Germans forgo Poland and take over Denmark instead.

[Golladay]

Lets say Hitler decides taking Poland is not worth war with Britain and France at this time and decides Denmark is his next target. He continues with OTL discussions with Stalin and carefully leaks information to make it look like Poland is in the hotseat, but in a dark secret room the real plan takes shape.

Hitler's gamble is audacious in the extreme. Three invasion groups will at H Hour simultaneously seize Denmark proper, Faroe Islands, and Iceland. Greenland is not considered important enough to warrant an attempt.

The hope is that the seizure all three areas at once in a coup de main will be so rapid that Britain and France will be presented with a fait accompli. Further with their seizure Britain will re-direct their defenses northward towards the Faroes and Iceland and thus in a future war would concentrate on taking them first before intervening on the mainland proper.

Some food for thought.

[FNG]

didn't polands pact with the uk work both ways?

Germany would then have to position troops to defend against a possible polish attack.

besides it took germany 6 hours to take denmark, it was hardly a difficult target

germany would not have the naval forces to get any ammount of troops anywhere near iceland or the faroe islands. even if they did they would be a open wound to germanys air and naval forces in trying to keep them supplied in running the gaunlet past local uk air and naval forces..

FNG

[Golladay]

didn't polands pact with the uk work both ways?

No as the Poles wanted to avoid a war. They could read a map just as well as the Germans and knew if war broke out, they were screwed as the Germans could attack on so many angles as to overwhelm their decision making cycle. This before you factor in the USSR.

germany would not have the naval forces to get any ammount of troops anywhere near iceland or the faroe islands. even if they did they would be a open wound to germanys air and naval forces in trying to keep them supplied in running the gaunlet past local uk air and naval forces..

FNG

Actually they do, its the second part that is the problem and part of the strategy. The ideal is when war breakouts, Britain goes after the Faroes and Iceland first instead of the Mainland, which buys more time for Hitler. And if the British don't then those places make excellent submarine bases and unsinkable Aircraft Carriers.

[Ricky]

Mind you, such a campaign has the big disadvantage that it makes the German navy very vulnerable. They lost a good chunk of their naval strength in the OTL Norway cmpaign as it was - this plan puts almost all their naval assets (warships and transports at high risk from the Home Fleet, which would certainly sally out against such an operation. Effectively it could spell the end of the German surface fleet and a lot of merchant tonnage - a big sacrifice for a small and (as it turned out) unnecessary gain in time.

[Christian Ankerstjerne]

The original reason for Germany to occupy Denmark was to occupy Norway, to prevent the Allies from interrupting the Swedish iron ore supplies (the British had plans drawn out to invade Sweden through Norway to cut off the supply). Later, Sweden also proved important for Germany for troop transports and Denmark proved important as a food supplier, but this was not considered originally.

[triumf]

As Ankerstjerne says. the sole reason for Adolf to walze through Denmark, was to use it as a steppingstone on the assult on Norway.
For the nazis to undergo any campaign at all, they had to have their back free. The molotov\Ribbentrop pact was to achieve that, and also did it. So in my very personal and not so knowledgeable opinion, Adolf was bound to go against Poland first, so that Stalin was busy murdering the polish on his side. Thus Adolf has all the time he can wish for to go after the other rasins.
As for the german navy to be able to go after the Færøs and Iceland simuntaniously in the face of Home fleet? That would be an application for suicide. Well Adolf was a mental case, but wasn`t suicidal before 1945. And he weren`t able to secure the shipping routes for the ore from Sweden in that way either, and that was on of the mainobjectives for the whole campaign.
So in my opinion, this is a no go scenario
Sorry
Konrad

[Black Hornet]

Operation Ikarus involved sending an ocean liner to Iceland loaded with tanks & men & I would imagine heavy equipment & such to build airstrips. It was not planned to send other German warships. Iceland has no defensive capacity whatsoever before May 1940 when British arrived. Taking Iceland without Norway is problematic in that resupply of forces on it is difficult in the extreme without control of Norway, which is 600 miles coast to coast apart from Iceland. Iceland does have plenty ports with docks, cranes, winches etc as it is primarily a fishing nation. Control of Reykjavic makes it difficult for British to retake Iceland. Higgins boats & such were still in infancy & Iceland has 1000 coastal vessels which would be armed with machine guns which makes British invasion of Reykjavic very difficult. Luftwaffe plastered the RN at Crete and Norway.

Some JU 52 have range over 800 miles & can operate on grass, something Iceland has plenty of.

Ju52/mg4e transport aircraft delivered to the Swiss air force in the late 1930s were not retired from service until 1981, and these airplanes still fly regularly giving joyrides around Europe. The Ju 52/3mg3e was powered by three 725-hp BMW 132A-3 radial piston engines, giving the airplane a maximum speed of 171 mph at 2,955 feet, service ceiling of 19,360 feet, and a range with auxiliary fuel of 808 miles. http://www.worldaircorps.com/airplanes/am312.htm





"The first passenger and mail flight in Iceland was made on the 4th June
1928. This first flight flew from Reykjavík to Akureyri with stops at
Ísafjörður and Siglufjörður. The total flying time was about 4 hours and
45
minutes. The aircraft was a Junkers F.13"

The first passenger flight in Iceland was made in september 1919 in a Avro
504K plane that flew out of Reykjavik. Numerous flights were made during
1919 and 1920 between Reykjavík and towns around the country to demonstrate
the feasibility of flying in the (more or less) basically roadless country.

[Black Hornet]

An airbase in Iceland would cut the distance between Germany and the United States by one-third, allowing planes to successfully reach their American targets and return without having to refuel. Although never realized, Operation Ikarus provides insight into Hitler's plans of attacking the then neutral United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Operation_Ikarus

Icelands fishing fleet circa 1940, ( which includes 22 ocean going vessels), operates on diesel, as does Germanys Seaplanes.

JU 52 in Norway...
582 transport aircraft delivered 29,280 men and 2,376 tons of supplies during the course of the campaign.

[canambridge]

The Germans would never have been able to attempt a direct aerial invasion of Iceland. The normal combat range of the Ju-52 was about 310 miles, 810 miles was the maximum ferry range, that is with maximum fuel and no cargo or passengers. Note that it's about 350 miles from Nothern Germany to Oslo, the airborne target of "Weserubung". Even assuming the range is doubled to 620 miles (a one way trip) it's still about 1250 miles from Germany to Reykjavik. To get to Reykjavik with a Ju-52 would have required a trip from Bergen, Norway to the Faroe Islands (415 miles) and then on to Reykjavik (500 miles). The Faroe Islands were occupied by the British on 13 April 1940.
Operation Ikarus was a hastily planned German reaction to the British occupation of Reykjavik on 10 May 1940 by the 2nd Royal Marine Battalion, a month after the Germans landed in Norway and simultaneous with the German offensive in the west. The very rough plan envisioned starting from Tromso, and using the 163rd Infantry division, reinforced by two panzer companies, an armored recon company and other mobile heavy weapons. The division was to land at Reykjavik and other points on Iceland. At least ten large vessels would have been required and it would have taken 4-5 days by sea, it is 1150 miles from Tromso to Reykjavik. Given RN superiority at sea, even if the force had made it to Iceland intact, they probably would have been forced to surrender rather quickly, Iceland is much too far away for the Lufwaffe to be able to oppose the RN effectively.
Iceland is nowhere near close enough to the US to allow the Luftwaffe to launch bombing missions. It is about 2600 miles from Reykjavik to New York and about 2400 to Boston. The combat range of the He-111 or Ju-88 was about 450 miles, 650 - 700 miles at best. No real advantage.
As it was the Germans did nothing about occupying Iceland and the US Marines relieved the British in July 1941. Iceland was an important allied ASW base throughout the war.

[Black Hornet]

Condor had better range than the planes you mention. Agree not possible to attack from Denmark, but different story from Norway. Brits were very concerned about it. It was discussed as early as WW 1 by German military higher ups. They visited the island in 1938 with glider teams & survey persons. Seaplanes also have great range.

DO 18 Range: 3,500 km (1,890 nmi, 2,175 mi)



Distance from Berlin to Rome
Distance is 1185 kilometers or 736 miles or 640 nautical miles

JU 52
and could fly from Berlin to Rome in eight hours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_52

If it could fly with 17 passengers 640 miles plus their baggage, there's no
reason it couldn't make it 600 miles to grass strips on Icelands east shore with either troops or small cargo load.










"Given RN superiority at sea, even if the force had made it to Iceland intact, they probably would have been forced to surrender rather quickly, Iceland is much too far away for the Lufwaffe to be able to oppose the RN effectively."


Given that airstrips can be built in 3 weeks, ( as was done in Norway), Luftwaffe will be operational quickly before British can react with a mission to Iceland. They have to prepare, load ships, plan etc. This cannot be done in a week. Supplies have to be procured, men assigned all this while the RN is occupied with Norway.

& U-boats will form a line around Reykjavic. I think you're right about New York distance though.

[Black Hornet]

There were couple crude airstrips round Reykjavic 1940, these would be used & improved & new ones would be built quickly. The British would then have the same problem the Germans had for a cross channel op, that being eliminating the enemy's air power. They'd have to bring carriers most likely. The RN learned at Norway to keep a good distance from the Luftwaffe.





Norway was, however, also a major strategic failure for the British. This was a campaign that should have played to British strengths. Instead it brought out one of the major weaknesses of the contemporary Royal Navy - its incapacity to contest command of the air off a distant shore, due to its lack of radar control and high performance fighters.

In addition to the other losses, the cruiser Effingham was wrecked and the anti-aircraft cruiser Curlew bombed and sunk near Narvik, while a French cruiser was seriously damaged. A total of seven British destroyers was lost, plus one French and one Polish.

Battleship Rodney also hit by an 1100 pound bomb.

[canambridge]

I don't believe the Berlin-Rome flight was non-stop. 736 miles in 8 hours is less than 100 mph. DC-3 could fly Amsterdam to Batavia in 1936, but not non-stop.
The Do-18 had a crew of 4, all 170 of them would have landed 680 men. Condors could have done it, but would have required a decent landing field. Condors did have the range and carrying capacity though.

There's more to making an airstrip operational than finding a flat place. Where was the fuel, ammunition, spare parts and maintenance crews supposed to come from?

It doesn't take three weeks to load a ship, even the British were capable of moving fast at times, and we're not talking about Overlord here. The main problem was that the British had already occupied the Faroes and Iceland by the time the Germans would have been ready to launch an operation from Norway. The Germans would have been faced with an opposed landing, not a walk in. I doubt the U-boats would have been able to form an impenetrable barrier, the RN would have been able to make a German base in Iceland untenable.

[Ricky]

Without looking into this in much depth...

1) Submarine screens are not always very effective - the British tried it in Norway and completely failed to even see any German ships.

2) Assuming you get a ship full of men onto Iceland, and they do manage to level off an airstrip... where do the planes come from? The only plane that could fly that distance in the Condor, and that was not an optimum anti-shipping bomber (though it did alright against unarmed merchantmen). You could stick some on the ship, but you are getting pretty crowded with an invasion force, engineering equipment to make the airfield, aircraft, and all the supplies for all these things. You are going to need a small flotilla.

3) Luftwaffe anti-shipping was not all that wonderful at this stage in the war. It is true that the Royal Navy's anti-aircraft fire proved woefully inadequate, but as far as I can find out only 1 ship - the destroyer HMS Gurkha - was sunk by the Luftwaffe in the Norwegian campaign. As an aside, British aircraft sank a cruiser (it was in dock at the time) and a submarine. There were a fair few aerial attacks which resulted in no or minimal damage, though they usually had the effect of causing a course alteration.

[Black Hornet]

For starters there are plenty planes with range to get there, both Seaplanes & land based planes. HE 111, JU 88, DO 18 Seaplane & so on. The other answer to your question is to crate them in a cargo ship as all other major powers did in the war. US bombers crated & sent to Egypt & so on. operation Ikarus was planned to have a giant ocean liner loaded with all the relevant hardware on board.

& here's some data on German gliders. Which could be towed by HE 111's as well. Distance to East Icelands shore is 602.7 miles. The gliders land on grass.

The range of operations of a glider is obviously dependent on the range of the towing aircraft. The total range for the Ju-52 with 530 gallons of fuel in still-air conditions when towing one DFS-230 is about 780 miles


The DFS-230 gliders, in which the assault troops are normally carried, are organized into a special air transport unit known as the Luftlandung Geschwader, the smallest operational unit of which is a Kette of 3 gliders. Each glider carries a complement of 10 men, which is a section of a platoon. Three flights or Ketten make up a Gruppe. The Geschwader is, therefore, composed of 4 Gruppen with a total of 192 gliders and can transport the entire Sturmregiment of approximately 2,000 men.






Range: 2,430 km[42] (1,429 mi) maximum internal fuel
On 17 June 1940, Junkers Ju 88s (mainly from Kampfgeschwader 30) destroyed a "10,000 tonne ship", the 16,243 grt ocean liner RMS Lancastria,

On 9 April 1940, Ju 88s of KG 30 dive-bombed, in cooperation with high-level bombing Heinkel He 111s of KG 26, and helped damage the battleship HMS Rodney and sink the destroyer HMS Gurkha

Links won't post I'm at a Library

[Black Hornet]

Germans were actually quite good at hitting ships circa 1940.

In addition to the other losses, the cruiser Effingham was wrecked and the anti-aircraft cruiser Curlew bombed and sunk near Narvik, while a French cruiser was seriously damaged. A total of seven British destroyers was lost, plus one French and one Polish.

& again, many A/C can & did operate off grass, Hudsons, JU 52's & so one. As to supplies to maintain airplanes, build hangars & so on, these come from said supply ship in addittion to JU-52's Seaplanes & U-boats & other small cargo ships which can land at many of the available ports round Iceland which are impossible for the RN to patrol em masse.


Akureyri offers a sheltered natural harbour with three cruise berths and an anchorage for small and big ships. The anchorage has a 1,000mtr turning basin with a maximum depth of 25mtr

German will also sow minefields round Reykjavic & block the small entrance with a block ship.

Greenland was not an invasion, just small men with weather equipment. Not a relevant comparison. They did land at Svaldbard successfully, but again in small numbers, not a relevant comparison.