How long could Festung Norwegen hold out in 1946 scenario

Stuka_Hunter

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Hello

I know this topic isnt exactly what this forum is about, but since there are many people here that know how to speculate about alternative history I hope I can get an answer. The question is in the title, but there are two versions to it:

How long could Festung Norwegen hold out in 1946 scenario:

-alone
-if another festung would operate (Alpenfestung for example)

Could it even survive into the 1946?

Thx in advance
 
Festung Norvegen holds out about as long as the fuel and aircraft parts do. After that it's goodbye. If Japan couldn't last into 1946 and mainland Germany couldn't last into the latter half of 1945, I don't see much chance of transferring enough material or industry into Norway to hold out for very long.

If you can magically transport all of Germany's industry and resources there, perhaps another six months. Perhaps. Among other things, the Soviets will probably come up through Finland and push the Germans into the sea, leading to the Sovietization of Scandinavia and a very different post-war world.
 
Seeing as Sweden was actively planning an amphibious assault into Denmark to deny it to the Russians, it's a safe bet the Swedes would also pre-empty any move against Norway, and in that case they would also have the assistance of the 15,000 Norwegian Rikspoliti they had been quietly training since 1943 for when the day came. In fact 1500 or more of the Sweden-based Norwegians took part in the Russian liberation of Finnmark, together with UK-based Norwegian forces, the whole of the county having been liberated by VE Day.

My great uncle picked up a Norwegian medal for being part of Operation Doomsday, the 1st Airborne Division airlift into Norway to handle disarming the Germans and rounding up Quislings with the Rikspoliti. If Doomsday wasn't feasible in the face of Festung Norvegen, there were several plans to combat drop the whole of 1st Allied Airborne Army (8 division equivalents) into the rear of German forces in 1945 that would have been much more feasible against a static defence in Norway than the fluid front in Germany that meant the planned operations never came off. In fact Operation Effective was specifically designed to prevent the creation of Alpenfestung, so pencilling in 1st AAA to deal with Festung Norvegen is entirely appropriate.

The problem for any idea of Festung Norwegen is that while significant parts of Norway are rugged enough to favour the tactical defence, the country is wide open to the strategic offence from the East - Sweden, and the West - amphibious operations across the North Sea. The terrain might not suit mechanized operations, but it would be next to impossible to defend against Swedish/Norwegian ski/mountain troops or Allied commando operations. It's very easy to envisage a joint Allied/Swedish seizure of Narvik cutting the country in two, with narrow defensive fronts - under a mile at one point to the south of Narvik IIRC, able to be held while a break-out force is built up within the beachhead. Match that with cross-Baltic amphibious operations, Swedish incursions all along the frontier, including large-scale conventional operations in the south, plus the potential use of 1st AAA, and the German defensive problem is a nightmare.
 
Operation Doomsday? Obviously not a name chose by Winston Churchill. Any idea who named it?

Chris
 
No idea, the wiki article covers all I know and doesn't reference the name change from initial planning as Operation Apostle, to implementation as Operation Doomsday at all. OTOH it does have a fairly complete list of references, one of which may explain it. Likeliest culprits are either General Andrew Thorne, GOC Scotland, whose baby it was, or Urquhart and his staff at 1st Airborne.
 
The reason I ask is that Churchill forbade names that were either frivolous or smacked of last resort/no hope/certain death. Didn't stop teh squaddies 'renaming' them eg Operation Paraquat.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1995/sieminsk.htm

Chris
 
I always understood that the British MoD used a series of computer generated randomly chosen words for their operational codenames. While the US DoD used names which had a PR purpose, as well as a security reason.
 
and uh , if sceanario development is going that way , are you putting in radial engined 190s , later than A-10s ?
 

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