From 15:00 GMT April 9th to 15:00 GMT April 10th

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At 23.45 on the 8th of April 1940, the Norwegian patrol vessel "Pol III" was on routine patrol in the Oslo fjord, when it spotted unidentified ships on the horizon. A few minutes later it was rammed and shot at by a German “E” boat. The invasion of Norway had begun.

In february of 1940, General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst was given the crucial task of planning the invasion of Norway. He was to create a plan to assault both Denmark and Norway as quickly as possible. Within five hours he had a rough idea of the invasion, he presented it to Hitler, and was given the order to proceed developing his strategy. Falkenhorst reported back to the Fuhrer in March, that all the units in the heer, the luftwaffe and the kriegsmarine was ready for attack.

The Kriegsmarine was tasked to attack six major cities in Norway (Bergen, Oslo, Trondheim, Kristiansand,  Narvik and Egersund). The Luftwaffe would, by the end of the invasion, have participated in the Campaign with 1082 aircraft. By the end of the 9th of April, there would be approximately 16 000 German soldiers on Norwegian soil.

Operation Weserubung was to be the first major combined operation where the army, navy and air force acted together. The whole operation was directly under Hitler's special high command - Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. This was a new way of planning campaigns, as the earlier campaigns were led by the army's high command.

The operation depended on the element of surprise and planned to force the enemy to quickly surrender. Any reaction from the Allies would ruin the whole invasion and this probably led to the almost total destruction of the kriegsmarine.

The attack caused a lot of confusion among the Norwegian defenders, their resistance was halted by the Norwegian government who did not fully understand the situation. In Narvik harbour,  the 40 year old Norwegian ships "Norge" and "Eidsvold" were sunk quickly and 276 Norwegians died. Narvik surrendered shortly after.

In Trondheimsfjorden, Agdenes fort was ready for the attack, as they had already received messages from both Bergen and Oslo where the invasion already had started. The fort was unable to stop the enemy because of the swiftness of the attack, 3 hours later Trondheim surrendered. In Bergen, the defences were able to damage 3 German ships, but this wasn't sufficient to stop the surrender that came soon after. 

The "Blucher" - Sinking.

In the Oslofjord, the men in the Oscarsborg fortress were able, with their out of date weapons, to sink the German cruiser “Blucher”. The rest of the fleet were waiting for the invasion as they believed that the fjord was full of mines, they were forced to land troops further around the coast from the capitol than planned, the King, Storting and his government were able to escape the enemy. It would be two months before Norway finally surrendered. Operation Weserubung was finally over.

The War Thunder Team

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