The material contained below has been mostly been extracted from the Norwegian official history, all but three of its 13 volumes of which I have been able to examine. As my command of Norwegian is virtually non-existent without a dictionary mistakes are quite probable as I have really only translated easily accessible information such as command rosters, organization lists, and anything else in tabular format. Given the language difficulties and the three missing volumes of my prime source the material given below is, at best, less than perfect.

The outbreak of war caught the Norwegians grossly unprepared for any sort of long-term conflict. The Army had' been shorted of resources beginning in the late 1920s and had only recently begun to receive a few modern weapons. It was similar to the pre-war American Army in at least one respect; its men were grossly overage for their rank through glacially slow promotion policies. Company commanders could be as much as 45 years old and platoon leaders were only around a decade younger. Maneuver units like infantry and cavalry demand a certain amount of physical agility and endurance unlikely in men of that age. Unlike the Americans, the Norwegians were denied the chance to promote these men to appropriate ranks by the German invasion on 9 April 1940.

To be fair, the Norwegians, along with everyone else, never expected Norway to be seriously involved in any conflict except possibly with Sweden. What strategic logic could cause someone to invade? And to what purpose? The success during World War One of Norwegian efforts to remain neutral were presumed to carry over to any future conflict. Norway did not anticipate that both sides would seek to improve on their performance in the last bout and to learn from their mistakes.

German Strategy

Control of Norway would do three things for the Germans. First, it would greatly hinder the ability of the British to blockade Germany as effectively as they had done previously. Second, it provided bases from which the better to wage the air and naval 'siege of Britain' that Hitler thought necessary if the British proved obstinate. Thirdly, it secured the best route for the high-quality Swedish iron ore essential for the German war machine.

The British analysis mostly mirrored that of the Germans except that they were not concerned with using Norwegian bases for anything except closing the blockade. Churchill felt that they had made a grave mistake by not doing more to interdict the iron ore traffic in the previous conflict and was determined to more about it this time.

The Norwegians themselves seemed to be pretty oblivious to their part in the strategic calculus of each side. Their defensive strategy depended on a timely warning -- first to man the formidable coastal defenses, then to call up the reserves. They failed to appreciate that an amphibious coup-de-main, as attempted at Gallipoli in 1915, was their greatest danger. The best defense would have been to keep the coastal defenses at a high state of readiness, but this proved not to be the case. The coastal defense batteries proved to be very cautious about opening fire at what might be ordinary merchant shipping. Aided by this policy as well as fog, the Kriegsmarine suffered relatively few losses, the major one being the heavy cruiser Blucher in Oslofjord. The Army seems to have been at a greater state of readiness than the Navy before the Germans invaded due to the recently concluded Russo-Finnish War.

Approximately a quarter of the Regular Army was mobilized when the Germans attacked. This was not as helpful as one might imagine as nothing larger than a battalion had been called up and this hindered the Norwegian response to the German landings. Another problem was the boundary between the 1st and 2nd Divisions; the former commanded everything south of Oslo and the latter everything north of Oslo. The quick German capture of Oslo split both divisions so that they had to take control of everything east or west of Oslofjord respectively which caused a certain additional amount of confusion.

The table below shows the mobilized units and their location:

Unit : Location
I/IR 2 Stavanger
I/IR 3 Kristiansand
I/IR 5 Trandum
I/IR 9 Ulverum-Bergen
I/IR 12 Moving from East Finnmark to Tromso
I/IR 13 Elvegardsmoen
II/IR 13 Trondheim-Steinjker
I/IR 14? Hegra or Mosjoen??
I/IR 15 Elvegardsmoen?
Gardet Oslo (1 company in Elverum)
Varangerbataljon Kirkenes
part/DR 3? Stjordal?
II/AR 1 Fredrikstad
2 btry/l/AR 2 Gardermoen
3 Bergbataljon Bardufoss
6 Landvemspion Erkompani Narvik

The Norwegian Army divided up the country into six divisions that were strictly administrative commands. Training seems to have been a major activity of each division as each fielded its own set of schools. Recruits were trained by the division in which they lived. Only the most specialized troops seem to have been trained at a central location.

The largest field commands were the six feltbrigades (field brigades), one for each division. Each brigade commanded two or three infantry regiments, an artillery regiment of three battalions or a mountain gun battalion, an pioneer company, a bicycle company, a motorized machine-gun company, an antiaircraft machine-gun company and an anti-tank platoon of two 65mm mountain or 75mm field guns. The three mountain brigades substituted a battalion of 75mm mountain guns for the' artillery regiment of their lowland counterparts. The two northernmost brigades had an entire engineer battalion assigned vice the engineer company of their southern counterparts. These units controlled by the brigades seem to have been organized identically to their counterparts in the regiments.

Some of the support units were controlled in peacetime by various headquarters that seemed to be responsible solely for training. The engineer regiment that controlled the pioneer and signal companies for the four southern brigades was one example. There was also an anti-aircraft regiment that did not seem to control any large number of AA units.

A seventh feltbrigade was created at the end of April 1940 in the Arctic from assets of the sixth feltbrigade to better coordinate operations against Narvik.

Each infantry regiment was identical with two line battalions, a local defense battalion and a training detachment for advanced infantry training. Each infantry battalion had three rifle companies with a dozen LMGs, a machinegun company of nine heavy machineguns and a mortar platoon of two 81mm mortars. The local defense battalion was organized identically with the infantry battalions, but the number of heavy weapons was variable and totaled about 80 men less than the regular battalions. Excluding the training detachment, a regiment totaled some 2550 men.

Regimental weapons included the 6.5mm. Krag-Jorgenson m/1894 rifle, 6.5min Madsen m/14 and m/22 LMGs, the Hotchkiss m/98 in both 6.5mm and 7.92min caliber and the 7.92min Colt m/29 in the HMG role.

Three independent infantry battalions existed: the Alta and Varanger battalions above the Arctic Circle and the elite Gardet (Guards) battalion in Oslo. The first two were organized as line infantry battalions, but the latter had four companies, each with four platoons and twelve LMGs, but lacked the heavy weapons of the line infantry units.

The units of the 5 5th and 6 6th Feltbrigades were probably the most combat-ready in the Norwegian Army as they had seen the most recent service due to their frequent mobilization for neutrality watch duties. They also had the best equipment.

The mobile forces consisted of three cavalry "regiments" or dragonregimenter of roughly 1200 men. Each consisted three maneuver squadrons, one or two rifle squadrons, each of four platoons and 16 LMGs and a MG platoon of three HMGs, and one or two bicycle squadrons of three platoons and 12 LMGs. Supporting units were two machinegun squadrons, one of which was motorized, each had a rifle platoon with two LMGs and three machinegun platoons with a total of nine HMGs, and a mortar platoon with two 81mm mortars, two HMGs, and one

Norwegian Order of Battle, 1940
Unit	Name	Mobilization Station
1. Feltbrigade	-	Ski
Infanteregiment 1	Ostfold	Fredrikstad [Halden?]
Infanteregiment 2	Jegerkorpset	Oslo
Infanteregiment 3	Telemark	Heistadmoen (Kongsberg)
Feltartilleregiment 1	-	Fredrikstad (Ski)
2. Feltbrigade	-	Oslo
Infanteriregiment 4	Akershus	Trandurn [Kongsvinger/Hovedoya]
Infanteriregiment 5	Ostoppland	Temingmoen/Jorstadmoen
Infanteriregiment 6	Vestoppland	Helgelandsmoen [Honefoss]
Feltartilleriregiment 2	-	Gardermoen
HMKG	-	Oslo
3. Feltbrigade	-	Evjemoen
Infanteriregiment 7	Agder	Gimlemoen [Arendal]
Infanteriregiment 8	?	Madlamoen-Stavanger
Bergbataljon 1	-	Eyjemoen
4. Feltbrigade	-	Bergen
Infanteriregiment 9	Hordaland	Bergen
Infanteriregiment 10	Fjordane	Voss
Bergbataljon 2	-	Voss
5. Feltbrigade	-	Trondheim
Infanteriregiment 11	Moer	Aandalsnes
Infanteriregiment 12	Sor-Trondelag	Trondheim
Infanteriregiment 13	Nord-Trondelag	Steinjker
Feltartilleriregiment 3	-	Trondheim
ingeniorbataljon	Trondelag	Trondheim?
6. Feltbrigade	-	Harstad
Infanteriregiment 14	Sor-Halogaland	Mosjoen (Drevja)
Infanteriregiment 15	Nord-Halogaland	Narvik (Elvegardsmoen)
Infanteriregiment 16	Troms	Tromso
Bergbatalion 3	-	Harstad (only 2 batteries)
motoriserti batteri 9	-	-
ingeniorbataljon	Halogaland	Harstad
Dragonregiment 1	Akershus	Gardermoen
Dragonregiment 2	Oppland	Hamar/Telthuset
Dragonregiment 3	Trondelag	Stjordal-Trondheim
Ingeniorregiment	-	Hvalsmoen
Alta bataljon	-	Altagard
Varanger bataljon	-	Kirkenes (Nyborgmoen)
Garrisonkompaniet i Sor-Varanger	-	Kirkenes

Note: The town in parentheses is the regional training site at which elements of some units mobilized. Towns in square brackets are the mobilization center for the local defense battalion if different from the line battalions. Towns separated by a slash are for units with multiple mobilization centers. Some of these may plot within the same hex, but I can't tell with the resources I have on hand. LMG. Upon full mobilization each regiment was to be reinforced by a number of additional maneuver squadrons, but I have not quite figured out the details yet. Much like the Finns, these units stabled the horses and parked the bicycles during the winter and used skis to move cross-country.

Each artillery regiment consisted of three battalions, the first being two batteries of 120mm howitzers and the other two of three batteries of 75mm field guns each. The mountain artillery battalions had two or three batteries of 75mm mountain guns. Each battery had four guns. There were also several independent motorized batteries of four 75mm guns, of which I have only identified the 9th and 10th in the Arctic. There were a fair number of guns stored in fortresses for which I have been unable to identify an owner, though they belonged to reserve artillery battalions which ware to probably augment the artillery regiments after mobilization. II/AR 1 included a battery of 120mm howitzers and two batteries of 75mm field guns while on neutrality watch. One battery of AR 2 was mobilized with students from the 2 nd Division's artillery school.

Most of the artillery was elderly, but some effort had been put into the acquisition of more modern guns. 65mm mountain guns of uncertain provenance were in limited use under the direct control of the brigades and possibly with a battery or two of the mountain artillery battalions. One source cites 24 75mm Kongsberg m.27 mountain guns in use in 1940, but that is not enough for all the mountain units. The 75mm field gun was the Erhardt Feltkanon FK/31 of which 132 had been delivered before World War One. A dozen 105min guns were in storage in 1940, but I do not know any further details. The Norwegians had in production the Kongsberg M/32 120mm howitzer. Also in service were elderly Bofors M/ 15 120mm howitzers.

The densest concentration of AA guns I have been able to locate were the two batteries defending the ammunition factory at Raufoss. These each had two M/32 75mm AA guns and two machinegun posts each with three Colt AAMGs. There was another battery at Kristiansand and a machine-cannon battery of four 40mm Bofors guns and six Colt AAMGs at Narvik.

The 75mm AA gun was another Kongsberg product of the early Thirties while they also manufactured 40mm Bofors light AA guns in Norway. 20mm Madsen guns were also reportedly in service though I have not yet seen any units equipped with them.

Fortresses

The Norwegians built a number of fortifications in the years prior to World War One to defend the border with Sweden. They were mainly located in the southeastern plains to cover that vulnerable area. Hegra fortress was the exception as it defended the land approaches to Trondheim. As they were in reserve any counters should not appear for a few turns to give the German the opportunity to overrun them.

Fossumstrokets Fortress

Hoytorp fort

2x turreted 12 cm guns 2x turreted 75mm guns 8x 85mm guns in open pits 4x 12 cm how in pits 4x 75mm field guns 8x 12 cm modern howitzers in storage (but without ammo) 12x modern 105mm guns in storage (only two with tires)

Trogstad fort

2x turreted 12 cm guns 2x turreted 75mm guns 8x 85mm guns in open pits 4x 75mm field guns

Sarpsborg Fortress

Greaker Fort 2x turreted 12 cm guns (guns partly dismantled)

Ravneberget Fort 2x 105mm guns in pits 4x 75mm guns

Hegra Fortress

4x 105mm 2x 75mm 2 old field guns

Kongsvinger Fortress

2x 120mm Turret guns 12x 84mm guns

Norwegian Army in Narvik and Europa