fact is that occupying Norway was a sound plan. Costly in the number of men needed to garrison it, but the yield in Airbases to strike convoys, and Sub pens made it worthwhile.

An operations base in Iceland would not be as effective. The convoys could go round it. The worst part of the convoy route was crossing the North Cape. Well within the Luftwaffe Umbrella.

I honestly don't know why I bother replying you. Perhaps it is the fury when I see you typing about the Norwegian campaign with such blatant errors.

My grandad on my fathers side did not return from the fighting until June 3rd. Having trecked/boated to Narvik after the Surrender of the South in May. My other Grandad would not return for five years, fleeing across the Atlantic in a 35foot fishing vessel.

I would like to hear the author of the saboteur book that you wrote about.

__________________
'We march. The enemy is retreating in transport. We follow on foot.' Lt.Neil McCallum 5/7 Gordons 19th November 1942

"How are the germans going to transport engeneering equipment to Iceland?"

In cargo ships. & remember, the Germans built the roads in Iceland in 38, so some equipment would already be there.

"I see you typing about the Norwegian campaign with such blatant errors." What errors??

http://www.amazon.com/Eggs-Plate-Olu...e=UTF8&s=books



"Airlift is out of the question given the RN carriers,"

Nope, British would have to send carriers 8-900 miles north on permanent station, which is silly & unlikely. You really need to study up on such operations before posting.

On airfields:

Chorme mentions that two (from the description minimal in size and facilities) were on the island. This no doubt is why the US built their own. It is also likely that the US felt a paved runway was in order given the weather which would have left a dirt strip unusable much of the time.
As for the Germans improving a strip: They would mainly be doing it by hand. German military engineers and OT workers rarely had much in the way of mechanization of any sort to assist in projects. Occasionally a crane or two, some cement mixers, or a small sawmill might have been available. There would not have been any bulldozers (a true rarity it seems...I have not been able to locate a single photo or description of a bulldozer in German service). I did find one drawing of a horse drawn road grader. Dump trucks were unheard of.

I cannot see the Germans making any mechanized engineering equipment available to their invasion force.

As for field artillery fighting ships: Better check out any and all Allied amphibious assaults in Europe and the Mediterrainian. The field artillery loses; badly.

The Germans might be able to land. They might get several battalions ashore. But, these would be effectively cut off. Bomber or Coastal command could easily bomb any airfield built from the Faroes or Shetlands and the RN could show up and do the same at will with the Germans hard pressed to repair the damage.

By your own (Chromeboomerang) estimates, a Ju 52 is just at the end of its range getting to Iceland at all. This gives it very little carrying capacity even in terms of stores and passengers.

Norway cost the Germans their navy in the short term. It was also expensive in aircraft lost, particularly Ju 52s. There was also the real possiblity that they might have lost, particularly in the North.

3 airstrips I mentioned. One was big. & was improved to large degree in 1931.
"Town Council granted an area of 93,200 m²"

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.co...sen/Fea188.htm

Their main targets were German shipping stretching from the Dutch coast to Aalesund on the West coast of Norway. And the losses were heavy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aalesund Aalesund is in the south of Norway.

No errors on Norway.


"By your own (Chromeboomerang) estimates, a Ju 52 is just at the end of its range getting to Iceland at all."

No, I mentioned the distance between Trondheim & east coast of Iceland between 6-700 miles, & Reykjavik 978 miles, well within JU 52 range, east coast without doubt.

this from Ali, "Ju 52's, range with Auxilary tanks, 1300km, could not be used." Is 1300 km less than say 630 miles??

& have we forgot the Condors already?? & other longrange seaboats?

"Bomber or Coastal command could easily bomb any airfield built from the Faroes or Shetlands"

Not exactly, for starters it is 498 miles from Faeroes to Reykjavik, so round trip 1000 miles. & of course, there was no airfield in Faeroes in 1940, making such bombing efforts all the more difficult. here's a nice map. add 150-200 miles to Shetlands, & then it is 1400 mile roundtrip. With no fighter escort, these bombers could become easy meat. Me 110's , ( Range: 2,410 km combat, 2,800 km ferry (1,500 mi / 1,750 mi) could easily make the island & chew up the British Bombers while stationed there.
http://www.flyingpirates.co.uk/faeroes.html


"The only airfield on the Faroe Islands was built in 1942-1943 on the island of Vágar by the Royal Engineers of the British Army."

http://www.fairisle.org.uk/History/page2.htm

particularly as the climate did not lend itself to operational flying for most of the year; accounts of full 45-gallon oil drums being picked up by the wind and sent tumbling across the field, and of trolley acc's smashing into parked air*craft of their own accord, are not to be queried if you have ever witnessed a full Shetland gale - wind speeds of 130 mph plus are not unheard of.

& airfields are easy to repair anyways.

So, the weather in the Faroes and Shetlands is miserable while it is always sunny in Iceland....

Fixing an airfield with a permanent (ie non-dirt) runway is not "easy to repair anyways." Particularly if all you have is picks and shovels and a half sack mixer..... Of course, this assumes the cement is even available.
Oh, that reminds me, cement is not light. A runway will use literally hundreds of cubic yards at about 2 tons a yard.
Building piers (another suggested "easy" thing to do) requires piles first. This requires a pile driver. Typically this is barge mounted for such an operation but there are crane variants usually in the 10 to 15 ton crawler tractor sizes. Piers are another thing beyond German capacity to build.

The Ju 52/3m g7e according to the venerable Green (Warplanes of the Third Reich) lists 683 miles for standard fuel and 810 miles with auxiliary fuel for range. Not quite enought to do the trick..... Of course, this model did not appear until 1941 so.....
With the common in 1940 g3e the range is only 610 miles and there is no accomidation for auxiliary tanks. There are going to be alot of Ju 52 at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea.....
In fact, the only variant of the Ju 52 that might make the distance was the g5e float plane which carried about double the fuel (partially in its floats). But, there are a mere handful of these available so the Germans might have been able to transport a company of troops to Iceland by air.